The John Hagee-Jeremiah Wright media file

I don't usually dive into the deep end of the political pool, but a longtime reader of mine overheard me saying something on a podcast, probably with Chip Franklin (who's always provoking me to say something I'll regret later), about why it is we haven't seen equally incriminating videos of John Hagee, the nutty televangelist who couldn't let a moment in the spotlight -- namely, while introducing John McCain at a political rally -- pass without pouring boiling oil on the heads of anti-Christ-worshipping papists everywhere.

So this reader sent me a detailed reply, which I admired for its balanced and well-argued points. I haven't really seen the case for not blowing up the Hagee deal quite so well made.

I've marked the points that I agreed with and disagreed with the most.

In the podcast you debated whether there was Hagee video and when it would come. As a TV Evangelist, he's on somewhere on the dial every week as Cornerstone Television (link).

And in terms of "incriminating video" it's the same place as the both the full length and edited Wright videos: YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uViQ0hVV57Q
was posted January 1. This is where I saw first saw it in March: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNi7tPanUA

And this CNN segment from March about the controversy (camcorder crossed to YouTube) contains a nice McCain sound bite around the 1:50 mark that should have been copied by Obama when addressing his problem with Wright.

So why didn't the Hagee clip play bigger in the news media?
- Because the sound bite isn't as clean as "God Damn America"
- Because it only attacks Catholicism directly
- McCain separated himself more clearly and quickly
- There were candidates and media outlets that felt they could get an advantage by tarring Obama, but not as much from McCain (I find this one hard to believe!--AB)
- The media "noticed it" when McCain was the presumptive nominee already
- McCain did not go to Hagee's church for 20 years or get a book title from him
- Because Hagee's reaction is to insist that he is not anti-Catholic, just pro-Israel
- Or more simply, Hagee backpedalled while Wright dug in deeper.

Interesting points, all, especially the book title one. (I book-publish on the side, so I guess I'd say that.) But I think there's an overarching point to be made, which is that the phrase "double standard" should almost never be used when comparing two (or three) people running for the same political office. The reality is that we judge each candidate by different standards. And in large part that's not the media's fault. It's because Clinton, Obama and McCain have all told us how they'd like to be judged. By his own standards, Obama wants to be a uniter. So when his principal spiritual mentor is a divider, he needs to come up with a better reason why that's OK/not OK with him. And then the divider needs to either be contrite or go off somewhere and shut up, which is what Hagee did and Wright didn't do.

Look, I think I'd actually enjoy sitting through Rev. Wright's sermons, and I do wonder if this isn't just an ecclesiastical version of Manny being Manny. But the fact remains that Obama's close ties to his pastor stopped him from coming out as forcefully as McCain, who merely had to distance himself from a preacher he barely knew. And maybe Obama's response would be the decent and appropriate one in real life. But running for president isn't real life.