A few days ago, in light of John McCain’s embrace of radical evangelist John Hagee, Time’s Joe Klein argued that McCain has a choice to make: “A McCain rejection of Hagee’s support would be seen as another sign of weakness by Rush and such. An acceptance of Hagee’s support would spell trouble for McCain with catholics and sane people everywhere. So, what’s it to be, Senator?”
I’d hoped that McCain would eventually have to answer that question. Josh Marshall notes today that this isn’t going to happen.
Let’s note that Sen. McCain has decided to hang tough with his embrace of anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic Pastor John Hagee. And the major papers and cable news outlets have decided to give him a pass.
I didn’t think it was possible, but that is most certainly the current dynamic. McCain sought out Hagee, McCain traveled to appear alongside Hagee, and confronted with Hagee’s anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, and anti-woman record, McCain didn’t care. Given the inordinate media interest in Farrakhan’s kind words for Barack Obama — a weak comparison, given that Obama didn’t reach out to Farrakhan, and wants nothing to do with him — it seemed unlikely the media could justifiably give McCain a pass on this one.
But that’s exactly what’s happened. I checked Nexis a few minutes ago, to see if any of the major newspapers had done stories about the Hagee controversy. The combined number of articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe is zero. Literally, not one. In two instances, the WaPo and the NYT made brief references to the controversy in round-ups or in articles about something else, but none of these dailies ran stand-alone items about McCain cozying up to a lunatic.
What’s especially odd about this is the lengths news outlets had to go in order to ignore the story.
In most instances, reporters look for a news peg — some kind of timely event that makes a controversy worthy of attention. In some instances, an awkward relationship between a candidate and a scandalous supporter might go unreported unless someone’s out there raising a fuss.
In the case of McCain and Hagee, we saw Bill Donohue and the Catholic League, Catholics United, prominent Jewish organizations, and the Democratic National Committee all trying to generate some interest in the story. Reporters couldn’t be bothered. Howard Dean personally went on national television to question McCain’s integrity over his embrace of Hagee, and reporters just yawned, barely lifting an eyebrow.
McCain’s Bush-like strategy apparently worked like a charm — pretend the problem doesn’t exist, refuse to answer questions, and wait for the storm to blow over. This was made especially easy in this case because reporters didn’t want to lift a finger to cover the controversy in the first place.
For what it’s worth, Hagee offered the media another news peg yesterday, denying that he’s anti-Catholic.
“I have always had great love for Catholic people and great respect for the Catholic Church. My wife comes from a Catholic family and millions of my viewers are Catholics. I am shocked and saddened to learn of the mischaracterization of my views on Catholics that has spread while I spent the weekend celebrating the 50th anniversary of my entry into the ministry with family and friends….
“To call me ‘anti-Catholic’ makes about as much sense as calling me “anti-Protestant.” I am, most assuredly, neither.”
When Hagee called Catholicism “the Great Whore,” the “apostate church” the “anti-Christ,” and “a false cult system,” this wasn’t evidence of being anti-Catholic.
I wonder if the media silence would be as striking if Hagee weren’t a white Christian and McCain weren’t a Republican.