Get ready for Bush's 3rd term!

John Hagee
Note:Since I wrote this, McCain finally renounced the endorsement by Hagee. He stuck with Hagee when he said god punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina and all kinds of other craziness, until Hagee said that Hitler was doing god's work by killing six million Jews in the Holocaust. Apparently, even that was too much for McCain. But the rest of it? Fine with McCain.

While the media worried about statements by Obama's pastor, evangelist Rev. John Hagee endorsed John McCain. Who is Hagee? According to Salon.com:

Hagee said that Jews have faced persecution "right up to this very day" because they rejected Jesus and so demonstrated "disobedience and rebellion" toward Jehovah. He said that the difference between a woman with premenstrual syndrome and a terrorist is that you can negotiate with a terrorist. He said that Katrina was divine punishment on New Orleans for its sinfulness, and on gays for planning a parade there. He said that Roman Catholics were linked with Hitler "in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews," and called the Catholic Church "the Great Whore."

Unlike Obama, who denounced the controversial statements by his pastor:

McCain reacted warmly to Hagee's endorsement, saying, "I am very proud of Pastor John Hagee's spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel."

In fact, McCain sought the endorsement of John Hagee. McCain has distanced himself from Hagee's anti-Catholic statements but that doesn't address the larger question we should consider: McCain has an entire country of religious figures with a full range of views, from moderate to extreme, to seek endorsements from. Why did he go straight to an extremist like Hagee?

Rod Parsley
Another McCain endorser is Rod Parsley. Parsley preaches an anti-Muslim message, making statements like the following one:

The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed."

McCain enthusiastically appeared together with Parsley - far from denouncing his inflammatory statements or rejecting his endorsement.