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the whole wright thing confuses me because:
1. he's not saying anything much different from religious zealots blaming our problems on the non-religious factors in society. mostly attributed to sodomites, secularists, and socialists and any other amount of riff-raff that can be blamed for what ails the country atm.
2. in certain evangelical or fundamentalist churches, the idea the USA is Babylon and Catholicism and/or Protestantism is the whore of Babylon in Revelation is official doctrine. Even traditional brands have centric to their teachings (regardless of members' knowledge or adherence to this doctrine) that the "world" and the "christian/holy" are separate entities that should only converge at the most minimal levels when it comes in the form of the state putting it's nose into church affairs (but not necessarily the other way--but sometimes even then like the LDS or Branch Davidians or 4-squares). it seems as the level of disenfranchisement grows, so does the reliance on literal interpretation of the bible along with fire and brimstone sermons.
so you find these kinds of sermons in black churches dealing with some pretty fucked up social conditions, like residuals from slavery and poverty and crime, and you find these in white churches that are also trying to make sense of pretty fucked up social conditions, loss of political capital, poverty, and crime.
in inner city or rural black churches, I don't think you'd have a hard time finding a sermon questioning the "God bless America" mantra in the face of homelessness, millions of US babies sleeping with malnourished bellies, the failure of such a rich community to deposit at least some of that wealth into the shitty parts of our country. for taking us into a questionable war, for racking our debt skyhigh, and for our greed and excess. it would be very odd if a pastor or preacher did not end such a sermon with, "no, God damn America". You would have no problem finding such a sermon coming from Palin's main church. The themes would probably be built around the godlessness of this nation, it's homosexuality, it's greediness, and etc. The end of this sermon would probably be "God has damned America" You don't have to look very far either, this "fringe" position was basically voiced by Jerry Falwell after 9/11. And while people thought the timing was crass, don't confuse that with many millions of people actually believing in the spirit of the message: that this country is a heathen haven that will be leveled during the rapture (which incidentally will occur either tomorrow or shortly thereafter).
3. anyway, the point is that the message "God damn America" is not partisan. The sentiment is pretty common, actually. The capture of it and dissemination as if it's news was partisanship, and not much more can be made of it. Fire and Brimstone sermons from protestants fell out of favor over 100 years ago, so I doubt McCain would be sitting in a pew hearing a message like that. But George Bush and Sarah Palin certainly received heavy doses of similar messages.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann
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