God and GOP

Yet another friendly story about McCain. If A Dem has skipped that forum, it would have been turned into an instant mini-scandal by the press. McCain skipped it, and it's because he's "private about his faith"; and he "comes from an older generation, one that is more private about its faith." They throw in a few obligatory lines about battle to remind everyone of what a Great Hero Great McCain is, (what "battles" has McCain fought in? You'd think from reading the piece that he was some soldier down in the mud, when in fact he was dropping bombs on targets he couldn't even see; the only time he actually saw the enemy was when they captured and jailed him), and a conclusion about actions being stronger than words. Turn the article around -- make it about Obama or Clinton -- and the entire tone would have been radically changed. Suddenly, the candidate would be "risking the appearance of being indifferent to the concerns of the religious," "tone deaf on the issue of faith," "foolish," and Joe Klein and his pals would rush articles into print titled "What was he/she thinking?" with the subtext "I don't care about this, but the voters...."

It's an example of the many, many ways the two parties get unequal treatment. The
GOP gets a pass; the Dems have an endless series of hoops they have to jump through or be attacked as "unAmerican," or "hostile to faith," or "unpatriotic," or "effete" or "against the troops" and so on and so on and so on. The funny thing is, even when they jump through the hoops, they're attacked anyway.