Another Hagee roundup. (UPDATED)
TPM has put together a series of Hagee-related clips, including several moments of unhinged ranting (viewer discretion advised) and McCain’s acceptance of his endorsement. What some of us Catholics are still waiting for is not simply an acknowledgment that McCain doesn’t endorse everything Hagee spouts (no kidding), but rather a sensible explanation of why he sought Hagee’s support in the first place and why he feels “very honored” to receive it.
Update: Pat Lang is waiting too.
Update 2: Missed this before–apparently Deal Hudson takes McCain’s weak attempt to smooth things over with Catholics as evidence of his willingness to reach out to them.
Update 3: Rick Garnett over at Mirror of Justice urges us to get real. He writes that it’s silly to expect candidates to disavow support from those who believe the Catholic Church’s teachings are false. Agreed. Good thing no one is calling for that then. (That “great whore” business is a bit much, no?) It’s equally off the mark, Rick says, to call for McCain and Obama to renounce their supporters who happen to believe the Catholic Church is a “force for evil and/or a den of lunatics.” That’s “a bit opportunistic,” Rick argues. A couple points: First, Obama did not seek Farrakhan’s support–I believe he has gone out of his way to avoid it–yet McCain courted Hagee’s. McCain even said he was “very honored” to receive it. So the comparison limps. Second, Obama has explicitly denounced (and rejected!) Farrakhan for his anti-Jewish babble. All McCain offers is a wishy-washy statement about not agreeing with everyone who endorsed him. Why can’t McCain come out and say he rejects the anti-Catholic drivel that issues from Hagee’s mouth? Even that raving liberal John Edwards eventually caved on his blogger’s ill-advised, offensive remarks about Mary (in an extremely disappointing way). So why should McCain get a pass?
This does show a tin ear on McCain’s part. After all, this is not 2000 when he courageously took on people of Hagee’s ilk, like the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberson, and the Bob Jones school that is anything but a university. In the wake of the Bush Administration, when conservative evangelical power reached its pinnacle, especially during its first term, even many evangelicals are taking a fresh look at who they want to speak for them. they seem to be rejecting Dobson, Robertson, Hagee, et. al. Heck, even Huckabee is not of this ilk.
The political winds are blowing in a different direction. Was McCain worried that wothout Hagee’s endorsement he would loose Texas to Huckabee? I doubt it. Does he want what we might call the Hagee vote come November, especially given the high price he will have to pay, which he already has paid? Whoever thought this was a good idea on his campaign staff needs to wake up.
Didn’t McCain say last nigh the’s going to run a civil and respectful campaign? What does that mean?
They made Obama disavow Farrakhan.
I think Mccain should not onl ydisavow this nut/mutt but also Rush, Ann Coulter and the bomb thjrowers on the right.
But maybe he’s too desperate or a man of courage(not) to do so.
I have a hypothesis about why McCain may have sought Hagee’s endorsement. My guess is that McCain may have acted on a suggestion from his best Democratic (oops…Independent) friend in the Senate, Joe Lieberman. Lieberman has been conspicuous in his presence over the last month or so at McCain rallies. Lieberman is also an ardent supporter of Israel. In fact, last July Lieberman said the following at a gathering of “Christians United for Israel,” an organization headed by Hagee:
“That greeting [a Hebrew greeting given by Lieberman] is especially fitting for you because you have come to Washington not just as men or women, Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. You are here as Christians United for Israel. You represent a powerful force of people of faith in America who have pledged to never forget thee, O Jerusalem. . . .
I begin by thanking your founder, Pastor John Hagee. I would describe Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah uses to describe Moses, he is an “Eesh Elo Kim,” a man of God because those words fit him; and, like Moses he has become the leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of and defense of Israel . . . .”
Lieberman’s speech is quoted at length in a salon.com article from last summer:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/26/lieberman_hagee/
If you read it, you’ll see that Lieberman heaps praise on Hagee.
Could it be that neither McCain nor Lieberman knew of Hagee’s anti-Catholicism and that McCain sought Hagee’s endorsement because Lieberman urged him to do so as a way for McCain to establish additional pro-Israel credibility?
Bob, aren’t Rush and Coulter still bashing McCain? According to the news (I can’t watch Rush or Coulter directly because of my hypertension), they’ve both been vowing to take McCain down if he became the GOP’s nominee. Maybe Rush is messing with the oxycontin again.
What Hagee is messing with is a whole other problem. I keep waiting to see him start haulin’ vipers outn’ a gunny sack.
So the principle here is that 1) it’s so mean to say that someone else’s religious beliefs are false; and therefore 2) Hagee’s religious beliefs are false.
Stuart, if I thought that, I wouldn’t be a Catholic. But perhaps you see Hagee as somehow more harmless than the rest of us, and I invite you to make what would be, I’m sure, an interesting case.
Well, I wouldn’t defend everything that Hagee has said. On the subject of Catholicism, I see someone who is indeed blunt and colorfully rude, and who has what is presumably a false interpretation of Revelation. But I think Catholics should be grown-up enough to realize that not everyone agrees with their religion, and that some non-Catholic people will quite sincerely believe that 1) the Catholic Church has done some evil things in the past, and 2) the Catholic Church makes false and presumptuous claims of religious authority.
It is not a case of not being grown up enough to understand that not everybody agrees with our religion. We’re even grown up enough to have disagreements among ourselves. Neither is it the case, in this instance, that anybody is taking issue with Hagee’s religious beliefs per se, as bizarre and unfounded as we may find them to be. The issue is politics and what seeking Hagee’s endorsement means for the politics of Sen. McCain, who is himself a Catholic.
I think the principle in play is more sophisticated than the one articulated earlier in the thread. It goes something like: 1) If you bring your religious beliefs into the public square, which is a fine thing to do, and these beliefs seek to gain influence in electoral politics 2) Your religious beliefs, insofar as they gain any influence on candidates for public office, become a matter of concern to voting citizens, especially if your beliefs result in a politics of exclusion, even if concerned voters do not belong to one of the groups you seek to marginalize.
Is it the case that McCain is more grown up, or just following bad political advice from advisors who do not realize the dwindling influence of men, like Pastor Hagee, even among evangelicals? Maybe he feels the need to some evangelical support in the wake of James Dobson’s pledge not to cast a vote for president for the first time in his life due to the fact that McCain is the Republican nominee and Hagee is the best he could get. I tend to believe it is the latter reason. Therefore, it is politics and not theological maturity that caused McCain to seek Hagee’s support.
Oh, and just for the record, I do believe that many of Pastor Hagee’s religious beliefs are demonstrably false. For example, his belief that the creation stories in Genesis constitute an actual account of human origins. Even on the basis of the biblical text, which of the two stories? Were human beings the first created among the animate creatures (Gen 2) or the last created (Gen. 1)? Besides, this thread is more about “What was McCain, a Catholic, thinking?” than about Hagee’s “blunt and colorfully rude” behavior.
I suppose the pivot point here is whether you think Hagee is disagreeing with Catholicism or attacking Catholics. I think his vehemence tends to push him toward, if not put him in, the latter category.
Of course, if someone runs for president, they’re going to get unsolicited endorsements from people who are off the wall. While I find McCain an admirable individual and a sometimes-attractive candidate, his acknowledgment and acceptance of Hagee’s endorsement seems unwise.
I’m late back to this (shoveling almost a foot of snow), but Jean is right, of course.
I’d still like to know what Mccain means by a “civil, respectful campaign.”
Let’s not forget that, unlike Farrakhan’s unsolicited endorsement of Obama, which Obama wisely repudiated, Sen. McCain actively sought Hagee’s endorsement. He did not just passively accept it. He sought it in the belief that racking up whatever Evangelical endorsements he can get will help deliver votes in November. I think this strategy risky and likely to diminish what up to now has been one of McCain’s periennial strengths, his appeal to independents and even to conservative leaning Democrats. Now that he’s headed in this direction, I look for the next step McCain makes to be taking a harder line on immigration, which, up to now, he has been level-headed about.
“I’d still like to know what Mccain means by a ‘civil, respectful campaign.’”
Maybe he will arrange for Pastor Hagee to appear in commercials wherein he says that while the Catholic Church is still the Whore of Babylon, she is kind of cute nonetheless.
Scott–
You said McCain is a Catholic. Not that it matters much, but I think he was raised an Episcopalian and sometime in the last 10 years or so became a Baptist. Maybe he’s embraced Catholicism, but I haven’t heard that.
No matter his religious or political affiliation, I do admire that he and his second wife adopted a Bangladeshi girl from an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s order. If I remember correctly, the McCains knew the girl would need extensive medical attention at the time they adopted her, yet they took on that burden. Very admirable, as is McCain’s decision not to try to score any political points for the adoption of a Third World child.
Thanks William for the correction. I agree with Jean that McCain in many ways McCain is an attractive candidate with a lot of crossover appeal. His connivance with figures like Hagee jeopardize this appeal. I also agree that McCain is an admirable person on many levels, including the example you give. With Bob i wonder what being endorsed by the likes of Hagge protends for the promised “civil and respectful campaign.”
Scott–
I have to wonder if the Hagee affair will hurt McCain much come November. It will probably be well out of the news cycle by then. If McCain is really concerned about continuing political damage, however, what he needs to do to counterbalance Hagee’s endorsement is search out the endorsement of a Catholic notable with some fire and brimstone demagoguery to impart about evangelicals. (Just kidding!)
I also don’t think Obama or Clinton will benefit much from the Hagee matter.
Who’ll benefit the most? Hagee, of course. We all know who is his now, we’ve seen his “awesome wall chart, as one poster aptly put it, and the money should come rolling in for a new addition to his Texas megachurch with the 17,000-person congregation.
“John McCain grew up Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian high school. For at least 15 years, he has been listed as an Episcopalian in authoritative directories such as the Almanac of American Politics and Congressional Quarterly’s Politics in America 2008. He told a reporter from McClatchy News Service in June 2007 that he was an Episcopalian.
Suddenly, in September 2007, he’s campaigning in South Carolina, the heavily Baptist state where George W. Bush barely managed to stop McCain’s presidential campaign 8 years ago. And guess what? McCain tells a reporter “By the way, I’m not Episcopalian. I’m Baptist.”
When pressed, he said he’s attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona for more than 15 years, though he has never been baptized in that church. Now see, that’s exactly the problem. Baptism is kind of a big thing in the Baptist Church. (That’s how they got the name.) No baptism, not Baptist.”
http://www.realchange.org/mccain.htm
William I agree that Hagee benefits most, but it still leaves Grant’s question unanswered, why did McCain do this? Again, I can only surmise that it is because McCain believes that, even if its a little, Hagee’s endorsement will help in November. Texas will be in play for the Dems for the first time in several cycles. Who knows maybe Hagge’s Lubbock church will make the difference and keep Texas’ 34 electoral votes in the GOP column. If that turns out to be the case, it looks pretty smart, assuming that he didn’t make any quid pro quos with our colorfully rude friend.
As to the Catholic bit, maybe he can work out a deal with Bill Donohue.
1. What does it mean for a “comparison” to “limp”? That’s an odd metaphor.
2. Rick wasn’t making a “comparison” between McCain and Obama anyway, so it’s not clear why you’re even making that point.