[BretLudwig]

The All-White Elephant in the Room

By FRANK RICH


"BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go
directly to YouTube, search for €œJohn Hagee Roman Church Hitler,€� and
be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What youll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee,
lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at
the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a
golden chalice. The woman is €œthe Great Whore,€� Mr. Hagee explains, and
she is drinking €œthe blood of the Jewish people.€� Thats because the
Great Whore represents €œthe Roman Church,€� which, in his view, has
thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the
Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On
Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious
conservatives favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew
anything then about Mr. Hagees views? This particular YouTube video €”
far from the only one €” was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before
the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious
networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which
reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted
this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.

Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally
has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, its true, did not
blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God
created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly
a scheduled €œhomosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.€�

Mr. Hagee didnt make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He
broadcast it on one of Americas most widely heard radio programs,
€œFresh Air€� on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a
radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr.
McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as
€œnonsense€� and the preacher retract it.

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagees calumnies, any
more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wrights. But those who try to give
Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin
case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years
at Mr. Hagees church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient
of this bigots endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain
sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a
pre-emptive €œholy war€� with Iran. (This preachers rantings may tell
us more about Mr. McCains policy views than Mr. Wrights tell us about
Mr. Obamas.) Even after Mr. Hagees Catholic bashing bubbled up in the
mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr.
Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim
Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos
two Sundays ago that while he condemns any €œanti-anything€� remarks by
Mr. Hagee, he is still €œglad to have his endorsement.€�

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr.
Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full
€œGreat Whore€� glory. But Mr. McCain didnt have to fear so rude a
transgression. Mr. Hagees videos have never had the same circulation on
television as Mr. Wrights. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just
doesnt have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Perhaps thats why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant
prototype for Mr. Wrights fiery claim that 9/11 was Americas
chickens €œcoming home to roost.€� That would be the Sept. 13, 2001,
televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the
attacks on Americas abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers.
(Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on Americas foreign policy.) Had that
video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might
have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers
€œagents of intolerance€� and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by
speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right.
It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obamas long relationship
with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to
weigh Mr. Obamas judgment in handling this personal and political
crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is
disingenuous to pretend that there isnt a double standard operating
here. If were to judge black candidates on their most controversial
associates €” and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them
€” we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat
Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertsons
greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, €œThe
New World Order,€� which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy
theories about €œEuropean bankers€� (who just happened to be named
Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor
was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the
payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by
his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much
as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas wedding, so this priest
officiated at (one of) Mr. Giulianis. Did you even hear about it?

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at
play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there
is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons
and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they
should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely
acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not
have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and
representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence
Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal,
even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is
quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on
the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial
skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial
dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this
de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of
notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway
company. Those who dare are instantly accused of €œpolitical
correctness€� or €œreverse racism.€�

An all-white Congressional delegation doesnt happen by accident. Its
the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the
Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr.
McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of a vicious
smear in his partys South Carolina primary of 2000.

This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting)
campaign and has gone so far as to criticize (ineffectually) North
Carolinas Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that
states current primary. Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with
black people in his tour of €œforgotten€� America. Speaking of Katrina
in New Orleans, he promised that €œnever again€� would a federal
recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale.

This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romneys
dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up
to a point. Here, too, theres a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded
on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. But at a time when the
latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an
even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obamas,
Mr. McCains New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested
politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of
policy.

Mr. McCain took his partys stingier line on Katrina aid and twice
opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government
response. Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he
called for €œa conversation€� about whether anyone should €œrebuild it,
tear it down, you know, whatever it is.€� Whatever, whenever, never mind.

For all this primary seasons obsession with the single (and declining)
demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is
changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The
Census Bureau announced last week that half the countrys population
growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably
alienated from the G.O.P.

Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a
white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if theres any
coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane
Jeremiah, its that this nations perennially promised candid
conversation on race has yet to begin."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04rich.html

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