Guilt by Association?

Every time I make a resolution that I'm not going to comment on the campaign circus.....well, there I go again. Allowing for the fact that I'm not a fan of anyone currently running for President, or in the current ugliness, POTUS, I fail to understand the flap over Barack Obama's minister. As it is being currently disucssed, if any evidence whatever comes to light that Mr. Obama has been in the church and heard so much as a word of any of Rev. Wright's "extreme" sermons, then he is somehow indicted and ruined as a candidate. OK, OK, maybe it's just another one of those things that lets people say "-well, he lied about it," but that's not really the important thing, at least not to me.

It seems to me that this is a classic case of guilt by association. It is as if I was permanently and irreparably damaged at some time in the past because I:

1. Listened to some sermon in church attacking abortion (or Masons). As a Catholic, this was/is practically inevitable, so I'm assuming this has occurred, although I have no specific memory of it. This, of course, means nothing, as it may all be repressed and just waiting to come out.

2. Watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (as I've said before, if you don't know what this is, toddle over to Google), which is so compelling that watching even a few minutes (out of your peripheral vision, while talking on the phone, drinking a beer, and being hit on the head) is bound to make me some kind of closet Nazi.

3. Listening to a speech by any of our Great Communicators (was that FDR, or JFK, maybe Ronnie Reagan or Slick Willie or......), which by this theory means whichever one I listened to first permanently infected me with his ideas, like a virus, and no matter what I think I think, oh, no, boyo, you're that, and forever.

We are therefore contaminated by the very "diversity" of our lives. By this theory we're all dirty, of course, and permanently screwed. When the campaign moves into the Trunks vs. Donks proper, I can't wait until whichever of the Democratic candidates is nominated accuses John McCain of being a latter day Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate. He was obviously brainwashed into a deep mole during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, and so how could you ever vote for.......exactly the same sort of thing that person or persons unknown are trying to do now by smearing Barack Obama with the brush of Rev. Wright.

But you get the idea. Unfortunately.