McCain and Hagee

Now it's John McCain's turn to face awkward questions about a lunatic pastor (link features NSFW pics):

Hagee also called Hurricane Katrina "the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." because the city was planning a gay pride parade. Do serious people actually believe s**t like that? I thought saying things like that got you in a straightjacket and not presidential politics.

When presented with Hagee's quotes, McCain distanced himself from them. However, just two weeks ago, McCain said to George Stephanopolous that he was "glad to have his endorsement." After the Obama / Wright conflageration, that isn't going to fly for very long. The press knows that and I think McCain does, too.

Look, I think John McCain is the first decent human being to run for president since Bob Dole 12 years ago and he doesn't want to attack Barack Obama's faith, particularly when the media and Hillary Clinton are doing it for him. I think, like the first President Bush, that he would like to avoid a presidential election becoming a stupid debate about an invisible man who lives in the sky.

Idiot bloggers are screaming for McCain's head because he won't jump on the Jeremiah Wright gravy train of glory. That's why I call them idiot bloggers. John McCain has been in politics for a very long time and is savvy enough to know that the second he attacks Wright, he opens himself up to questions about his relationship with Hagee and the ghost of Jerry Falwell returns to haunt him.

The stupid pricks in the GOP's evangelical base hate McCain and he isn't real fond of them either. But, while I disagree with his assessment, he feels he needs those jackals and doesn't need the hassle of throwing an evil crank like Hagee under the bus.

I'm not sure that's true. If any Republican can win without evangelicals, it's John McCain. Furthermore, it isn't like those a**holes are going to vote for Obama. The worst thing that can happen is that they stay home. McCain is already on the record calling Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" and Obama wrote a book about how wonderful Wright is. If it the argument stays at that level, McCain wins.

But McCain was almost killed by his little pantomine of kissing Falwell's ring at Liberty University last year and I'm not sure that the Lazarus act works twice. If Hagee becomes an issue - and the New York Times started the ball rolling this morning - he can't do any less than Obama did in denouncing him personally without getting killed.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at May 6, 2008 07:51 AM