Who says the TV networks don't pay attention to what religious leaders say? They've been scrutinizing the statements of two of Sen. John McCain's supporters, much as they did for that other minister associated with Barack Obama.McCain now has rejected endorsements from the Rev. John Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley. The problem with Hagee was some bad Biblical exegesis in a sermon some time in the 1990s. Hagee preached on Jeremiah 16:16 ... "Look! I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, to catch them [the Israelites]. After that, I will send many hunters to hunt them out from every mountain and hill and from the clefs of the rock." According to CNN, Hagee said in the sermon that the Jews were the hunted and that Hitler was the hunter God sent. That is, that the Holocaust was part of a divine plan to hasten the creation of a Jewish state.Repulsive, yes. But what does a sermon from the 1990s have to do with the war in Iraq?Meanwhile, ABC News has directed its award-winning Brian Ross investigative team toward re-treading a Mother Jones magazine story about another McCain supporter, the Rev. Rod Parsley, and his nasty comments about Islam. We've already thrashed that out on dotCommonweal, and Ross has not added much to the story. But he did give it more exposure.I'd still rather see one of these reporters get an answer from the candidates on whether they think the U.S. should have participated in a major international conference this week in Dublin on banning cluster bombs. A Vatican diplomat is on hand, "working intensely" to reach an international agreement. The candidates disagree on whether to rein in the use of cluster bombs - it's a story! What would it take to get network coverage? The return of Princess Di to one of her signature issues?

Paul Moses is the author, most recently, of The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia (NYU Press, 2023). He is a contributing writer. Twitter: @PaulBMoses.

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