Both John McCain and Barack Obama are being criticized because of their association with bigoted pastors.

We have all heard a lot about Barack Obama’s spiritual guide and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright has a whole lot of respect for Black supremacist Louis Farrakhan and, as if that’s not enough, he also has a past of anti-white rhetoric himself. In his preaches he regularly attacks white people, arguing that they continue to oppress African-Americans, and so on.

Now a new, and damning, video has appeared of Wright’s last sermon (before he retired), in which he, once again, talked trash of whites and praised Barack Obama (and attacked Hillary Clinton several times). Here’s the video (h/t):

For those who are working today and can’t watch the video: he’s praising Obama for being a black man, from a single parent home, who knows how it is to be a poor black man “living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.”

He also compares white Americans to the Romans, who crucified Jesus - a black man according to the Reverend (which is most likely not true of course; Semitic, yes, black no; a man of color yes, a black man no. Unless the Reverend believes that Jews and Arabs are ‘blacks’ of course).

Wright also said that he knows why people are criticizing Obama: he’s not white, nor rich enough. He’s black. And poor.

Perhaps someone should tell Obama that, considering that he and his wife are Harvard graduates and have earned many millions of dollars in the last couple of years.

“The Romans,” Wright said, “were white people.” European people (he seems to refer to white Americans as Europeans).

And Hillary? Hillary is white and rich. As such, blacks can’t trust her.

He also has something nice to say about blacks who vote for Hillary Clinton: they make him sick.

But Barack isn’t the only one who says he’s inspired by a bigoted preacher; say hello to John McCain.

‘On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center.’ That day, Parsley said about McCain that the Senator is a ’strong, true, consistent conservative.’

The endorsement was important because it may help McCain rally the Evangelical base.

But there’s one problem: Parsley is a bigot. He hates Islam, and he hates Muslims. He writes in his book Silent No More that Americans must “understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is.” He goes on to write that “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

He also writes that Columbus discovered the Americas partially for this purpose: to destroy Islam. Good Christian Americans, then, should continue Columbus’ work. America “has historically understood herself as a bastion against Islam.”

An anti-Islam bigot who wants to destroy Islam. And McCain, the moderate Republican, calls this guy a spiritual guide.

That’s completely and utterly unacceptable, of course. Instead of cozying up to extremists like Parsley, McCain should have told them that they won’t have a lot of political influence when he’s president of America, because he considers their views to be completely out of line.

But no, McCain says Parsley is a “spiritual guide.”

There are differences between Wright and Parsley of course:

1. Personally, I find Parsley to be more extremist. Wright is extreme, but he’s not talking about killing white people or ‘destroying’ white people. Parsley, on the other hand, believes that America has to ‘destroy’ Islam. That’s only possible (well, it’s not possible but if you’re going to try, you’ve got to do it as follows) if you’re willing to kill virtually every living Muslim today. That’s 1.5 billion people. McCain shouldn’t cozy up to a person like that. This is an insult to every single Muslim on this planet; it will, undoubtedly, be interpreted as a declaration of war by many, many Muslims, especially in the Middle East.

2. Although the above is most certainly true, I think it’s important to keep in mind that Obama went to Wright’s church for a period of 20 years. With McCain one could very well argue that he’s associating with Parsley out of political opportunism. With Obama one can’t possibly say that. He has associated with a black bigot for decades, and has been inspired by him. Obama tries to control the damage by saying that Wright is only his spiritual guide, not someone who influences his political views. However, that doesn’t seem logical considering the fact that Wright spends, it seems, a whole lot of attention to politics and society in his sermons and considering the fact that Wright doesn’t seem to separate religion from politics - in his preaches, they seem to - to a large degree - be one and the same (same goes for Parsley obviously). As if that’s not enough, it’s also important to keep in mind that the Obamas use religion very often in their own speeches. To them, then, there also seems to be a mixture of religion and politics.

So, who’s worse? Well, suffice to say, I think, that both are bad and that both could do great damage to ‘their’ candidates. Although I personally think that Parsley is worse, perhaps even much worse, there’s a difference in the role the pastors play in the lives of Obama and McCain.

One wonders how this will be interpreted by foreigners. Once this gets attention in the European media, you can expect the respect and admiration for both candidates to decrease significantly.

Others blogging:

Comments from Left Field (about McCain)

Fact of the matter is, on top of conservative Christians being a vital part of the Republican base, anti-Islamic thought is also important.

There are far too many people who equate Islam with evil, and worse yet, think that that attitude will actually help our situation with a tumultuous Middle East.

The very first step we must take in rectifying our stature in the Muslim world is to rid ourselves of this grossly anti-Islamic culture that continues to fester among our number. We will never find success and ultimately peace there if we continue to treat all of the Muslim world’s peoples as though they are evil and the enemy.

Matthew Yglesias (about McCain)

Since McCain’s managed to get away with not disavowing John Hagee, who can be tagged with anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiments, I’m pretty sure that mere bigotry against Muslims isn’t going to bring the heat. The press loves McCain, so it’s hard to tag him with any of this stuff. It’s rendered doubly hard by the fact that Barack Obama’s campaign needs to keep fighting Hillary Clinton.

Dan Riehl (about Obama)

Given Obama’s close ties to both the pastor and the church and his attempt to run a post-racial campaign, it’s fair to say he has some formidable PR challenges ahead.

Anyone else notice something funny here?

Why is it that liberals only blog about and condemn the McCain story and ignore the bigotry of Obama’s preacher, while conservatives blog about and condemn Obama and Wright, but ignore the McCain story?

Partisan agenda anyone?

Via Memeorandum.