Presidential candidates Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have each had an association with a spiritual leader that has caused political trouble. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former minister, has often spoken scornfully about America. In one controversial sermon in 2003, Wright cursed America, saying, “God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” On the other side of the aisle, Reverend John Hagee— once a McCain supporter—also has made numerous offensive remarks. Soon after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Hagee implied that the city deserved destruction. “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” he crowed.
REVEREND WRIGHT
Jeremiah Wright served Obama’s Chicago church for 20 years. He officiated at Obama’s wedding and baptized the senator’s children. In fact, the men were so close that Obama once said they were “like family.” While scrutinizing Obama’s background, journalists discovered a videotape of a sermon Wright preached the weekend after September 11, 2001. In his message, Wright blamed America for al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks. “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” he said. “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
SENATOR OBAMA RESPONDS
Obama rejected Wright’s comments and eventually denounced him, saying, “[Wright’s] comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they end up giving comfort to those that prey on hate.” Meanwhile, Obama’s opponents relished the chance to link him to Wright’s divisive ideas. “You start getting some sense of who he is,” said Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican media consultant, “and [he’s] not the Obama you thought.”
REVEREND HAGEE
Hagee is pastor of a mega-church in Texas and hosts a TV and radio show heard by millions. McCain sought his endorsement, hoping to win votes from Hagee’s followers. McCain’s critics, however, wanted to tarnish the senator’s reputation by associating him with some of Hagee’s most offensive remarks. For example, Hagee frequently criticized the Catholic Church and wrote that history links “Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.”
SENATOR McCAIN RESPONDS
Once Hagee’s inflammatory comments surfaced, McCain rejected his endorsement. He reminded the public that he had never attended Hagee’s church and contrasted his situation with Obama’s ties to Wright. Nonetheless, Democrats attacked McCain’s judgment: “John McCain has aligned himself with one of America’s purest—and most powerful haters,” wrote columnist Glenn Greenwald.
THE JEWISH VIEW
According to our sages, people we associate with can impact who we are. For example, the Talmud advises judges and witnesses to make sure their colleagues are upstanding so as not to embarrass themselves by association. “[The pure-minded of Jerusalem] would not sign on a document unless they knew who would be signing with them; they would not agree to sit in judgment unless they knew who would be sitting with them, and they would not dine at a banquet unless they knew who would be dining with them” (Sanhedrin 23a). In other words, our affiliations say a lot about who we are and what we stand for.
