In late February, after extensive outreach efforts from John McCain and his campaign, mega-church preacher John Hagee endorsed the Republican senator’s campaign, and made some appearances with McCain to express his support. Given Hagee’s history of provocative remarks — he’s been quoted making anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, and anti-Semitic comments — McCain’s decision to embrace Hagee was hard to understand.
And yet, despite insatiable media interest in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments, news outlets decided to give McCain a pass on his associations with Hagee. A month after McCain and Hagee campaigned shoulder-to-shoulder, the combined number of stand-alone articles about the relationship from the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal was zero.
That is, until today. Six weeks after the controversy began, the New York Times’ Neela Banerjee did a piece talking about the endorsement that no one wants to talk about.
When Senator John McCain won the endorsement of the Rev. John C. Hagee in February, his campaign hoped it would shore up his conservative credentials among evangelicals and build enthusiasm among a voting bloc that would be critical for him in November.
But since then, Mr. Hagee has been on the defensive over some of his views about Catholics and Jews, and he and Mr. McCain’s campaign have been silent about his endorsement.
Asked about the endorsement, the McCain campaign referred back to a February statement that read, “In no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee’s views, which I obviously do not.” Hagee, the Times reported, “also declines to discuss the endorsement.”
I can appreciate why McCain is reluctant to talk about this, and why he’s no doubt begged Hagee to also keep quiet. I’m also delighted the Times thought to do an article on this, six weeks too late, and stuffed on page A18.
But I’m afraid the political salience of this would-be controversy is already lost.
The Times’ piece notes that McCain hadn’t done any research on Hagee before wooing him, and was surprised by the ensuing controversy. That’s pretty much what I expected.
But that hardly lets the senator off the hook. McCain embraced a bigoted extremist for political gain; made a half-hearted effort to distance himself from the preacher after he heard complaints; and faced no media heat whatsoever.
Despite condemnations from the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the DNC, Catholic groups on the left, Catholic groups on the right, and Jewish groups, the media ignored the outrage and barely said a word.
In 2000, when George W. Bush embraced Bob Jones University, it was a big deal. In February, despite no meaningful ties at all, Louis Farrakhan said something nice about Barack Obama, and it, too, was treated as an important story. People are interested in the role of extremists in public life. In the context of a presidential campaign, news like this matters.
And yet, in this case, it didn’t. Six weeks later, the New York Times, in its first stand-alone article on the subject, finds it noteworthy that neither McCain nor Hagee are willing to talk about the endorsement.
Of all the various angles to this controversy, that’s probably the least interesting.