McCain’s textbook non-rejection rejection

March 8, 2008

I was fully prepared to let this go, but now that John McCain, for the first time in nearly a week, has finally commented on the John Hagee controversy, it’s worth noting exactly what he had to say.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday repudiated any views of a prominent televangelist who endorsed him last month “if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”

Let’s pause right there to consider how truly vacuous this new line is. Hagee has called the Roman Catholic Church “the Great Whore,” the “apostate church,” the “anti-Christ,” and “a false cult system” that inspired Adolf Hitler to initiate the Holocaust. “If they are anti-Catholic“? For goodness sakes, if John McCain isn’t sure whether these remarks constitute anti-Catholic animus, what, pray tell, would do the trick?

For that matter, the second part of the quote is no better. Hagee believes the Catholic Church is a whorish anti-Christ, and “if” Catholics find that “offensive,” McCain repudiates it. I see. So, as far as McCain’s concerned, maybe some Catholics like it when their church is denounced as “the Great Whore” and “a false cult system”?

The way McCain said this, it’s like a textbook non-apology apology, except in this case, it’s a non-rejection rejection.

My hunch is, reporters — who’ve gone to almost comical lengths to give McCain a pass on this controversy — will consider McCain’s comments yesterday as the end of the story. After all, they’ll figure, he repudiated Hagee’s anti-Catholic comments. What else is there?

Plenty.

Will McCain denounce Hagee’s anti-Catholic remarks without qualifiers?

Is McCain still “very proud” to have Hagee’s support, despite his record of bigotry?

Is McCain also prepared to comment on Hagee’s anti-Semitic comments? How about his anti-Muslim comments? And anti-gay comments? And misogynistic comments?

Does McCain agree with Hagee’s statement that “God is going to use Muslim terrorists to create ‘bloodbaths’ in our streets to punish us for our sinful policies toward Israel?”

As for the media, in case you’re curious, the headline on the AP story read, “McCain Rejects Anti-Catholic Views.” It ran that way in hundreds of newspapers nationwide this morning.

It looks like McCain’s base has done him another favor.

I hope that when Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States April 15-20 at least a few journalists will be remember the Haggee affair.

The Pope is coming here to launch a counter-offensive on such issues as gay marriage and adoption, civil unions, abortion, birth control, divorce … the usual issues which seem to concern a celibate clergy.

The Roman Catholic Church has of late had a natural ally in fundamentalists who have much the same concerns. And politics does make strange (very strange) bedfellows. Nevertheless, fundaments like Haggee have spent decades, centuries actually, demonizing Catholics.

Democrats now have a chance to drive a very important wedge into the Republican party — something they’ve never proved very good at, I guess because it seems like “dirty politics”. We can’t miss this window of opportunity. Make the GOP take a definite stand for one or the other.

  • I just don’t get where the left is coming from by criticizing McCain for seeking Hagee’s endorsement. Hagee gave a speech at the 2007 AIPAC conference and he was wildly applauded.

    Guess who else attends the AIPAC conference? Pelosi, Clinton, Obama, McCain and almost every other member of Congress.

    If you don’t explain Hagee’s ties to the AIPAC, the powerful Jewish lobbyists, you don’t explain the extent of Hagee’s influence and why McCain sought his endorsement in the first place.

    So guys, when are we going to condemn AIPAC?

  • So—by McCain’s “standards,” the skinheads can merely “repudiate” some of Hitler’s spoken words again Jews—and embrace Hitler?

    Smallish war veteran, wounded in combat, obviously with a few screws loose, a penchant for Antisemitism, and a fabulously-famous short fuse. Nope—doesn’t remind me of anyone at all. You?

  • Ed @ #2 said “…the usual issues which seem to concern a celibate clergy.”

    Not to nitpick, but I would have said “nominally celibate clergy.”

    The McCain / Hagee issue isn’t over. Expect to hear a lot more about it in the fall, not so much from the MSM but from the Democrats.

    Steve @ #3: analogies to the Nazis and Hitler are usually fallacious because nothing is analogous to Nazism, but your suggestion that skinheads could similarly “repudiate” Hitler is brilliant.

  • I intended to mention that most Hispanic voters are Catholic, and that they are likely to care about Hagee even if the MSM doesn’t.

  • Christian hatred is like the elephant in the room. It’s something that many people do not want to “see.” I get the sense that a common attitude is that “people (Christians) shouldn’t be criticized for their personal beliefs (no matter how publicly they express them or how strongly they try to convert others.)” Non-Christians are routinely judged by the wide brush of stereotype and prejudice.

    I teach high school English and it’s common that novels and movies rely on religious concepts and symbols. It’s always a challenge to get students to talk about these aspects – they get very squeemish when the topic of religion in any form comes up. My interpretation is that some students’ families are not church-goers and they feel like the conversation is out of bounds, and other students’ families are strongly religious but they don’t want to speak because sometimes they feel slightly intimidated, afraid they’ll be teased.

    So while I am disappointed by the MSM’s reluctance to engage this topic, I think I understand it.

  • I have to admit that this gotcha-gimme-an-apology stuff is really low on my list of priorities. The whole Republican party is an agency of intolerance, so why are we focusing on secondary blowhards like Hagee. Save it for a rebuttal the next time Russert of Wolf brings up Farrukan or whoever. A better strategy would be to ask what Hagee hopes McCain will achieve, and then decide whether that is offensive.

  • It’s better to marginalize the Catholics before the whole “Pax Christi” thing can take off and start injecting ideas of “peace” and “equality” into the whole church thing. I imagine that pandering to the religious right must be really fun. You get to make very negative broad generalizations and then attribute them to this “God” guy, who’s only angry and vengeful because he just loves you so damn much. Oh, and he’s all powerful, so there’s nothing you can do about his wrath…

    “In case you haven’t noticed, we in Washington aren’t functioning as we should be,” McCain said. “It’s getting harder and harder to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan” (Yesterday).

  • Intolerance based on religion is only ugly when “the other” expresses it. Farrakhan becomes a representative of all that is frightening about sub-Saharan African-looking people in America, and the only way for African-Americans to wash off some of the taint of “the other” is to identify themselves against Farrakhan.

    Hagee can never be viewed as a bigot as scary as Farrakhan – even though he is far more powerful – in the same way that Timothy McVeigh can never be as scary as Osama bin Laden – even if he had managed to kill more people.

  • Hagee’s comments about Catholics are just the tip of the iceburg. He and his supporters have said numerous things about many different faiths. As a presidential candidate, McCain should be ready to represent all of the people, not just the Conservative Christian Right Wing.

    I may be a lefty liberal Pagan, but if I were running for office, i wouldn’t take any anti religious support.

  • “Is McCain also prepared to comment on Hagee’s anti-Semitic comments?”

    Why would John Hagee make “anti-Semitic comments”? Didn’t he found Christians United for Israel (CUFI)?

  • plambeachmaven might at least want to know that aipac has nothing to do with the left before he or she embarasses him or herself again.

    as for journalists and mccain, what i’d like to see is just one journalist reading off to mccain some of hagee’s quotes and asking him whether or not they are “anti-catholic.”

    i, too, found the “if” apalling, but of course, i actually know something about what hagee says, unlike most journalists, who quite frankly, don’t know shit from shinola.

  • howard@12

    My point was that Hagee is associated with a relatively mainstream organization, AIPAC. Although AIPAC is generally not associated with the Left, most Democratic politicians in DC actively court AIPAC’s endorsement.

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  • Regarding comment #13 . . . All politicans (local, state, national) fear AIPAC. . .
    But only if they want to be elected or re-elected. . . Anyone know a politican who has publicly strongly disagreed with AIPAC policy goals and not been defeated soon thereafter? . . . I’m not picking on AIPAC by the way – they have every right to lobby their viewpoints. . . But, with their unlimited resources they seem to be far and away the most effective lobby in the nation.

  • Again.
    Anti-Catholicism does not necessarily mean anti-Catholic.
    I’m anti-Catholicism, my respected (and I dare say, loved) brother- and father-in-law are Catholic.

    I love them and dislike their faith very much.
    The comments I’ve heard from Hagee leave this same possibility available.

    If this comment offends Catholics, I am sorry to have offended, but it doesn’t change my feelings.
    Let’s discuss over coffee, shall we?

  • I actually just bloviated at some length on just this subject today over at TPM.

    Basically, my argument is that to focus on the faith vs. faith aspect of the remarks is a relative nonstarter, as it would not be all that hard for McCain to diffuse the situation by reducing it to an issue of interpretation of scripture (which he can do without taking sides), and, as has been pointed out above, we Americans are pretty squeamish when it comes to attacking people’s scriptural interpretation, no matter how batshit crazy might be.

    On the other hand, the fact that Hagee and his minions never open the Book of Revelation without a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues close by would seem to be a fruitful avenue to pursue. Specifically, just what is it about McCain’s foreign policy that would make a nutjob like that smile? Hmmmmm…

  • If somebody like Hagee says the Our Father or the “pledge of allegiance” does that prove move anyone to repudiate these revered statements? Just because Hagee says that Pope Pius XII and other Catholic authorities at the time didn’t do what they could and should have done to repudiate Hitler doesn’t make all of the historians who say the very same thing wrong and/or “anti-Catholic bigots”.

    I’m a former Catholic priest and seminary professor. I love the great many Catholic members of my very extended family, as I do most of my friends and neighbors in a very Catholic part of the U.S.A., so it’s silly to accuse ME of being an “anti-Catholic bigots”. But I have studied the matter at great length and have documented the fact that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church which claims to believe in the need for repentance and confession before sinners can receive absolution has a he11 of a lot to confess regarding the role of many of its leaders and members in the Jewish holocaust.

    See my http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/RCscandal . Continue to condemn people like Hagee for their ERRONEOUS statements, but not for the ones they make that are perfectly TRUE.

  • Wow Benen, you bowled me over laughing on how you caught McCain on this issue like a deer in the high beams!

    If they’re offensive? If?

    McCain testified to his lack of character by not immediately denouncing Hagee’s Catholic hate speech. And Hagee knows fellow-hypocrite McCain wants to be President more than principled, and so knows that McCain won’t publicly rebuke him. And that then makes Hagee look like a big man. So the two unprincipled hands end up washing each other, and both hypocrites get what they want. That’s how it works.

    Say what you will about Ron Paul and Mitt Romey but Paul IMMEDIATELY defended Romney, a primary opponent no less. Paul didn’t waste time nor words, stating that he thought it was wrong for anyone to hold Romney’s LDS religion against him when considering Romney as a presidential candidate.

    McCain is getting such a free pass from the press so far! Man is this going to be fun to watch when the press finally turns on McCain. SNL has got to do a skit were McCain goes ape-shit on a bunch of reporters, or sits down next to Hagee, and they pick lice off one another.

  • I think we need to take this in context.

    Pastor Hagee’s comments have to do with the real split between Catholic and Protestant church history. His is a real critique of a church that he sees in error.
    The reason behind the old anti-Catholic views has a lot to do with the rejection, murder of Protestants and anti-Protestant views of the Catholic church. catholic antagonism remains with the pope’s view against Protestant Churches and its doctines.

    It is rather hypocritical really, the Catholic League and its ilk are extremely anti-Protestant. It is theological pressure by Catholics against Protestants through the political process. People ought to call it like it is concerning religion.

    Freedom of religion includes the right to call something false.

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