BartBlog

“But as I travel around this big ol’ world,
There’s one thing that I most fear:
It’s a white man in a golf shirt
With a cell phone in his ear.”
– From “Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall?” a Tom Russell song.

Obama’s Wright Brother Flap: In responding to the media furor over Jeremiah Wright’s remarks on rich, white people and the reasons why this nation was attacked on 9/11, Obama should have said that, while he disagrees with his pastor and old friend on some things, he supports his right to free speech, and to openly express his opinions, just as he would support the right of any American or theologian to speak out freely, even those with whom he profoundly disagrees. Rather than go on the defensive, Obama should have made this a free speech issue, which it is, instead of the ‘judgment’ issue the Punditrocracy is trying to frame it as. And, incidentally, someone tell Chris Matthews to quit mischaracterizing Wright’s comments as ‘blaming the victims of 9/11′ – Wright did no such thing. Note to the Big Media: Stop playing Wright’s “God damn America” line out of context. A lot of Americans might agree with Wright if they heard the 120 seconds preceding the ‘offensive’ three words, but, of course, you knew that, didn’t you, you little McCain Trained Monkeys.

Quotable: “Let me be clear on this: This is only a problem for Barack Obama in that there are still a lot of pinheads around that don’t understand that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. And he’ll distance himself from it because he has to and because Wright’s style isn’t his. It’s not how Obama rolls. But there’s nothing untrue about Wright’s statements in and of themselves.”
– From “Truth Time: Wright Is Right,” by DF, TPM Cafe, March 15, 2008.

And, BTW, when does the BM go after McCain for accepting endorsements from such certifiable fruitcakes as John Hagee, Rod Parsley (wasn’t he once a porn star?) and the late Jerry Falwell?

“All I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.”– John McCain on Feb. 27, 2008.

Here’s what McCain is “very proud” of: Hagee babbles nonsense like, “I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. … I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” (So why did Katrina devastate areas of heterosexual Republican Mississippi as well? God has poor aim?) He has also condemned the Catholic religion as “The Great Whore” and the “anti-Christ,” thinks Harry Potter books are propaganda for Satan, and held a ‘slave sale’ in 1996 to raise job funds for high school seniors. In his Cornerstone Church’s newsletter, Hagee publicized the event with, “Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone!” and “Make plans to come and go home with a slave.” If this idiot worked a real job, his employers would have fired him by now.

God’s Rod Parsley has hallucinated that our Constitution somewhere says our national mission is to destroy Islam, and Falwell was so far over the edge that he, like Hagee, thought we were attacked on 9/11 as a judgment from God for allowing gays and women basic civil rights, among other head-slapping nutballery from the creepy far-right fringe of his reptilian brain.

– Speaking of McCain (from Jamison Foser at Media Matters):

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