Stephen Colbert points out that Barack Obama’s speech on race on Tuesday would have been completely unnecessary had Obama taken a page out of John McCain’s lesson book.
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Download | Play (h/t Heather)
But the real problem here is not whether the Senator attended church, or whether he was aware of his reverend’s views, but how he handled an inflammatory spiritual leader during a presidential campaign. If you want to know how to do it right, ask John McCain. He also has a long-standing and complicated relationship with controversial preachers: Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Now I’m not comparing Falwell and Robertson to Jeremiah Wright, after all, the Sunday after September 11th, Rev. Wright said this:
Wright: “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
Chickens? Roost? That implies we have the terrorists cooped up in tiny cages for years and we didn’t do that until after 9/11. By comparison, Falwell and Robertson delivered a touching sermon three days after September 11th:
Fallwell: “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them, who tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
Robertson: “I totally concur”
It is even more inspiring than their sermon about the two sets of footprints on the beach. The second set belongs to a gay dude sneaking up on you. Run, Jesus! But like the out of control Rev. Wright, Falwell and Robertson were also condemned by a presidential candidate. During John McCain’s 2000 campaign, he called them both “agents of intolerance.” But before this campaign, McCain did what was necessary to win. Here’s what he said about them this time:
McCain: I believe that the “Christian Right “ has a major role to play in the Republican Party.”
Russert: Do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?
McCain: No, I don’t.
He embraced them. In fact, in 2006, McCain gave the commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University. I’m telling you folks, the man is such a maverick, he is even independent from his own true feelings! McCain was able to cozy up to preachers who say that gays and Satanists are the same thing and it’s a non-issue. I think that Obama’s mistake is that he did it backwards. If he had denounced Rev. Wright years ago, then quietly embraced him for this election, he could have spent the time he wasted on yesterday’s speech focusing on the issues that really matter.
Filed Under: Barack Obama, Election 08, John McCain, Religion, Satire, The Colbert Report/Stephen Colbert
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Old man McCain must NOT be the next president. Vote Democratic.
That Hagee guy has picked so many people as the Anti-Christ that he looks worse than Chris Collinsworth and Dan Marino on NFL Sunday.
Colbert may have just saved Obama’s campaign.
CD @ 3:
Or created more problems for him.
Every time the left or whatever it is now counters or points out this stuff it makes the Righties even more cocky and arrogant.
THAT is the root of the problem.
Wish I had a solution but I don’t. It used to be live and let live but thats apparently gone now.
L.A. Confidential @ 5:
Don’t we have to call them on their BS? I don’t see how it can be ignored if it is doing some of the intended damage.
I suppose it goes without saying, but this tactic only works if you are a Republican.
Monitoring the Actions, Crimes and Criminal Coverup of the “Bush GOP” Version
Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy: The Lies Take Hold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txoLlfrBENk
This video provides some of the backstory for the discovery of a potentially devastating method of rigging audits, recounts and mail-in votes.
Blue Lensman @ 6:
Thats what we’ve been doing for 7 years.
It keeps getting worse, and positive change still avoids us.
There’s going to have to be a change in tactics.
L.A. Confidential @ 4:
How could that be?
I do not think McCain should be president, I say this because he is not willing to retreat from Iraq and if the war continues for one or two years the world’s economy will crumble. So Barack is the perfect president to stop the down fall of the economy.
I find it interesting that comedians have the only worthwhile things to say about this election.
You can bet that the MSM will not be airing the McCain/Falwell/Robertson videos ad nauseam. Too bad Colbert’s audience is already the converted.
colbertfan @ 12:
Me too. Without Colbert, Stewart, Fey, and even Maher, NOBODY would call these dolts on their crap. Nobody. Sad.
ConcernedHusseinCanuck @ 14:
So what are the credentials for being a journalist these days?
Old Billy Hussein @ 15:
Probably just like every other field: sucking up to those in power.
Strange that the pravda network doesn’t pick up on the mcbush/fallwell connection. Instead, they are too busy making it EVERY NIGHT news/propaganda about Obama/Wright.
Americans are so damned gullible.
Wow.
I live in Japan and I heard that particular bitch-slap all the way across the Pacific.
Well said, Mr. Colbert. Well said.
Old Billy Hussein @ 16:
Yes, you are probably right. At least anyone on the idiot box seems to have no credentials. Women-unbutton that blouse and short skirts. Men-party hacks
Chris Hitchens, love him or hate him, had the best line about Falwell on his death (paraphrase):
“If the gave him an enema, they could have buried him in a matchbox”
:)
Is there not something wrong with a supposed religious nation, declaring part of it the “Christian Right”? What the heck does that mean? Truly not Christian?
PizzaMan @ 20:
Hitchens rules and, as he has so eloquently stated, “Religion poisons everything”. We have to reach the point where belief in the supernatural is too embarrassing to say in public.
Mohammed did not ride a winged, white horse up to heaven with Jesus on the back. Nor did any of the Christian myths happen. Nor did Xenu or Moses ever exist. It’s scary what people still believe in 2008.
RHM
So whats the point here? Its ok because the f*cking Christo-Taliban does it?
It’s widespread? Understandable? Forgivable?
No.
Its not.
It’s not like your going to have a video of McSame crying “Leave Falwell alone! he’s a sub-human-being…”
The only thing funnier then the fact that McSame doesn’t know which side of the issue he should be on from one minute to the next is the Republican party who hated him, hated him, hated him…oh, he’s our man now!!! never mind! Go McSame!!!
PizzaMan @ 20:
Oh yeah, I forgot Falwell was dead! couldn’t have happened to a rottener guy!
We should all give thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the satirists. Aside from watching car chases, do we even need the MSM any longer? They seem to do nothing but fail in their jobs as journalists, and it is sad to think that the free press was envisioned as watching over the rights of the citizens against the abuses of government.
ACLU helped Rush Limbaugh get stoned.
Though it is the chickens coming home to roost ……. and there are a lot more to come.
RHM @ 22:
Absolutely agreed.
The unfortunate thing is that, as what might be called a ‘religious atheist’ (that is to say, an atheist with an ideological system disinclined towards secular humanism of the ‘Dawkinsonian’ variety - i.e., an existentialist), I’m not opposed to religion per se. One of my favorite authors, Kierkegaard, was devoutly, fanatically religious - in an exceedingly personal sense. The Religious Right, to the contrary, has always struck me as basically insincere, wanting as it does to essentially corner the market and use itself as a talking point. I can’t understand the mindset of anyone, Christian or Muslim, who thinks so little of his own faith that he feels it ought to be shared with others. Our most valuable possessions are always kept to one’s self!
Great Word by Colbert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P91_H690z4