On tonight's NBC nightly news, Tim Russert breathlessly concluded that no candidate has ever had a spiritual advisor who has done more damage to his campaign than Rev. Wright has done to Barack Obama.
The Obama-Wright distraction isn't unprecedented in American political history.(*) It's not even unique to the 2008 election.(*) Televangelist Rod Parsley, the man John(*) McCain calls his "spiritual guide" has, like Wright, claimed the U.S. government was complicit in facilitating black genocide.(*) Parsley also asserts that the United States was founded, in part, to destroy the "false religion" of Islam.(*)
The only meaningful difference I see between Parsley and Wright is that Tim Russert doesn't breathlessly exclaim over Parsley's every utterance.(*) If Russert is right about the uniqueness of Rev. Wright, it is only because he applies one standard when it comes to Obama and another for McCain.(*) Can anyone shame him into doing real journalism?
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