Rev. Rubber Room Repudiated: McCain's Hand Finally Forced On Hitler Apologist Hagee

It took awhile, but presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain was finally compelled to reject the endorsement of fundamentalist pond scum John Hagee. It seems that Hagee is on record as having said that Adolf Hitler was, in some way, an instrument of God in forcing Jews to go to Israel.

Granted, Hagee wasn't McCain's personal minister, which raises a distinction between this situation and that involving Sen. Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But I've had a hard time figuring out exactly why Obama was as compelled to run from Wright as he was. Wright has said a couple of kooky things, but much of it is no different from what one can read in a Noam Chomsky polemic. And Wright certainly comes across as far more intelligent, schooled -- and sane -- than Hagee.

Here's a report from Bloomberg News:

Republican John McCain today rejected the presidential endorsement of the Reverend John Hagee after revelation of an audio recording in which the Texas televangelist said that God's will was at work in the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

``Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,'' the Arizona senator said in a statement released by his campaign. ``I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.''

McCain had declined previously to repudiate Hagee after reports of the pastor's earlier anti-Catholic remarks and his contention that the U.S. must join Israel in military strike against Iran. Hagee argued that the conflict would lead to a second coming of Christ.

Hagee is pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, and McCain had sought his endorsement.

Hagee isn't much different from certain other popular American televangelists in that he seems to think he has a direct line to the thinking of providence, and a special knack for interpreting Scripture.

Let's go back to what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had to say on the subject of the Sept. 11 attacks -- transcript furnished by www.truthorfiction.com:

Then Falwell said, "What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."
Robertson replied, "Well, Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror, we haven't begun to see what they can do to the major population."
Falwell said, "The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I'll hear from them for this, but throwing God...successfully with the help of the federal court system...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."
Robertson said, "I totally concur, and the problem is we've adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government, and so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do, and the top people, of course, is the court system."
Falwell added, "Pat, did you notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, the People for the American Way, NOW, etc., were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress, as they went out on the steps and and called out to God in prayer and sang 'God bless America' and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God."

It's all self-righteously demented, and a lot like the things Hagee was already on record as saying. But Hagee, in a moment of "youthful" indiscretion, finally went a step further in suggesting that Der Fuhrer was in some way doing the work of the Lord by carrying out the Holocaust.

On MSNBC, Republican mouthpiece Susan Molinari said, in response to today's development, that McCain, by disavowing Hagee and purging his campaign of active lobbyists, is "acting like a presidential candidate."

Yes, he is. He's acting a lot like the Republican nominee of the past two cycles. And like a couple of others of the past 30 years.

The Matter Of Rod Parsley

And Hagee isn't the only Chrust-chun kookster that McCain has courted. Mother Jones reports that:

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the "spiritual desperation" of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual "culture" ("homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree"), the "abortion industry," and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

In a chapter titled "Islam: The Deception of Allah," Parsley warns there is a "war between Islam and Christian civilization." He continues:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

In case there's any doubt about this, here's the video, posted on YouTube by bravenewfilms:



Perhaps McCain, in seeking so ludicrously to ally himself with the forces of the "divine," has actually made a couple of starkly different kinds of deals that he has come to regret. I, for one, intend to do all I can to make him regret them most profoundly come a Wednesday morning in November.

Crossposted at Manifesto Joe.