Did you hear what Obama's preacher said?

by David Grand
April 9, 2008

Who hasn't I answered a Clinton supporter and friend I bumped into the other day. But that's yesterdays news, I said, when it was disclosed that Hillary had lied through her teeth about her close encounter with sniper fire upon her arrival in Bosnia.

And I added, that attempts to paint Obama with the same brush as Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his outrageous statements, kindled memories of one of the darkest periods in this country's history in the late 1940's and 1950's, when "guilt by association" led to the ruination of many lives and reputations of those brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and by Sen. Joe McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he turned his anti-Communist crusade into a national inquisition.

I can still remember how shocked I was when Lucille Ball was subpoenaed by the HUAC because she had registered to vote in the Communist party primary election in 1936 at her socialist grandfather's insistence. She was roundly booed following her Capital Hill appearance by people in the studio audience during a filming of a I Love Lucy episode. Then Dezi Arnez came on stage and quipped: "The only thing red about Lucy is her red hair, and even that's not legitimate."

And I told him, that the only difference between the witch hunts those committees went on and the witch trials the Puritans conducted in Salem, Mass. in 1692 was that no one was hanged, as 25 innocent victims were during that reign of terror.

At that point he started to walk away, but I prevailed upon him to hear me out. Getting back to Obama unwillingness to sever all ties with Rev. Wright, how is it, I asked, that more people aren't equally upset over two of McCain's clergy supporters—Pastor John Hagee and Televangelist Rick Parsley—spewing forth as they have the most hateful words regarding Jews, Catholics and homosexuality?

He then shrugged his shoulders as if to say he could care less and left. But only after saying he was still voting for Hillary, even though his wife and two kids were driving him nuts with their rooting for Obama.

Shucks, I said, on the way home. I meant to tell him about two other preachers—the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—who McCain once referred to as "agents of intolerance," but later warmly embraced as if they were his long, lost brothers when making his second run for the White House. Moral: Sleeping with strange bedfellows may be uncomfortable, but does help keeping your feet warm.

And if Rev. Wright went off the deep end with his ranting and raving about America's failures (both here and abroad), those two more than matched him, when they took to the airwaves to proclaim that God had allowed the United States to be attacked on 9/11 because " the pagans and abortionists, the feminists, the gays and lesbians had tried to transform America into a secular society." And not surprisingly, they later added New Orleans to God's "hit list."

As for myself, I haven't sat in a church pew for the longest time. Nor have I felt a need to. For when I want to talk to God, I just call out his name and I know he's listening, and without ever once putting me on "hold" or my hearing a recording saying: Leave a message and I'll get back with you. Couldn't ask for a closer relationship with him than that.
(I bet my friend and Hillary backer I spoke with will avoid me like a plague from hereon.)