Several people have noticed a difference between Barack Obama’s handling of Louis Farrakhan with his handling last year of Donnie McClurkin, the pastor who made a number of controversial statements about homosexuality.  When pressed about McClurkin’s support last October, Obama said this:

One of the things that always comes up in presidential campaigns is, if you’ve got multiple supporters all over the place, should the candidate then be held responsible for the every single view of every one of his supporters? And obviously that’s not possible. And if I start playing that game, then it will be very difficult for me to do what I think I can do best, which is bring the country together.

But when pressed about Farrakhan’s support in Tuesday’s debate, Obama took a different tack:

I have to say I don’t see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There’s no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word “reject” Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word “denounce,” then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.

From a theoretical standpoint, it seems like Obama got it right the first time.  If a candidate had to reject every supporter who held a controversial viewpoint on one issue or another, they’d quickly find themselves with little time left for campaigning.  But from a practical standpoint, with false accusations of anti-Semitism, black nationalism, and secret ties to Islam all swirling, Obama had little choice but to distance himself as far as possible from the perfect storm of Louis Farrakhan.

The irony is that both John McCain and Hillary Clinton found themselves in similar situations this week.  McCain’s campaign yesterday was forced to run damage control after McCain touted the endorsement of Texas pastor John Hagee, despite past comments by Hagee linking the Catholic Church to Hitler and Hurricane Katrina to gay pride parades.  Under fire from the media, McCain issued this D&R statement:

Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee’s views, which I obviously do not.

And after learning of Hispanic community leader Adelfa Callejo’s statement that Barack Obama “simply has a problem that he happens to be black,” Hillary Clinton’s campaign had it’s own D&R moment:

“After confirming that [the comments] were accurately portrayed, Senator Clinton, of course, denounces and rejects them.”

But does America really need on-the-record confirmation that John McCain doesn’t believe the Catholic Church is the Antichrist or that Hillary Clinton doesn’t believe her opponent’s biggest problem is that he’s black?  Can’t we just issue a disclaimer over the remainder of this campaign like they do at the beginning of DVDs?  “The views expressed by this candidate’s supporters are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of the candidate.”

The thing about America is that along with being a melting pot of races and cultures, it’s also a melting pot of crazies.  And seeing as how there are now only three viable candidates left in the race, there are only so many places for crazy people to go.  (Although admirably, a lot of them seem to be sticking with Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee.)

The question is whether the recent D&R games are a passing phase or whether the media will continue pressuring candidates to take responsibility for everything their craziest supporters have ever said or done.  In other words, will the 2008 election be decided on the issues or by which candidate has the least amount of nutcases on his or her team?

UPDATE: Correction.  Apparently, John McCain has denounced but not rejected the support of Pastor John Hagee.  Which is an enormous difference that the media should spend the next several days focused on.