{"id":312,"date":"2008-05-23T10:37:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-23T10:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/05\/two-can-play-the-same-game.html"},"modified":"2008-05-23T10:37:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-23T10:37:01","slug":"two-can-play-the-same-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2008\/05\/two-can-play-the-same-game.html","title":{"rendered":"Two can play the same game"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is wrong with our Christian ministers? That’s what I want to know. Are they so filled with anger and bad judgment and horrible thoughts that not a single presidential candidate can dare risk their endorsement?
\nThis much I do know. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. What’s good for the Obama is good for the McCain. And so now it is the senator from Arizona who has the Minister Problem. I love it. Don’t you just love it? It shows us all just how silly we can get when we start playing presidential politics.
\nAs I’m sure you must know by now unless you are living in Siberia, Mr. McCain yesterday was forced to reject and repudiate the statements, made in sermons, of not just one minister, but two: Texas preacher John Hagee and Ohio preacher Rod Parsley.
\nAfter all this and the Jeremiah Wright fiasco in the Obama campaign, there’s not a minister in America who is going to endorse anybody — and there’s not a candidate who would accept the endorsement if they did — for fear that every single sermon that minister ever gave over the past 30 years will be scrutinized down to the nth detail, line by line, for any sign of anything<\/em> that would create controversy.
\nThe Associated Press report on this latest incident said that McCain rejected the months-old endorsement of Rev. Hagee “after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.”
\nMcCain called Hagee’s comment “crazy and unacceptable.”
\nAnd Parsley’s offense? He has described Islam as an “anti-Christ religion” and the Muslim prophet Muhammad as “the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil,” according to ABC News, the AP report said.
\nWhen those comments came to light McCain immediately “repudiated the support of Rod Parsley,” the AP report said.
\nMeanwhile Rev.Jeremiah Wright had a further reaction to all the hoopala surrounding his own previous sermonizing.
\n“I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues,” the minister said. “I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator Obama for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign.”
\nOh, wait a minute! I’m SO SORRY. It wasn’t Rev. Wright <\/em>who said that! It was Rev. Hagee <\/em>who said that — about his <\/em>endorsement of Senator McCain<\/em>! I am so sorry<\/em>. I don’t know how I could have gotten those two ministers and their statements so mixed up…
\nBut seriously, folks…
\nI would like to know where all the conservative pundits and bloggers are now<\/em>. I want to know why everyone who thought that Rev. Wright’s comments seriously reflected on Barack Obama’s “judgment” and therefore his ability to be president does not now think the same thing about two<\/em> reverends…Hagee and Parsley…and John McCain’s “judgment” in actively seeking their endorsement.
\nAs for Sen. McCain himself, he sought to draw a clear line between his situation and Sen. Obama’s, declaring that accepting an endorsement of two ministers who say weird things was not the same as sitting in a church for 20 years and having a pastor who says weird things.
\nBut there are those who say, “Hey, wait a minute. You can disagree with things your pastor says. But who goes out and actively seeks the endorsement, actively courts and requests the public endorsement, of a pastor who says weird things about the Catholic Church, Katrina being God’s punishment of gays, and Hitler doing God’s will in sending the Jews out of Germany to create their own homeland in the Promised Land — or about Islam being an inherently violent religion? Which, as it happens, IS worse….”
\nHmmmm….
\nWhat this tells us…those of us who are actually going to be voting in this crazy, crazy election this year…is that both<\/em> incidents amount to much ado about nothing.<\/em> I like what John McCain said a few days ago about all this.
\n“Barack Obama has to deal with Rev. Wright, who said something that is mind-boggling. I don’t attribute those statements to Barack Obama. Nobody thinks Obama believes that stuff.”
\nOh, I’m sorry again<\/em>…what’s the matter<\/em> with me??? That was the gracious statement released yesterday by Sen. OBAMA regarding Sen.McCain<\/u>. Ugh. I got it mixed up again.<\/em>
\nHere, in corrected version, is the statement given to the press last Thursday by Senator Obama:<\/em>
\n“John McCain has to deal with Hagee, who said something that is mind-boggling. I don’t attribute those statements to John McCain. Nobody thinks McCain believes that stuff.”
\nHave we had enough yet of Dueling Divinities…and their Spokespersons?
\nAre we clear, now, that candidates cannot be held responsible for remarks, comments, and observations made by their supporters, pastors, old college friends, aunts, uncles, or cousins, over the past three decades?
\nWhy, it’s hard enough to compare a candidate’s own<\/em> present-day remarks with their own<\/em> comments from years ago.
\nLike, for instance, John McCain’s statement a few year’s back about President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Immoral and indefensible, I believe he called them. Or something like that.
\nNot so today. Today he supports them.
\nAh, yes. The Straight Talk Express.
\nEvening Postscript<\/strong>…I was reading the Comments Section below andI saw that someone wrote…
\nbtw\/ One cannot control who endorses them – but one can control whether or not he attends a racist church.<\/em>
\nForgive me, please…but this is so naive (or deliberately off-point and misleading). Did you miss the whole point of what makes McCain’s accepting of these endorsements fall into the same category as Obama’s attending that church? Did you miss it? Okay, here it is again…
\nMcCain SOUGHT THOSE ENDORSEMENTS. He actively, consciously, enthusiastically, energetically SOUGHT those endorsements. He went after them.<\/em> He sought them out for months.<\/em>
\nHe courted<\/em> those ministers. Requested<\/em> their endorsements. Everyone knows this.
\nNow then…given this, how can you possible say “One cannot control who endorses them”….? Can one “control” who one ASKS to endorse them???
\nWhat say you….? Does not ASKING for the endorsement of people who hold such views show a lack of judgment, just as Obama showed a lack of judgment? McCain would say that he never heard those ministers say those things, or knew that such words were spoken. So he can be forgiven. Obama would say that he never heard his minister say those things, or knew that such words were spoken. But he cannot be forgiven. Is that how it goes?
\nPersonally, I think it is closer to what I wrote earlier today….have we not had enough of people being “branded” because of the heretofore unknown remarks of their ministers, their endorsers, their old college buddies, their counsins, aunts and uncles, 20 or 30 years ago?
\nThis whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. Yet if we are going to brand Obama then we have to brand McCain. And that’s my<\/em> point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is wrong with our Christian ministers? That’s what I want to know. Are they so filled with anger and bad judgment and horrible thoughts that not a single presidential candidate can dare risk their endorsement? This much I do know. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. 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