In a lot of the news lately, an effort seems to be made drawing a connection to the Jeremiah Wright controversy surrounding Barack Obama to John Hagee's statements reflecting on John McCain. So what are the similarities?

- John McCain and Barack Obama are both front runners for their party in the presidential election.

- Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee are pastors and have some radical, racist core beliefs and core teachings/focuses from the pulpit.

There are some huge differences, though. Obama has been a member of Wright's church for 20 years. This means that Obama chose Wright's church to call home. There are hundreds if not thousands of churches in the Chicagoland area, and Obama chose that one. He must have attended somewhat regularly to be considered a member, and he called Jeremiah Wright his pastor, which is to mean his teacher and elder in his faith. In this case, Obama does have to account for Wright's statements. Did he just stay there because politically it made sense to claim to be a Christian who goes to church and he just tuned out during all the services, somehow never realizing how radical and militant a racist Wright was? Did Obama identify with Wright's statements? Several of his wife's public statements seem to indicate that she, at least, identified with a lot of what Wright was saying. There is a hard line connection between Wright and Obama.

McCain and Hagee, on the other hand, do not have a pastoral relationship. Instead, Hagee is a pastor who endorsed McCain. Hagee said he supports McCain for president. There was not a preexisting relationship between the two, which means McCain should not be held accountable for Hagee's beliefs. Just as Obama is not being held accountable for endorsements by the Black Panthers, so, too, should McCain not be held accountable for an endorsement by Hagee. If McCain were a member of Hagee's congregation, that would be radically different, but he's not.

If someone out there you've never met nor even knew existed says they're a fan of what you write here on ATS, should you suddenly be accountable for everything they've ever written?

It makes no logical sense to compare these two situations with one another except in an effort to try to nullify Obama's association with Wright. From a political spin perspective, it makes sense. From an intellectually honest perspective, they're apples and oranges.

It just amazes me that Obama is still steamrolling to the nomination. It makes me wonder what people are thinking to support a man that claims Christianity yet supports ideals that go against the Word of God. He obviously joined the church because of an election he lost years ago. Although it is cramping his style now, it's still not stopping him in any way. Essentially this man is being supported on two fronts. 1. He is black and 2. He is a good public speaker. He is not qualified to run this country in any way, shape or form.

The fact is that if Obama were white and everything were switched to a white perspective, he'd never had made it this far because the liberals would have buried him in the "racist pile". However, now it's on their side so they go into complete denial of the facts.

The facts are:

Obama joined a radical church with a radical racist pastor at the helm to further his political career.

His wife actually believes in the substance of the message from said church.

His pastor is a close friend and mentor to him and has been for 20 years.

This same pastor and church support other racists such as Louis Farrakhan.

How can a man pledge allegiance to America when he already has pledged it to Africa?

What are Obama's policies? Does he have any? Qualifications? Does he have any?

Barack Obama is seriously pushing the envelope of the phrase "crooked politician"

This man supports live birth abortion for goodness sake! That means the baby is alive on the table and they just leave it there and walk out of the room! Do you really trust such a man?!?!


Someone please show me what qualifies this man to be president and while your at it please tell me how you can be in such denial about him, his wife, his pastor and church.

Please, I'm listening.....

from an outside observers view....

Obama needed to align with a passionate Preacher like Wright
because Obamas' constituency expected nothing less than that type of alignment or Obama would be considered an 'outsider' (in polite terms)


next off...Obama, could not expect to have his finger on the true pulse of the 'community' by taking his clues from the sit-com, of the upward-mobile-minority family of Doctor Huxtable on TV.
(Mr Cosby and Ms Rashad are hardly typical of Illinois black communities)


~ not being an apologist, but, rev wright isn't rev jessee jackson ! ~


~~~~~~~

as far as Hagee being 'racist'...no he's a Christian zionist which is worlds away from racism.
the fundamentalist worldview, where gods Christian Soldiers kick butt and are on an eternal crusade to the Gospel so Christ can come and set up the Millennial Kingdom is his sthick... & he loved the Regan 'evil empire' speach and the McCain 100 years of war outlook

[edit on 23-5-2008 by St Udio]

I am sorry, but I take issue with the first couple of sentences of the OP.

I do not believe Hagee is a rascist