Right away, the first pastor they found is John Hagee.
According to a New York Times magazine interview this week, John McCain sought out the endorsement of Hagee:.
"It's true that [John] McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."
NEW UPDATE MARCH 11, 2008: John McCain defended Pastor Hagee's comments today, saying he believe Hagee's claims that his statements were taken out of context:
I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you'd give him a chance to respond. He says he has never been anti-Catholic, but I repudiate the words that create that impression
Now, comes word that the media has found another one, Rod Parsley.
Despite his call for the U.S. to win the "hearts and minds of the Islamic world," Sen. John McCain recruited the support of an evangelical minister who describes Islam as "anti-Christ" and Mohammed as "the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil."
McCain sought the support of Pastor Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio at a critical time in his campaign in February, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was continuing to draw substantial support from the Christian right.
The media manufactured so called firestorm surrounding Hagee went absolutely nowhere, and this new one will likely go just as far I suspect. That's because the media is trying to pull the wool over folk's eyes. Of course, the media understands there is a huge difference between the three cases, however they are hoping the folks aren't as smart as them. I believe they are.
Reverend Wright was Barack Obama's pastor. In fact, he was his pastor for twenty plus years. He married Obama and he baptized his kids. These other two pastors allied themselves with McCain for short periods of time during campaigns. The media is hoping that the guilt by association will carry the same weight. It won't.
in fact, the association between Parsley, Hagee and McCain is much more similar to the association between Farakhan, Ayers and Obama. That's why attacks on Obama vis a vis Farakhan have done absolutely no damage. Ayers relationship to Obama is more difficult to read and that's why that association has had an unclear amount of damage. I have already pointed out the way in which I would attack Obama vis a vis Ayers
Reverend Wright created such a firestorm that Obama needed to make a speech to address the controversy. In it, he defended Wright however distanced himself from his most vicious remarks. He has subsequently had to distance himself from Wright entirely after he continued making the same remarks.
I won't defend the remarks that Hagee and Parsley made, nor will I defend McCain's relationship with them. He should have known better and he should have exhibited better judgement than reaching out to anyone that owns such hateful rhetoric, but we are talking apples and oranges. Barack Obama was in the company of Reverend Wright for twenty years while he spewed anti American hate. He never challenged him. He never left the church. He never did anything. How is he expected to defend America from invaders when he can't defend America from his pastor?
John McCain accepted the endorsement of two pastors that made vicious and vulgar comments about people of other faiths. They never made them in his presence mind you, and he may or may not have known about the controversial comments when he accepted the endorsement.
Barack Obama either knew full well that his pastor was full of anti American hate and did nothing, or he is so oblivious to his surroundings that he never noticed for twenty years that he is. Either way, this is a night and day comparison and while the media seems to think most folks will be fooled,I suspect that the folks are smarter than that.
8 comments:
Guess what. Nobody cares about any of the "Pastors". Americans care about the soaring National Debt and budget deficits. We care about falling real incomes. We care about $4.00/gallon gas and $130/barrel oil. We care about an unnecessary war that has killed/wounded 34,000 young Americans, cost close to $1 trillion and costs $200 billion per year.
Sorry. Your Pastor stuff is BORING. Try talking about something that matters.
"Guess what. Nobody cares about any of the "Pastors". Americans care about the soaring National Debt and budget deficits. We care about falling real incomes."
Guess what. In Obamanai's eyes, nobody else is human being except them - hence the "American people".
Just wait to Nov. and see who the American People really are.
The notion that you are the American People is boring. Try find something more interesting - if you can.
No one cares about Hagee or Parsley, they don't scare anyone. They are insignificant. Wright, on the other hand scares the crap of whites and even some blacks.
The whole pastor thing is a waste of time and a manufactroversy on all sides.
McCain isn't Hagee or Parsley and Obama isn't Wright. Case closed.
When it comes to religious nutcases, no group has a corner on the market. All the nutcases are delusional and scary. But, the guilt-by-association yadayada is dribble.
Wright doesn't scare me. Ignoring one's pastor is one of the oldest American traditions.Get me out of healthcare hell and you can worship your socks for all I care.None of these candidates want to dwell too much on what these "holy men" with campaign contributions mean to them. McCain can flush Hagee now, the check has cleared.
It is too much to ask that we vet a relitively unknown presidential candidate? A candidate for junior FBI officer is checked out for his/her associations. What do the late John Gotti and Barack Obama have in common? They both utter cries of "guilt by association" (albeit one from the grave). And both have so many, many unsavory associations to cry about.
The difference between Obama and Farakhan, and McCain and Hagee is that McCain asked for their endorsement. Obama never asked Farakhan for his. In this I see people form their hearts to believe as they desire, rather than fact. There is no evidence Wright preached this angry sermon more than once. If there was, trust, we would have seen the videos of Wright in more than one outfit preaching this type of sermon. The manufacturers had to listen to hundreds of hours of his speaking to find this, as they were on the hunt. The video was cut just so, so it could appear the worst, and then Obama was accused of listening for 20 years.
I'm just glad the vangelicals who believed McCain was a godly man now see. He claimed to be a man of faith, then he didn't show up for the talk on faith like Obama and Hillary did. What real man of faith wouldn't show up for that televised meeting? POLITICS AS USUAL.
He didn't show up again for the vote for increasing veterans educational benefits. If he voted against, again, the veterans can see where he truly stands in their fight for benefits, and Obama and Hillary will call him on it. If he votes for it Bush would be displeased. So instead he does what he does best in a political dilemma--he stays away. Then he attacks Obama, saying he never went to war. Well, McCain did go, so that gives him the right to deny the veterans who don't have multi-million dollar wives to pay for their educations to receive what they deserve. The vets deserve it all because they earned it. John McCain is a vote dodging politician. And that cannot be defended, no matter how you look at it. He'll say anything to earn him self a few votes, so he cannot be trusted.
Love_my_country_USA
All right, we have a plethora of eclectic thought in these comments. I did my job of being a provocateur.
Let me address as much of what has been said as I can. First, anyone that pretends to speak for the entire nation as the first commenter did is simply full of hubris.
Second, another commenter said that as long as Obama can fix the health care crisis they don't care who he associates with. That is true, however what makes you think that he can? If he shows such poor judgement in this association what makes you think he will show good judgement in dealing with the health care crisis.
If you have been reading my blog, you know that I have been introducing stories of doctors being railroaded and abused. I have opened up a pandora's box of corruption that leads me to believe that for the most part it is run much like a mafioso. Obama says nothing about addressing the systemic corruption in the system. What is he going to do about the systemic corruption that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is perpetrating on the system? Nothing, that's because he doesn't even know it exists.
Third, this is NOT about which side has more nut case preachers supporting them. This is about associations and judgements. Barack Obama stood by in a church while his country was attacked for 20 years and did nothing. John McCain has no such relationship in his past.
While it is true that Obama didn't seek Farakhan's endorsement, he did go to the million man march and tacitly approved of his methods.
As for the GI bill, if you read McCain's statement, you would know that McCain has his own competing GI Bill. The reason McCain doesn't support the Webb bill is because it gives the same benefits to those that only enlist for one tour as those that enlist for multiple tours. This discourages re enlistment. You, much like Obama himself, have only rhetoric and no understand.
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