One of the stranger characteristics I've observed in the left is the need to project or find all of one's own faults in one's opponents. During this election cycle, this trend has reached near-epic absurdity: every time a Democrat is discovered to have done something wrong, a similar fault must be imputed a corresponding Republican. It's reached the point where if a Democrat were found to have kept a malnourished giraffe in their back yard, there would be immediate claims that Republicans, too, starve their giraffes -- and an anonymously-sourced anecdote about John McCain's boyhood pet hamster would suddenly appear near the front page of The New York Times.

Think I'm kidding? Well, only a little. (I should have said "on", not "near". ;-))

First, there's this hilarious column which just ran in Newsweek. The content itself is self-contradicting and nearly incoherent (Bush is an idiot for providing military support to the Lebanese Army -- yet the author then admits they failed to challenge Hezbollah because they feared being outgunned!), but it's the title itself which is most amusing: "Who's the Real Appeaser?"

The left recently erupted in apoplectic, vein-popping spasms of rage when Bush argued that appeasement doesn't work. One response was: We're not appeasers! Yet a disinterested observer might wonder: "If the media and Democrats aren't actually in favor of appeasement, then why on earth are they offended by Bush's arguments against it? Shouldn't they endorse those remarks instead?" Good question! You're clearly thinking too much.

And of course, given the playground-level of maturity involved, the other inevitable line of attack is: "I know you are, but what am I?" Bush spoke against appeasement, and made it sound bad. The left appeases. So Bush must be an appeaser too -- of some sort. So we get an incoherent column in Newsweek which implies that Bush must be "the real appeaser" -- and then takes him to task for being too willing to use military force against bad actors!

So "real appeasement" is now defined as "use of force to oppose someone"? How Orwellian. But it must be so, since Bush must be found to possess this bad trait as well.

(Again, this guy is the editor of Newsweek International!)

For a second example, consider Reverend Wright. How many of you Christians or Jews have attended, even briefly, religious congregations which held "values" which were proudly proclaimed as being skin-color specific? Raise your hands, please. Oh, none of you? Clearly, you're in denial.

But, since we all now know Obama has a racist pastor, it must ALSO be true that John McCain has a racist pastor. Hence the recently-manufactured flap about John Hagee. Only problem here is that (a) John Hagee isn't a racist, (b) John Hagee isn't and has never been John McCain's pastor, nor did McCain sit in Hagee's congregation for two decades. (Nor call him a mentor, father figure, ask him to open his campaign in prayer, etc.) But let's not let two tiny little facts get in the way of a useful attack on a man's character, shall we?

Starting from the last, Hagee has only endorsed McCain. You don't need to validate every word of every person who endorses you -- Obama certainly hasn't. Louis Farrakhan (another notoriously racist associate) endorsed Obama -- yet rather than renounce or reject Farrakhan's support, Obama only said: "I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy." That was apparently good enough for Obama (the media pursued no further) but a completely different standard is demanded of McCain.

Second, there's no evidence that Hagee's a racist. When Bill Donohue (President of the Catholic League) attacked Amanda Marcotte (who blogged for the Edwards campaign), he was treated as an unscrupulous ring-wing buffoon. But now that he's leveling charges against a fellow conservative, his allegations are repeated uncritically. Yet Donohue's charges are simply false. In the remarks in question, Hagee was speaking about a future unbelieving church which worships the Antichrist (as depicted in the book of Revelation), not the Roman Catholic church of today. (I have listened to an audio recording of the remarks myself -- they say no such thing. I am appalled at Donohue's behavior here.)

Apparently, that meme didn't gain enough traction, so the latest attack on Hagee (and thus, by proxy, McCain) is that Hagee "suggested" God might have allowed the Holocaust, in part, to help create the nation of Israel. McCain finally bit the bait: "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

(Again, compare with Obama's non-rejection of Farrakhan's endorsement.)

Yet everyone who believes in God must admit that God at least allowed the Holocaust, no? And certainly international support for the founding of Israel was, at least in part, a byproduct of the Holocaust, was it not? Doesn't seem a very hard set of dots to connect, though I myself don't claim to know God's mind in this matter.

The Torah itself teaches that God allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery, and allowed the Jews to suffer horribly as slaves in Egypt, for generations, in order to found the nation of Israel. So will John McCain now reject the support of all religious Jews (and Christians) who give credence to that "deeply offensive and indefensible" idea -- not to mention the offending document from which it originates?

He certainly must, if he is to be consistent.

Score: Media: +1, McCain: -1, Honest Debate: -2