The silly season in politics is in full swing; Senator Barack Obama had to reject and denounce an endorsement from former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, even though the Illinois senator never sought or accepted such endorsement (and you can bet the Republicans will use that against Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination).
Senator John McCain accepted the endorsement from controversial Texas megachurch pastor, John Hagee, today. Hagee is considered to be a leading anti-Catholic voice and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League wasted no time blasting McCain for accepting the endorsement.
From Salon: According to Donohue, Hagee has “made a lot of money off bashing the Catholic Church and blames Catholics for the Holocaust.” What does it say about McCain that he would embrace such a figure? “This doesn’t speak well for him. He’s tolerating an endorsement by an inveterate bigot, and it’s been brought to his attention.”
Here’s a video clip of McCain on the endorsement. http://blip.tv/file/703427ÂÂ
Oh, McCain actively pursued this endorsement. There is just another huge amount of “right wring hypocrisy” in this one.
Sheesh. I’m willing too believe McCain wasn’t aware of Hagee’s anti-Catholicism prior to accepting the endorsement (I’ve never heard of Hagee until now).
But now that it’s out there, here needs to reject the endorsement — and then denounce it to meet the Hillary standard.
Or is it denounce and reject?
Seriously, McCain needs to reject this. If he’s going to reprimand a conservative talk radio host for highlighting Obama’s middle name, he needs to blast this Hagee creep.
Sorry for the typos.
Jubal,
Again let me preface this by saying that I am not a McCain basher and that while I do not agree with a lot of his positions I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and believe that he is a truly honorable man.
That being said, I would hope that McCain or his people would do some backround checking before accepting endorsements from folks like Hagee. Hagee, like Farrakhan, is free to support anyone he wants. Folks just should accept their support.
I can’t believe that you’ve never heard of Hagee. He’s been around for years. I have seen his sermons on TV many times. You’re right, he is a creep.
“Folks just should accept their support.”
I meant to say folks just shouldn’t accept their support.
Folks: Let he (or she) who is without sin (of making typographical errors) cast the first stone. Your typos are forgiven Matt; your inadvertent word choice too Sean
There you have it folks,,,,, Jubal and Sean find common ground. It almost gets you thinking of Isaiah 11:6.
I can’t believe that you’ve never heard of Hagee. He’s been around for years. I have seen his sermons on TV many times. You’re right, he is a creep.
Never have. I’m kind of surprised myself that I’ve never come across him. I know about anti-Catholic fundamentalists like Jack Chick, the where-is-he-now Jimmy Swaggert, but not Hagee.
Big campaigns can be unwieldy. people got sloppy for whatever reason. I don’t know the story on this, but it might be a situation where the hungry-for-conservative-endorsements McCain campaign learned Hagee would endorse and accepted it without looking into his background. Which is foolish in this day and a age when a quick Google search turns up a lot of information quickly.
Presidential campaigns can’t afford this kind of sloppiness, but as long as they are run by human beings, sloppiness will happen.
“it might be a situation where the hungry-for-conservative-endorsements McCain campaign learned Hagee would endorse and accepted it without looking into his background”
I agree that this is probably what happened. I just think that if someone wants to be POTUS they need to be more thorough in this day and age. As you stated, some yayhoo like me could run a Google search and find some dirt and simply blog away.
Hagee is a regular on TBN. He is also a fellow traveler with the Robertson and 700 Club crowd. Trust me you aren’t missing anything.
McCain may need conservative support, however I hope he does not sell out his soul to these type of folks. What appeals to many folks about McCain is that he does not cower to these type of folks. His speech at Falwell’s Liberty U. was kinda disappointing though.
Matt — you need to get out more. There is a world of media beyond Drudge and Town Hall.