Conservative Media Give GOP Free Pass on Nutty Pastors

What happened to the liberal media bias? True media liberals Bill Moyers and Frank Rich both bang the drum on what looks like their industry's double standard in dealing with Democrats and Republicans and their associations with various religious figures.

First, Moyers discusses the difference between Rev. Jeremiah Wright's very personable, scholarly talk on Moyers's PBS program two Fridays ago and Wright's fiery public performance at the National Press Club last Monday. He then follows SDModerate and SDPolitics in discussing the strange relative quiet in the media about the repugnant beliefs of leading religious figures on the conservative side:

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee’s delusions, or thinks AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God’s judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong - white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren’t [Bill Moyers, closing commentary, Bill Moyers Journal, 2008.05.02].

Even I have thought Billy Graham is an all-right guy. Hmph -- I guess that means I'm an anti-Semite, too. So are the thousands of people who have attended Billy Graham Crusades since those comments to Nixon became public in 2002. So are the 1500 dignitaries, including three former presidents, who attended the dedication of the Graham Library last year. At least that's the logic folks are using against Obama on Wright: "How could he go to that church and not know what his pastor believes? Either he's a liar or he's incompetent."

Moyers sees racism in the double standard, as does Frank Rich. In Sunday's NY Times, Rich unloads on Rev. Hagee, who reaches 75 million homes with his tainted theology in his twice-daily appearances on Trinity Broadcasting, but whose sermons, as shocking in their own way as anything Wright has said, don't get nearly the media amplification that Wright's have. "A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man," says Rich.

Rich emphasizes that he is not citing McCain's free pass for associations with the radical Hagee and Robertson to make excuses for either Wright or Obama:

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. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s 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 isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re 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 [Frank Rich, "The All-White Elephant in the Room," New York Times, 2008.05.04].

The "best" excuse I've heard for Hagee's excesses and McCain's easy ride on religious nuts is Dr. Blanchard's contention that Rev. Hagee has shown "political virtue" by knowing "when to back off and disown himself." In other words, Hagee will say one thing to his congregation and another politically correct thing to the media to protect the powerful pols he endorses. Ah yes, virtue indeed.

What's really happening is an exposure of the true bias of the media. Do you really think a media machine run by the plutocracy is going to push the liberal agenda? Look whose pastors that rich-guy media talks about, and maybe that charge of "liberal media bias" will start sounding hollow.