Yes, I love to call pseudo-liberals reactionaries and none more than Frank Rich who gave me plenty of ammunition in his part-silly, part desperate column today: The All-White Elephant in the Room. Hoping, I suppose, to rescue Obama’s cratering campaign, he again tries to generate some equivalence been Hagee’s support for McCain and the Wright-Obama relationship. Rich gives us the crux here: Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.
Parishioner?
Now there’s an understatement. Let’s go over this for those who have spent the last few months an Alpha Centauri. OBama chose to join Wright’s church. Wright married the Obamas and baptized their children. Not only that… and here’s the most important part… Obama was so in love with the Quotations of Chairman Jeremiah that he chose them for the title and theme of his book “The Audacity of Hope.”
Okay, now go over with me one more time McCain’s relationship with Hagee. Shame on Frank Rich. He’s so full of it, it’s coming out of his ears. (And he plays the race card… Quelle reactionnaire!)
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19 Comments
1. David Thomson:Frank Rich is joining in the explicit conspiracy (and yes, I mean explicit!) of the leftist establishment to always be on the attack regarding the Rev. Wright mess. Sadly, a number of Americans who don’t particularly pay attention to politics may fall for this con job. Propagandists rely on repetition to the point where one’s mind can longer withstand the constant assault—and they surrender to the lie.
May 4, 2008 - 12:34 pm 2. TerryeL:I don’t think Rich will get away with this. Hagee and McCain do not have the same kind of history as Wright and Obama. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
May 4, 2008 - 2:55 pm 3. David Thomson:“It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.”
You are being rational—but regrettably we often live in an irrational world. We may know, for instance, that those involved in “swiftboating” John Kerry were substantially correct. Nonetheless, a very high percentage of the American people believe it was a vicious slander campaign conducted by the “radical right.” The same thing holds true about the “Clinton haters.” Very few of the Clinton detractors deserve to be accused of this accusation. And yet, the Clinton propagandists were so successful that virtually anyone taking Bill and Hillary to task were deemed irrational haters.
May 4, 2008 - 3:42 pm 4. Stace:Her’s an interview with the guy who actually is McCain’s pastor. I don’t know, but I think if anyone wants to try to google up some craziness on this guy, they might hit a dry hole.
http://www.abpnews.com/www/3116.article
May 4, 2008 - 3:48 pm 5. Dick Stanley:Isn’t Rich the one-man house organ for the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy? The weirdest thing about him is that he’s supposed to be an entertainment writer. Well, I guess he’s entertaining to his fellow reactionaries.
May 4, 2008 - 4:02 pm 6. TerryeL:David:
You are probably right. That would explain Obama’s rebound in a couple of polls today. If, of course, we can take a CBS poll seriously.
May 4, 2008 - 4:26 pm 7. Jeffersonian:I was about to read Rich’s piece, but then it hit me: He’s white. No sense in reading on, right?
May 4, 2008 - 5:53 pm 8. photoncourier.blogspot.com:It’s not just Wright, it’s a whole pattern of associations on Obama’s part. There’s Bill Ayers, of course. There’s Gen McPeak, who holds an official position in the Obama campaign…search at PowerLine to find out about this guy’s attitude toward Israel and American Jewish support thereof. And there are the rather hostile comments about Americans in general, and the negativity displayed to businesspeople in particular, by Obama’s wife.
Since Obama has never held an important executive position (neither, unbelievably, have any of his opponents), the only way we can judge his people-selection skills is through the circle of people with whom he has chosen to surround himself.
May 4, 2008 - 8:13 pm 9. Richard Nieporent:So why should anyone care what a nonentity writes in a dying newspaper?
May 5, 2008 - 5:46 am 10. 1Banjo:Frank is rich, gotta give him that. He owes his elevation from the darkness of the theater and trying to make sense of post-modernist foolery to Pinch Sulzberger, another winner.
May 5, 2008 - 6:10 am 11. Lightnin' Hopkins:Read his whole column and now I need another shower. Sheesh. The “so-called Party of Lincoln” is apparently filled with racists unwilling to have a “perenially promised candid conversation about race”? Please.
It often seems like it’s ‘63 or ‘64 that hacks like Rich are trying to recreate, not 1968. In his myopic view nothing has changed, and Powell and Rice et al, are merely window dressing “appointments” – a bait-and-switch by the bigoted G.O.P.
Reactionary? You bet. He should go back to reviewing CATS for his vastly over-paid living.
May 5, 2008 - 7:41 am 12. Lightnin' Hopkins:I shouldn’t have put quotations around the word appointments – of course they were appointed by the President. It’s just, to Mr. Rich, they are not considered examples of authentic progress in racial equality.
McCain/Steele in ‘08. Something tells me Frank would not approve.
May 5, 2008 - 7:54 am 13. SteveBrooklineMA:I’ve already had a conversation with a leftish friend who brought up Hagee when I brought up Wright. He said McCain was getting a pass while everyone was piling on Obama. Then he went on about how much worse “McCain’s guy” was than Wright. I’m betting he read Rich’s column. The blogosphere may think that the MSM is dying, but the Times still has impact, and so does Frank Rich.
May 5, 2008 - 8:34 am 14. Lem:Notice how Frank conveniently kept out of his 1,562 word laundry list of comparisons where exactly the chairman Wright has appeared as recently as a week ago.
Wright appeared at the National Press Club and at a NAACP venue.
While these organizations may not have endorsed what Wright said, Wright’s invitation to speak at these worthy of note settings was based on candidate Obama’s special relationship (as yet to be completely severed) with speaker Wright.
May 5, 2008 - 9:02 am 15. David Thomson:“I’ve already had a conversation with a leftish friend who brought up Hagee when I brought up Wright.”
Yup, this is the result of a conscious conspiracy. The Left’s propagandists are trying to equate Wright with Hagee. This is logically untenable—but it can be diabolically effective. Once again, we must never forget that most people don’t spend a lot of time studying politics. Few are going to bother learning that Obama’s relationship with Wright was very close while McCain barely knows Hagee. And please don’t forget that George Soros is behind much of this propaganda. He is a master of the big lie.
May 5, 2008 - 9:14 am 16. Neo:If Frank Rich wants to keep Rev Wright on the pages of the NY Times from now to November, he can be my guest.
May 5, 2008 - 1:42 pm 17. Brian H:But, what about Boris?
May 6, 2008 - 3:45 am 18. CT Tom:I still remember in 04 when Rich suggested that the remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” was going to undermine the Bush reelection. The blockbuster went to dvd by early 05. For such a “high brow” paper, the Times seems to give a lot of political editorial space to glorified entertainment critics and gossip columnists like Rich and Maureen Dowd.
May 6, 2008 - 4:31 am 19. photoncourier.blogspot.com:“highbrow paper”…I don’t think the Time is precisely a highbrow paper; it is a snob paper, and will run it thinks will appeal to those for whom social status is the dominant factor in life. At the moment, that is a strange mix of high culture, popular culture, materialism, and anti-materialism.
May 6, 2008 - 6:08 am