McCain Dumps Both Hagee and Parsley

By RICK KLEIN with JOHN SANTUCCI

May 23, 2008

This is one way to avoid those new baggage surcharges.
Sen. John McCain's rough run continues -- the unending stream of lobbyists now joined by a new pastor and an old pastor in being shown the door. (One day, two rejected endorsements -- there's a sign of cardiovascular strength.)
Whose health should give us more concern -- McCain's, or the McCain campaign's?
Much more on the former Friday -- with the release of his long-delayed medical records. (Three hours for 400 pages -- read fast -- and the AP got a preview to set the day's agenda.)
As for the campaign -- Team McCain unloads the laundry in a week where the main story has still been the Democrats. But all that time to rest and rejuvenate while the Democrats spar has resulted in what, exactly?
McCain, R-Ariz., may be a young and vibrant 71, but his campaign (in the midst of its roughest week since wrapping up the nomination) suddenly seems tired before its time.
"Republicans are increasingly concerned that he could wind up badly outgunned, saddled with serious deficiencies in money, organization and partisan intensity against the likely Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama," Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen report for Politico.
"After making a promising debut as their nominee, McCain has worried many Republicans by seeming to flounder during the past few weeks," they write. "Some see the McCain campaign as a pale imitation of the well-financed Bush campaigns, both models of precision and ruthless efficiency."
The AP's Philip Elliott: "Republican John McCain has been slow to take advantage of his potential head start for the presidency against Democrats, who are better organized and generate more excitement among voters."
It was the Nazi comments that put McCain over the edge with the Rev. John Hagee, after months of controversy over the endorsement: "crazy and unacceptable," he called Hagee's words, in rejecting his endorsement perhaps minutes before Hagee withdrew it.
"A source close to McCain told ABC News the Arizona senator thinks these sentiments [about Hitler doing God's will] are crazy, and that back in February when the campaign accepted Hagee's endorsement, no one on the campaign, and certainly not McCain, had any idea that Hagee believed these types of things," ABC's Jake Tapper reports.
The Rev. Rod Parsley joined Hagee overboard -- and it only took hours, not months, for McCain to toss him there.
"I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn't endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement," McCain said in a statement Thursday, per ABC's Bret Hovell.
Just hours earlier, ABC's Brian Ross reported on "Good Morning America" that Parsley had called Islam "the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil," and said Islam is an "anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world."
It all serves to obscure McCain's message: "At the start of his Northern California fundraising and campaign trip, the dominant news of the day was not on McCain's official agenda," per the San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci and John Wildermuth.
"McCain's visit underscored how the senator's presidential campaign has been challenged on multiple fronts by potentially damaging news. Those stories included the planned and limited release of his health records to a handful of media outlets today -- raising questions about his medical history -- along with a new focus on his ties to lobbyists."
What makes the Hagee/Parsley issues particularly troublesome for McCain is the damage it does to the his brand; how easy is it to point out that this would not have happened to McCain 2000?
"Mr. McCain has been courting Christian conservatives after attacking them eight years ago as 'agents of intolerance,' " Neela Banerjee and Michael Luo write in The New York Times. "The latest Hagee remarks to surface may strike at the heart of Mr. McCain's efforts to reach a critical group of voters, Jews, some of whom have viewed Mr. Obama with suspicion."
"In the end, it was just too much," David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network writes. (And what took so long?)
It could have a lasting impact: "John McCain's rejection of John Hagee's endorsement today is the starkest example yet of McCain's ham handed approach to dealing with the Christian Right and with handling religious matters generally," Beliefnet's Dan Gilgoff writes. "It's a striking contrast to era of George W. Bush."
Gilgoff continues: "Having been newly chastened by the Hagee ordeal, McCain may be loath to reach out to other Religious Right figures. Come November, that cold shoulder could have McCain in more political hot water than controversial endorsements from evangelical leaders."

McCain, Parsley and Hagee

McCain Pastor: Islam Is a 'Conspiracy of Spiritual Evil'

By BRIAN ROSS, AVNI PATEL and REHAB EL-BURI

May 22, 2008—

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.
At a campaign appearance in Cincinnati, McCain introduced Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide."
Campaign aides positioned Parsley right behind McCain for photographers, apparently unconcerned about Parsley's well-established denunciations of the Islamic faith in a book "Silent No More" and on DVDs of sermons about Islam.
"Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world," Parsley says on the DVDs reviewed by ABC News.
"America was founded with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed," Parsley says, "and I believe Sept. 11, 2001 was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore."
Parsley's views and his connection to the McCain campaign are now beginning to show up on Arab Web sites and newspapers.
Al Moheet, a regional Arabic Web site operating in Egypt, carries the story with a picture of McCain and the headline: "McCain's Spiritual Adviser Calls for the Destruction of Islam."
"If there is a McCain presidency, he will start with a serious handicap in the Arab world," said former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou. "And the handicap is that it is already assumed in Muslim countries that they will not get a fair shake from a McCain administration," said Kiriakou.
In a statement to ABC News about Parsley's comments, McCain's campaign said the senator "obviously strongly rejects such statements." The campaign did not answer the question of whether it was aware of Parsley's widely publicized statements prior to seeking his endorsement in February.
McCain has not disassociated himself from the pastor, but the campaign statement said, "Just because someone endorses John McCain doesn't mean he endorses all of their views."
McCain has repeatedly urged the U.S. to show respect for Islam. "Our goal must be to win the 'hearts and minds' of the vast majority of moderate Muslims who do not want their future controlled by a minority of violent extremists," McCain told the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles on March 26.
But well before he was asked to endorse McCain, Pastor Parsley took a much different view about moderate Muslims in his book and sermons. "I would counter respectfully that what some people call extremists are instead mainstream Muslim believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam," he said.
McCain said in his March speech, "We must remember that our freedoms are not only defended by our diplomacy and military power but, very importantly, by the decency and respect with which we treat one another."
Parsley says he can be silent no more about Islam. "I will rail against the idea that the God of Christianity and the God of Islam are the same being. I will sound the alarm about the pernicious agenda of the enemies of my country and the cross of my Christ, and I will proclaim the truth at every opportunity."
Parsley, through a spokesperson at his church, declined to be interviewed by ABC News.
In a statement, a spokesperson, Gene Pierce, said Parsley's comments "were in response to militant Islamic leaders' repeated pledges to kill Americans and destroy the United States and Western culture and democracies."
His Web site, said the spokesperson, "also makes a distinction between Muslim terrorists and the vast majority of peaceful Muslims."
Parsley says he has served in the public ministry for more than 30 years and now has a congregation of more than 12,000 people.
He hosts the television show "Breakthrough" on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, aired on 1,400 television and cable channels around the world.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

McCain's Jeremiah Wright?

By FRANK RICH

BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and

endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including

twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.
Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”
Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it.

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a

pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001,

televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.
None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an

endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as

we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”

An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr. McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of

a vicious smear in his party’s South Carolina primary of 2000.

This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting) campaign and has gone so far as to

criticize (ineffectually) North Carolina’s Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that state’s current primary. Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with black people in his tour of “forgotten” America. Speaking of Katrina in New Orleans, he promised that “never again” would a federal recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale.

This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romney’s

dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up to a point. Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.
Mr. McCain took his party’s stingier line on Katrina aid and twice opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government response. Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he called for “a conversation” about whether anyone should “rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.” Whatever, whenever, never mind.

For all this primary season’s obsession with the single (and declining) demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The Census Bureau

announced last week that half the country’s population growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably alienated from the G.O.P.
Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah, it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin.

Frank Rich is a columnist for The New York Times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Rich