Is Pastor Jeremiah Wright this year’s Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Remember…America never did a single thing that in any way provoked 9/11. The hijackers thought they were attacking Poland and just got lost.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Did I miss something wrt Jeremiah Wright? Link?
take your pick.
Comments on the article you linked to started out quite interesting,
Oh, I thought it was something recent. Jeremiah Wright isn’t exactly known for his subtlety…
Here’s a good one on TPM cafe.
Wow. And the comments, if you take a few minutes to read them, really open up the different perspectives, too.
Obama’s pastor?
A relative who is a strong supporter called yesterday to say why didn’t Obama resign from this church before he ran for office. Or, why did he join?
I have no ready answers. Booman, since you brought it up, maybe you could flesh this out with more detail.
John Cole did a pretty good job of it today…
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9891
Thanks for the link.
Yeah, I’d pretty much go with Cole’s take.
At any rate, Obama’s his own man, and fully capable of cutting through all the hubbub if it becomes necessary.
RandyH, I’m not up to full speed on HTML but
here’s an easy way to embed a link or sentence:
Use these: [ ] then enclose within the word or sentence plus the url meaning http://www..
sample:
[link here.http:// ]
keeps the comments in entire post from bleeding into ads.
OK so I’ll apologise now and for past stupids on the links that I’ve abused. I cannot begin to understand what your directions are but thanks for trying!
Actually idredit’s directions are good.
To make a pretty link you would put brackets around the words you want to be bolded and the URL.
Here’s an example EXCEPT you would substitute brackets[ ] for the parenthesis ( ):
(Dailykos http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/13/21718/2206/775/476200)
and it would come out like this:
Dailykos
The people in the Froggy Bottom Cafe taught me everything I know about HTML and shortcuts like that. Which isn’t much. If you ever have questions they are the world’s best teachers.
thanks, I have spent days over at the Kos site trying to understand and just don’t seem to find success. but appreciate it.
I understand. I still can never remember how to make words appear crossed out.
I had no idea it could be done so easily! I’ve been using HTML for my links!
<a href=”[http link here]”>CNN</a>
That also works.
It’s easy. Take my previous sig, for instance:
Here’s what it looks like when you type it into the Comment: box:
The trick is to bracket the words you want to cross out with <s> and </s>.
Sometime if you have a few minutes to kill you (and other patrons of this fine establishment) might want to take a look at the list of Allowed HTML underneath the Preview, AutoFormat and Post buttons and mess around with them a little to see what they do. I’ve done some pretty spiffy things with the <style> tag. Do you remember the super big IMPEACH, white letters on a black background? That was done with a <style> tag (and a lot of messing around to get the formatting right).
yes! that’s it. I could never remember. s always seems counterintuitive because I don’t think of it as strikeouts but just as lines.
you are a
doggod (since this is a religious thread).That’s Great. Thanks.
How do you do the “line through the words thing”?
use < s > word < / s > for strike thru…close up and
strike thruto underline use < u > word etc, etc < / u > close up and word etc, etc
bold use and asterisk * word * close up word
italics use forward slash / word etal / close up word etal
trademark symbol use “& trade ;” close up ™
copyright use “& copy ;” close up ©
blockquotes use < blockquote > text kflfjhs bshasdfg < / blockquote > close up
that oughta muddy the water for a while…:{)
Trademark ™ is one I always forget.
Thanks d 😉
Thanks maryb2004…a teacher in computer skills I’ll never be.
I’m still trying to configure objects like videos.
That is very helpful. This is one of the few sites I visit regularly that doesn’t have tools to do these things easily, so I usually do the cryptic HTML to make my links show up… but sometimes I get lazy when it’s a short URL and I know it won’t affect anything. But thanks for the tip. I had not heard of that method.
there’s the FAQ here and Man Eegee’s friendly Guide
He’s just being, umm, provocative.
i find myself agreeing with almost everything wright says.
i suspect obama does too….but he could never come out and say that.
Obama & his folks will probably come up with a better response than this, but here’s my idea: [I also made a blog on the campaign website on the off chance anyone would read it.]
Why not review what Bush’s pastor(s) said before the Iraq invasion? IIRC, he’s a Methodist, and the entire church came out against the war. That I saw in the papers; I am not sure what church HRC belongs to or whether their leadership came out with a position at the time. Plenty of other leaders fail to listen to their ministers, even about something more burningly politically relevant than what the Roman-occupied Middle East was reeeeeeallly like, a lonnnnnnnng time ago. Plus it comes back to being ready to make morally sound decisions from day one!
Seriously, I think Senator Obama could carry this off, with all of his trademark poise, and point out that he’s running to represent ALL of us, and that he can appreciate his areas of agreement w/his pastor and at the same time listen to many voices of reason and morality… like those that spoke out against the Iraq invasion, like the rabbis that came together to denounce various character smears being emailed around…
I’m not a Christian myself, but from what I can see, Bush, McCain, and Clinton might all have some squirming to do if we look at their own actions, and what those actions say about their beliefs.
Just remembered an article you might be interested in called “Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics” (I think it was up at MotherJones.com), that outlined Hillary’s participation in a fairly conservative religious organization on Capitol Hill to which several other Senators–Brownback and Santorum (when he was still in the Senate) belonged. I didn’t save it to HD, but it was a pretty revealing read.
Bingo!
Thank you , the MJ article is very interesting.
Hmm, before her campaign behavior I would’ve just thought this was a theological stance:
…but after she pointed out that only a president (e.g. LBJ) can sagely get out of the way and stop trying to hold back a groundswell of change in the public, it seems like more than that.
And I used to think that the flag-burning bill was simply pandering to the right (preparing for a presidential bid), but perhaps not:
Hmmm, I have no talent in persuasion, but maybe I should come to PA and cook lunch for the (BHO) canvassers?
Look, I don’t want to just sound like a stereotypical cynical liberal, bc in general I respect people’s efforts to express their values in how they do their work. I also cherish our separation of church and state, though, and I want to elect someone who respects the Constitution more than every jot and tittle of their denomination’s laws.
This election cycle is gonna be real holy with a lot of dual standards so let’s not get too worked up over Wright:
Will someone explain why Obama is the Anti-Christ and is held responsible for Pastor Wright while
Senator McCain not only gets to embrace and defend Pastor Hagee but also has as his new spiritual adviser, Rev. Rod Parsley, who advocates Islam should be destroyed?
Hagee just endorsed McCain, while Obama went to this guy’s church. It’s funny, but he hasn’t said anything I haven’t heard in church before (except the more current newsness of it). He hasn’t said anything I haven’t heard in a black masjid. Most black people probably won’t bat an eye over this because that’s religion.
Factcheck: Wright is retiring end of this month, March. Here is the new Minister Rev. Otis Moss speaking on history of the church and Obama:
To me, I just get the sense that it’s ultimately sort of inane to go chasing endorsements from religious leaders (as shamelessly demonstrated by McCain) or–through no fault of your own–to end up potentially saddled with a lot of diversionary, “controversial” baggage through a relationship with one (Obama). All this stuff is just more weeds for Obama to have to wade through to wage the real political fight he’s facing all the way to November.
It’s a non-issue, really–or should be. I personally find it depressing to be forced to continually contemplate the intersection of religion and politics.
Well, with all this publicity for Pastor Wright, Obama can spend less time reminding people that he’s a Christian with a funny name and not a Muslim. That’s something. 😉
That’s right! Wish I’d have thought of that.
Having watched the Kerry swift-boating go down, I really hope Obama responds differently. Getting into comparative life experiences will just add to the swirl of factoids and half-truths. And trying to explain or defend his pastor will become a bog.
I would like to see a response along the lines of:
The 60’s was a time of dramatic changes beginning with JFK awakening us to the new challenges we faced. Just as my Pastor is a product of the 60’s, so is my Democratic opponent and my Republican opponent. We know their experiences have formed them into who they are now.
We can respect and can learn from those who have gone before, but to face the challenges before us we need to be energized – open to new possibilities…
Great screaming FSM. How is this different from Pat “Rev. Wacko” Robinson saying things like hurricanes are God’s punishment for US laxness toward those scary evil gay people?
I mean, seriously, how is this different? Other than one of these men preaches at the church a presidential candidate attends.
Did I say Robinson? I meant Robertson. Geesh.
Your suggestions above are pretty much exactly what Obama’s advocate said.
The advocate did a pretty good job on ABC, answering questions right after the clips of Obama’s former preacher. The staffer (a prof at a Methodist seminary) asked, among other things, why there was no similar interest in the pastors of Bush, Clinton, or McCain, and whether those people conformed exactly to their minister’s beliefs.
He also noted that the reporter stated a lot of inflammatory things that Obama had supposedly said, however, the Obama advocate suggested quite strongly that if the TV networks had real evidence that Obama agreed with those beliefs they’d certainly have posted/shown their proof. In the absence of that, they are relying on innuendo.
Of course, ABC didn’t leave that film clip up visibly on their web sight – the inflammatory preaching is so much more
newsworthyprofitmaking.