The biggest difference: McCain did not sit and listen to Hagee's "sermons" for 20 years. Obama did. McCain can legitimately plead ignorance. Obama can't.

Did you read or listen to the "offending" remarks in that one sermon In context? If so, how do feel they compare with the statements of Hagee that have been discussed in various of Glenn's posts and following discussion? How do you think people in other countries would compare them?

Thanks for answering. It's my little prognostication (I have them, too you know) that it won't be too long before we'll see right-wing screeds about the Army not respecting Obama.

Jeez, I hope so. I hope so like hell!

...and have a ways to go to get back to the beginning, but I thought I'd add something now that I saw at TalkingPointsMemo re: November's election, and whether the two current partisan camps will be able to unite behind the Democratic nominee:

Josh Marshall decided to highlight a comment from one of his readers:

Sage Comments

From TPM Reader JS ...

I was one of the pure in heart who in 1968 could not bring myself to vote for Humphrey and voted for Cleaver instead. Politically it was the dumbest thing I've ever done. However, I did learn something: elections are about deciding who will be the next president, senator, governor or whatever, but they should not be psycho-dramas conducted to allow people to demonstrate their high-mindedness. [emphasis added]

Those supporters of HRC who cannot bring themselves to vote for Obama or vice versa will a few weeks into the McCain administration wake up and realize that they've been jackasses. Or, at least I hope they will realize it.

--Josh Marshall

Fwiw, whichever candidate wins the nomination will get my vote. No more GOP ruling the WH, or naming anymore absolutists to SCOTUS.

Of course you are not on my ignore list. You never will be. If one can be said to love someone on a message board, then message board love to you, my dear.

This race is hard. Eventually it will be resolved who the Democratic candidate will be. We have different candidates; that is all.

Let me ask you though--do you think that some people out there, Instapundit being a frightening example, could be?

Of course he is. But he is not here arguing. We are arguing among ourselves. That is not sad. What is sad is the manner or argument that so often goes on here at Salon. We all need to remember something:

If Glenn Greenwald wrote a post and no one replied, he would be a failure at his job. The same with Joan Walsh. Of course the grandmother stuff was rather lame. She knows it. Yes, she probably does support Hillary. However, there has been lots of silly stuff attacked at a level of vitriol it does not deserve it both here and in the campaign. Right now, I suspect that all of us are pretty mad -- including the candidates. The Richardson endorsement was no doubt a brutal blow to the Clintons. Both Obama and Hillary have tried some weird hyperbolic stuff to pry each other's voters away.

Even so using the word racist doesn't seem to do anything but result in a knife fight since some white Americans feel that falsely accusing someone of being a racist is as bad as or worse than being a racist.

Falsely accusing another person of being a racist is pretty bad, especially since definitions vary. It is also pretty meaningless unless the racism was obvious. How much more sense it would make if people who saying something like "I think that sounds racist because ___________. Did you mean it that way?" Even that much would be progress. But no! People just prefer to fling the label and act as if it somehow substitutes for logical argument.

The key question is of course, whether or not the accusation is "false" but I'm sure that Instapundit would defend to the death the fact that he is "not" a racist.

A logical person would point out to Instapundit that he is judging people based upon youth, clothing, and culture and labeling them with a highly inflamatory word. But he knows that. He wrote what he wrote to be provacative. However, to choose to be provactive in that manner makes him a racist. Period.

That's unfortunate and unfair of him. I think that you're trying to say that crying wolf doesn't really help in the long run (?) with accusations like this and I tend to agree with you.

I am glad you agree with me. I have the ignore list because I don't like to waste ammunition. Who knows when one might need it for something actually important?

I hope that not all Obama supporters are trying to alienate people, but it hasn't been helped that even Joan Walsh who I admire and like refers to Obama supporters as "Obamatrons" or whatever she said. I felt hurt, and even alienated. But I'm moving on.

I think some of them may actually be trying to alienate people. They selfishly put their own self-expression above the importance of the ultimate outcome of the race, not against Clinton but against McCain. Obama cannot win the general without Clinton supporters. Clinton cannot win the general without Obama supporters.

It is good that Obama does not have an angry temperament. Hillary would have been better served if she had kept her temper in check better. Only white males can afford to get angry in a presidential campaign. A woman or a black man getting angry is too threatening to many voters.

But more importantly, I don't believe that he has an essentially afro-centric point of view, which seems to me what some people are afraid of.

We don't know that. His church is unabashedly afro-centric.

I don't believe that he is fundamentally angry or "only" concerned with the plight of black Americans. I believe that his constituency is larger than any one particular group.

He needs to keep it that way -- even if it means he loses a few black votes.

This seems provable by all of his actions, his words, his supporters, his books. Those who want to say otherwise seem to have an agenda of their own to promote.

No. Those who are logical know that he has contradicted himself. Between interviews (FOX and MSNBC) prior to the speech, the speech itself, and subsequent statements there are contradictions. McCain will come after him on those and his lack of experience. 527s (hope that number is right) will swiftboat him on patriotism and subtly on race. They will not only try to make him "the black candidate" but the Islamist threat to the U.S. who will not protect us from terrorists.

I hope that all of us will be on the same side at some point, but this experience is hard, there's no other way to say that. What will come of it at the end, I don't know.

If Hillary loses, I will vote for Obama. If Obama loses, will you vote for Hillary?