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.
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