If there's one lesson coming from this year's presidential campaign, it's beware of the religious nutjobs you have lining up on your side. 

For John McCain, there's been the, ah, cognitive dissonance between his 2000 accusation of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell being "agents of intolerance" and his uncritical, more open courting of the Religious Right this time around -- which has led to further conflicts as he accepted (even courted), then had to tepidly distance himself ("just because they support me doesn't mean I support all their positions") from , support by folks like John Hagee (anti-gay, anti-Islam, anti-Catholic, whose endorsement McCain was "very proud" to get) and Ron Parsley (McCain's "spiritual guide" and holy warrior against Islam)

On Barack Obama's side, we have the Louis Farrakhan thing (though Obama never actually sought out Farrakhan's support, and quickly quickly repudiated Farrakhan's anti-semitism and racism), and, tied into that, the Jeremiah Wright thing (which Obama has also quickly repudiated).

I'm not aware offhand if there are any religious nuts supporting Hillary Clinton, but if she gets the nomination, I'm sure someone will dig some up.

I'll confess that in the above analysis, I am cutting Obama more slack than McCain.  Part of that may be my partisanship. But part of it is that McCain has actively sought the support of religious nuts, and failed to directly address what aspects (if any) of their worldview he rejects, while Obama has not sought such support, and has been directly forthcoming in rejecting positions of hatred and divisiveness. Throw in that McCain has gone from iconoclast to brown-noser, and I definitely have to give Obama the "win" in this particular kerfuffle.

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: Religion :: ZT & PC
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I HATE that the current race to the White House now involves the candidates being smeared by any statement EVER made by anyone who supports them.

Yes, I agree that the candidates should clarify their stance vs the stances of their supporters, but the immediate knee jerk: "Obama hates America" because of a firey sermon by a minister who supports him is ridiculous.

It's telling that John McCain won't clarify his stance on the stances of his supporters' intolerances.

The greatest faux pas of the last week were Geraldine Ferraro's comments. She's a prefessional politician with a great background for supporting Hillary and she instantly made herself an anchor around Hillary's neck. And every time she protested that she was being misunderstood she made the mess worse. You would think a professional like Ms. Ferraro would know better than making a stupid comment like that.

I felt very bad for HIllary that one of her supporters made this comment during the height of the campaign, but I als think someone from the Hillary camp should have dropped, SWAT-like and slapped a gag on GF before she could say another word.

The Obama 'pastor-problem' is obviously someone seeking to stir up problems by combing through old media to find ANYTHING they can smear Obama with directly or indirectly. That the attempts are so feeble is indictative of how clean Obama has kept his nose. Frankly these efforts seem aimed at dividing the Dems along their already polarized lines and making sure that the Republican 'base' stays polarized as well.

Given that the whole foofoorah with his pastor was already known last fall, and before, the timing is interesting.

An interesting article on Obama and Trinity. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/04/03/ap4850327.html