Comments on Athens & Jerusalem: More on Obama's Putative Islamic Upbringing

FLG: Then you have received Catholic theological i...

2008-08-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

FLG: Then you have received Catholic theological instruction. (Though I suspect it was more in the nature of "here is what Catholics believe", while an Indonesian public school would be more likely to have "here is what we Muslims believe."

Anonymous: I don't think Wright is peripheral; I would say he is very important, as is McCain's first marriage. McCain clearly is receiving a pass on his first marriage, for whatever reason. I think overall media bias weighs in favor of Obama, for this electoral cycle, but this is a case that shows that such bias isn't uniform, and all in one direction.

I actually took a Catholic Theo class.

2008-08-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

I actually took a Catholic Theo class.

Regarding the failure of McCain's first marriage, ...

2008-08-18T08:55:00.000-04:00

Regarding the failure of McCain's first marriage, it has received a lot less attention than various other more peripheral scandals. (The Jeremiah Wright nonsense.) Is this evidence of ongoing media bias in favor of McCain? He is getting a free pass on the issue.

FLG: Attended an Indonesian public school with Kor...

2008-08-17T20:57:00.000-04:00

FLG: Attended an Indonesian public school with Koranic instruction, I gather. No, it isn't comparable, because you didn't take a class in Catholic theology at Georgetown--did you?

Sam: McCain admits his behavior, but doesn't specify the worst aspects--e.g., he met and pursued Cindy while still married to wife #1. That he takes responsibility and blames himself should also be taken into account--but I would not take it as more than a very minor mitigation, and I would understand any voter who gave no moral weight whatsoever to his mea culpas. As for the comparison with Edwards--I wouldn't say that McCain's marital character is particularly better than Edwards's; it is his character in other spheres of life that is superior.

Does the fact that McCain admits his terrible beha...

2008-08-16T19:33:00.000-04:00

Does the fact that McCain admits his terrible behavior to his first wife, blames himself, takes responsibility, and that she now seems to support him count for anything?

Unrelated to this post, those who complain that Edwards is getting unfair treatment compared to McCain re: adultery don't get that distinction: one lied for two years and may have illegally paid his lover off; the other freely admits he did wrong. There's something called integrity in there, which is just as important a part of character.

Re: Obama received several years of Islamic religi...

2008-08-16T10:01:00.000-04:00

Re: Obama received several years of Islamic religious instruction

I haven't been following this very well, but didn't he simply attend an Islamic school? By the same reasoning, I received several years of Catholic theological instruction because I attended Georgetown.