Rosie on Wright

Forget about Rosie's gaffes in this clip (it's 3/5, not 3/4; the Tuskegee program was reprehensible, but the government did not give the men syphillis). Set aside the implied slur against black preachers that Rosie delivers when she says that Wright is just doing what black preachers do, i.e. lie. Forget that when Rosie says that Wright made sense to her that was all anyone teetering on the fence about Wright might need to justify abandoning any hope of ever sympathizing with the guy.

Ignore all that and ask yourself: Aren't you getting a little weary of people insisting that if we're going to scrutinize Jeremiah Wright then we ought to also scrutinize John Hagee, who endorsed John McCain, and indeed every other preacher in the U.S.?

John McCain did not sit under John Hagee for twenty years, Hagee did not baptize his children or wed McCain and his wife. McCain has not, so far as I know, donated thousands of dollars to Hagee's church nor does he consider Hagee a close personal friend and spiritual mentor. In other words, there is no relevant comparison between McCain's relationship with Hagee and Obama's relationship with Wright. There's even less reason to insist that if Jeremiah Wright is going to be deconstructed then so too should Pat Robertson and others. These preachers are not ideological influences on John McCain in the way that Wright has been on Obama.

So why do people like the women in this video clip keep insisting that there's some sort of equivalence between Hagee and Wright and that fairness demands that we treat both McCain's relationship to Hagee and Obama's relationship to Wright the same?

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Beautiful Birds

I went for a bit of a field trip yesterday to a park near my home and had one of these gorgeous creatures land in a branch just a few feet from me. The picture is very good but even it doesn't give a full sense of the loveliness of this little bird:

The bird is a hooded warbler and is found in mature woodlands throughout much of the eastern U.S.

Since I'm posting bird pics, here are three other beauties I was lucky enough to see on my hike. I should note that I didn't take any of these photos:

This is one is an indigo bunting. It's very common on telephone wires near open fields in the eastern U.S., but it's so small and just looks dark when seen in poor light that most people never notice them, which is a pity because if they're seen in good light they're breathtakingly pretty.

This striking blackbird is called a bobolink. It breeds in extensive open areas like old hay fields, etc. Since extensive open areas are becoming increasingly scarce this fellow is, unfortunsately, not particularly common.

This last gorgeous little jewel is a denizen of woodlands and parks and can be found pretty easily if you learn it's song. It's called a scarlet tanager.

When a few hours of walking produces so much beauty it gives one an incentive to get out more often. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a few other photos of some of the beautiful birdlife that can be seen in spring if one just looks around a little.

RLC