The fundamentalist pastor John Hagee has endorsed John McCain. Hagee is red-hot against Catholicism. The point is being made that Hagee = Farrakhan, ergo McCain must distance himself from Hagee as Obama has been expected to do from Farrakhan. But McCain says he's "honored" by Hagee's confidence. Glenn Greenwald calls foul:
Why is Louis Farrakhan deemed by our political establishment to be so radioactive as to not be fit for good company -- black candidates are required to repudiate his support even when they haven't sought it and denounce his views even when they've never advocated anything close to those views -- but John Hagee is a perfectly acceptable figure whom mainstream GOP politicians are free to court without any consequences or media objections?
I think it's a fair question. Here's why I'm personally not bothered by this, even though Hagee probably has very little use for Christians like me, and even though I find him a very troubling figure.
For one, the people Hagee identifies as enemies are -- gays excepted -- people whose ideas he rejects. I think it's simply wrong to expect a Christian pastor who honestly thinks Catholicism (or Orthodoxy, or Islam, etc.) is a dangerous lie not to say so. Similarly, I wouldn't expect an imam to keep quiet about the need to convert people away from the mistaken path of Christianity, and toward Islam. If he doesn't believe those things, what kind of imam is he? Farrakhan, by contrast, identifies people as evil by their race (besides, anyone who would call Hitler a "great man" puts himself in another category of wickedness. I think that's a difference.
Second, I don't for a moment think John McCain believes the stuff Hagee believes. I think he's just making nice with the guy. Fault him for being cynical, but don't believe that Hagee's views are going to influence him. John McCain cannot stand the religious right. It's surely eating him up to have to be so nice about Hagee. About Obama and Farrakhan, I don't believe for one second that Obama shares Farrakhan's nutball opinions. But the fact that the man whom Obama identifies as his spiritual mentor has unabashedly embraced Farrakhan, even calling him a "great man," makes me wonder how Obama sorts all this out in his mind. To put it another way, if not for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Farrakhan could praise Obama all the livelong day and I wouldn't have the slightest worry about the effect of Farrakhan's ideas on Obama.
Third, I concede that it's possible, maybe even probable, that I'm viscerally not as alarmed by Hagee's endorsement of McCain because I know how much lip service Republican politicians give to men like Hagee. Part of me wants to say to the left, "Relax, there's a lot less here than you think." In turn, I suspect that many of you would say to people like me, with respect to Obama and the Rev. Wright, "Relax, there's a lot less here than you think."
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CORRECTION
My above post should read:
FYI - I'm not Catholic. ;^)
But my father, who is secular Jewish, considers the Catholic Church and the Vatican's refusal to recognize Israel (at the time; I don't know its status now) to be one of the leading causes of the problems of that area of the world (i.e., the Middle East) today.
**I should say that yes, there is a certain weird pleasure people take in dwelling on apocalypse. I'm sometimes guilty of that.**
SOMETIMES, Rod?!?!!?
**I think there's something in human nature that cannot bear too much peace and tranquility, and to be more specific, cannot deal with the anxiety of the present moment. So it longs for restorative violence. Perverse, I know, but that's us.**
Get yourself a DSM-IV diagnosis and you'll no longer have that worry.
A whole set of new ones, but not that one.
hmmm. radical cleric who disparages entire denominations and advocates aggressive war to hasten the apocalypse endorses presidential candidate. even says that said presidential candidate "gets it." turns out the presidential candidate has been courting endorsement for a year. alleged defenders of faith, Christendom, and All That Is Right shrug.
Well, I'm not quite as sanguine about this type of belief system as you guys appear to be. The history of anti-catholicsm in the U.S. isn't a strictly a doctrinal disagreement, but was always mixed up with suspicion of national groups like Irish, Italians and Latinos. And I'm not sure that racism is been perfectly excised from the argument.
I think the collective shrug that conservatives are making on this is hypocritical. It's an inconvenient political development, and rather then look at it honestly, they're just hoping it goes away.
I think there's a big difference between thinking Catholicism is mistaken and the kind of stuff Hagee says. Still it is true that Republicans cynically try to get support of Evangelicals they wouldn't cross the street to spit on. Still I don't much care for it and I'm kind of a McCain supporter.
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