Sherry Chandler » Context

Context

I have said that I’m uncomfortable in judging Jeremiah Wright on the basis of cherry-picked clips.

Here is some context for the chickens coming home to roost:

Watch at YouTube.

Trinity United’s YouTube Channel.

Via.

Likewise, consider this from Jane Hamsher:

If you can show me how a candidate’s personal religious beliefs have affected their political positions or their voting record, I’ll pay attention. I haven’t seen any demonstrable proof that Obama’s association with Jeremiah Wright have. I’ve always been troubled by Hillary Clinton’s culture warrior stuff regarding video games, but haven’t seen any evidence that this was a position she changed to please any particular religious group. As someone who has watched it over time I think she really just believes it.

On the other hand, John McCain has twisted himself into a morally pliant pretzel trying to please every religious right loon who stumbles along, so there are good reasons to question who he is associating himself with because they have had considerable influence over his decision making process in the past.

If it’s just a matter of someone’s personal religious beliefs, as long as they are committed to a separation of church and state I frankly don’t see any reason why I should care.

And also this:

The dog whistle antennae of the main stream media are finely tuned when they’re talking about Democrats. It’s the overt stuff from the GOP that seems to throw ‘em.

So while I’d love to be proven wrong, I’m guessing we’re not going to hear all that much about a McCain aide being “suspended” for pushing a YouTube of Obama, Wright and Malcom X that reinforces every racist attack currently in circulation. Says lobbyist Charles Black of the McCain campaign:

“What Sen. McCain has said repeatedly, is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them, or people who befriend them,” Black said recently. “I don’t think Sen. McCain wants to get in the middle of a discussion about Sen. Obama’s former pastor, or his faith. He believes that people who endorse you, people who befriend you are entitled to their own views, but you are not held personally accountable.”

Which is to say, McCain knows he can outsource this stuff and the beltway bores will never hold him accountable, so simply “suspending” the aide will be enough. David Broder saves his disappointment for those “missed opportunities” when McCain just does not crack the whip with those dang Iraqis. He won’t lower himself to deal in the messy stuff.

I will not link to the YouTube video in question here. It is vile.

And just to give us a little context on why we need separation of church and state:

On this day in 1556 Thomas Cranmer, the Reformation-minded Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake. As Henry VIII had executed Sir Thomas More for being too Catholic, so his daughter, Queen “Bloody” Mary I, executed Cranmer for being too Protestant — over 300 such being put to death in her five-year reign.

Update: Huckabee on Wright:

I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

Link from Suburban Guerilla.

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Friday, March 21st, 2008 Current Events Trackback URL for this entry

7 Comments

  • 1. Helen Losse replies at 21st March 2008, 2:24 pm :

    Hi Sherry, I posted this video on my blog with the title “Self-Examination.” I think that appropriate for Good Friday.

  • 2. sherry replies at 21st March 2008, 2:48 pm :

    I’ve added a link to the Trinity United YouTube channel, Helen. I thought it was a moving sermon and was disappointed when the video clip came to an end. I really didn’t plan it for Good Friday but thought it should be aired. Some things are just serendipity, I guess.

  • 3. Helen Losse replies at 21st March 2008, 3:28 pm :

    I can’t think of anything more appropriate for Good Friday than self-examination.

  • 4. Harry replies at 21st March 2008, 4:03 pm :

    And just to give us a little context on why we need separation of church and state

    Which is why I always get so uncomfortable when people describe the UK as a ‘Christian country’. In some sense it is unanswerably true: Britain is, and has been for the past thousand years, demographically and institutionally Christian. But the Christian history of Britain is of centuries of intolerance, repression and internal conflict. The burnings and executions by Henry, Mary and Elizabeth, the destruction during the Reformation of our entire medieval artistic heritage, the English Civil War, endless conflicts in Scotland and Ireland. It’s not like you even have to cherry-pick British history to make the point: leaving aside the medieval stuff (the crusades, the expulsion of the Jews), the entire 16th and 17th centuries are dominated by religious conflict. And though it gradually diminishes in importance after that, there are the Jacobite rebellions through the C18th in Scotland, and the Irish conflict which, though it looks better at the moment than I ever would have believed growing up during IRA bombing campaigns in London, is still rumbling on.

  • 5. sherry replies at 22nd March 2008, 10:44 am :

    Which is why, in the end, Harry, I have to come down on the side of secular humanism. From a strictly American point of view, I don’t care how many gays get married but I sure do wish we could stop killing each other over who’s got the biggest god.

    Of course, from Queen Mary’s POV, I think there was some financial interest too. Fancy that.

  • 6. Scotty replies at 23rd March 2008, 5:42 pm :

    And from an Australian point of view, I concur, Sherry.

  • 7. sherry replies at 24th March 2008, 9:47 am :

    Scotty and all — on the subject of Jeremiah Wright, I recommend this post from Digby at Hullabaloo. This, for me, is the money quote:

    Which brings me to Reverend Wright. Perhaps I have a different sense about this than others, but I personally didn’t find what he said to be all that shocking. Many of his comments on racial issues were as true as they were discomfiting and his views on American error weren’t illogical or unprecedented. Like virtually everyone else, I understood immediately upon hearing them that they were going to be a political problem but on the substance (except for the HIV stuff, which is rank conspiracy theorizing) they weren’t indefensible. Indeed, they speak to the essence of what separates us from the lockstep, chauvinistic , American exceptionalism of the right. No, we aren’t “blame America first” fifth columnists. But neither are we “blame America never” which means that we have a much clearer eye about our government’s sometimes irrational and immoral actions than conservatives do. It’s why we tend to be civil libertarians and skeptical of inscrutable military adventurism.

    and this one:

    Unless you think that Native American genocide, slavery, lynching, jailing without due process, apartheid, medical experiments on prisoners and military personnel, forced sterilization, wars of aggression etc are moral acts, you can’t possibly think that what Bush has done is unique to despoiling “the meaning of America.” The meaning of America has always been ambivalent and confused. (Thomas Jefferson, the writer of that great document about liberty and unalienable rights owned slaves, for gawds sakes).

    …

    Of course, Bush was capable of immoral acts. He’s a human being. That is why we should never blindly trust our leaders’ (mostly manufactured) “characters” and rely instead on the rule of law and the constitution. And it’s why we must be vigilant in defending our civil liberties and democratic processes even when we really, really love our leaders. Humans are flawed, power corrupts, leaders are stupid, shit happens. You can’t depend on powerful people’s good intentions. It’s more than a little bit silly that so many adults seem to need to maintain a romantic fiction that elected leaders are more prophet than politician, but many of them do.

    All of these are themes I’ve hit here and like Digby, I was somewhat relieved when Barack Obama gave his speech about Wright because it showed that he is able to take a stand when he has to.

    I was not totally persuaded by the speech and I am not totally persuaded by Barack Obama. I would like to see Hillary Clinton win the nomination. But I wouldn’t want to see Obama defeated by his association with Wright. There are other perfectly legitimate reasons to doubt him.

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