And folks just called him the reverend...

NOTE: I wrote this at work earlier in the week. I actually forgot I had done so, and I'm posting it just now.

I’ve held off on writing about this because I hoped it would just go away, as it should. Yet now, a week later, its still being talked about. So I might as well throw my two cents in.

The use of Rev. Wright as some sort of bogeyman that's gonna drag Obama down is despicable.
It is despicable first and foremost because it is all about guilt by assocation. A friend of Obama, his pastor, said some controverstial things, and because of that, somehow Obama himself now should not be president. Even after he’s repudiated what Rev. Wright said.

If this is the criteria we’re going to use, then let’s not forget that McCain took the endorsement of Rev. John "The Catholic Church is the Great Whote" Hagee, AND Rev. "America was founded to destory Islam" Paisley. And McCain has not repudiated either what THEY said, or the men themselves.

Again, is this double standard in place because ones a Democrat and ones a Republican, or because one’s black and one’s white? Or just why exactly is is okay for McCain to have the support of crazy preachers, but not Obama?

Furthermore, if anyone gets beyond the hype and actaully looks what is said, Rev Wright said that America was in trouble because of things we did in the past, problems we caused, because we’ve spread too much hate around the world. Hagee’s buddy Pat Robertson (guilty by assocation, dontcha know?), said America’s in trouble because we tolerate gays, lesbians, feminists and abrotionist…in other words, we’re in trouble because we don’t hate enough. We need to hate gays, lesbians, feminist, and abortionists MORE, and then God will go back to blessing us. And Paisley has said that we tolerate Muslims too much now, we don’t hate Muslims enough, we need to hate them MORE for God to bless us. So who actually is preaching the hate here?

And finally, in the end, this is the argument made by those using Rev. Wright: Obama might come up with a plan to get us out of Iraq, he might come up with a plan to help us in out national health care crisis, he may come up with a way to improve the economy, or lower our budget deficit, or help with the financial crisis, or a host of other things BUT, since a friend of his, NOT Obama himself, but a friend of his, said some things that I find controversial, well, Obama may not be "American" enough to be president and I can’t vote for him.

What a load of crap. The whole thing is a straw man argument. It’s pointless, and it’s a distraction from the real issues we need to be talking about, and it’s straight out of the Republican/Karl Rove playbook. What worries me also is that it’s release might very well have originated with the Clinton campaign. Yet another reason I’m supporting Obama over her.

POLT Listening to "Pride And Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughn

If the standard for impeachment that the Republicans set for Bill Clinton, that a personal consensual relationship was the basis for impeachment, would not a president who knowingly decieved the American people about something as important as whether to go to war meet the standard of impeachment? - Sen. Bob Graham, 2003