McCain's Pastor Problem

While I think entirely too much has been made of the link between Senator Barack Obama and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I can't help but notice how little has been made of the support Senator John McCain is receiving from televangelist John Hagee.  McCain has been allowed to slide unscathed despite the support of the incredibly controversial Hagee by while the media make roadkill out of Obama and Wright.  Newsweek has put together a very interesting story profile of Hagee and his beliefs.  While Hagee doesn't have the history with McCain that Wright has with Obama, it's difficult to see how Hagee's beliefs won't be problematic for McCain in the general election.  Here are a few snippets --

"When someone endorses me, that does not mean that I endorse everything he stands for and believes in," McCain said last month. "I don't have to agree with everyone that endorses my campaign." But that may seem insensitive to those who have been offended by Hagee's more controversial positions. The pastor has made some outrageous comments. He called the Catholic Church, among other things, "the great whore" and "a false cult system." Hagee says his comments were taken out of context; he says he was not referring to modern Catholicism, but to what he says were the anti-Semitic views of the Catholic Church in the past. The Catholic League, which published a list of Hagee's "slurs" against the church, has called on McCain to renounce the endorsement.         

Hagee also has strong views about the Middle East. He believes the United States has a Biblical obligation to support Israel, and he has advocated a pre-emptive strike on Iran to protect the Jewish state. He opposes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, suggesting that if Washington backs such a plan, God might punish Americans by dispatching terrorists. "If God brings this nation into judgment," he warns in an undated video on YouTube.com, "he will very likely release the terrorists you've let get here through the ridiculous immigration policy you refuse to stop, and this nation is going to go through a bloodbath."

You can read the story here.