Jon Perr wrote a great piece yesterday about the Lieberman/Hagee deal and asked if Joe still believed Hagee was Moses. I guess we received our answer because Joe Lieberman has confirmed that he will speak at Pastor Hagee's big Summit after McCain disavowed him.
Sen. Joe Lieberman says he'll speak at a July conference hosted by Rev. John Hagee, whose endorsement was recently rejected by Republican John McCain because of Hagee's controversial remarks about religion.
Lieberman, one of presumed GOP presidential nominee McCain's strongest supporters, said Wednesday while Hagee's comments were unacceptable and hurtful, he will judge him on his life work fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews. Lieberman, I-Conn., will speak at Hagee's "Christians United for Israel" summit in Washington.
McCain last week repudiated the months-old endorsement by the preacher after an audio recording surfaced in which Hagee said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.
Will the media jump all over him? And if not, why? Rabbi David Saperstein has a great piece posted in Newsweek asking other Jewish leaders to back off from supporting Hagee. So why is Lieberman still supporting Hagee after he hurt McCain's presidential run? He obviously knew about his extreme behavior and opinions for a very long time. Has Lieberman received funds from Pastor Hagee? I'd like someone to investigate that. <corrected>
Finally, after all the weeks and weeks that the liberal blogs have tried to wake up the traditional media to report on McCain's courting of the Catholic hating Pastor, John Hagee, they finally got on board and did a little basic reporting. And guess what? McCain is now rejecting him. And Wolf says that McCain had a sudden change of heart. See what I mean? Via CNN's The Situation Room: Vid coming...
It's not enough to appease John McCain at this point, who now is completely rejecting his endorsement. Here is a statement that we just got a short time ago from John McCain.
"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Revered Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."
Pretty big news from John McCain who had counted on Pastor Hagee to enhance his conservative credentials.
You'll note that Brian Todd dutifully pushes McCain's POV, that Hagee was not his pastor. Then why did he go out of his way to court him? I Like the way CNN takes credit for breaking the Hagee story...
LIEBERMAN: Well, look, I think that the DNC is obviously doing this because they set Pastor Hagee as some kind of response to Reverend Wright Enhanced Coverage for Senator Obama. But I don’t think that’s fair in the basic way that everybody’s already said which is that never went to Pastor Hagee’s church. He accepted his endorsement. He represents a lot of people in this country, particularly Christians who care about the state of Israel. He founded a group called Christians United for Israel.
And what will the religious right say about John McCain now? Since he just refuted one of their own. I can see them attack him for not standing up for Hagee...Watch what happens next.....Full CNN transcript below the fold
I'd assume that he got a tremendous amount of pressure from McCain's camp and under the non-stop posts from the liberal blogs---Pastor Hagee recanted his anti-Catholic hatred.
John Hagee, an influential Texas televangelist who endorsed John McCain, apologized to Catholics Tuesday for his stinging criticism of the Roman Catholic Church and for having "emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews."
Hagee's support for McCain has drawn cries of outrage from some Catholic leaders who have called on McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement. The likely Republican nominee has said he does not agree with some of Hagee's past comments, but did not reject his support.
Like clockwork, Bill Donohue said all is forgiven. What a political tool this man is. Hey, what's a few decades of anti-Catholic hatred compared with a politically motivated apology that means absolutely nothing. Donohue just sold out Catholics everywhere.
Donohue, one of Hagee's sharpest critics, said he accepted the apology and planned to meet with Hagee Thursday in New York. "I got what I wanted," Donohue said in an interview. "He's seen the light, as they like to say. So for me it's over."
The Catholic League's loud mouth had this to say about Hagee previously:
Donohue: This thing is out of bounds and this is why McCain has to look at thi—this–it’s the totality of what the man stands for. He’s been bashing Catholicism for decades and making a mountain of money over it.
There was a virtual black out of Bill Donohue from the world of TV media when McCain sought and received Hagee's endorsement, but I believe we'll see him all over the airwaves now in the next few days. How fast will Matthews have him on?
"As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now." That ominous slam at America came from Pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement Republican presidential candidate John McCain he is "glad to have." Hagee claims God's "curse" and "doom" is upon America because of two key issues: reproductive freedom and broad support for the teaching of the theory of evolution.
Hagee claimed the Roman Catholic Church conspired with Hitler to kill Jews in the Holocaust but also, in the same book, blamed the Holocaust on Jews themselves (for worshiping idols) and wrote that Hitler and the Nazis were actually working for God, divine agents sent to chase Jews, through the rather inefficient and brutal mechanism of killing them in massive numbers, towards Palestine, "the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have."
But 62 days after he declared himself "very proud" and "honored" to the have the endorsement of the End Times Pastor John Hagee, Republican John McCain still has not answered - or even been asked - the question that should concern all Americans:
Does John McCain agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of Armageddon?...read on
Jon Perr wrote a great piece yesterday about the Lieberman/Hagee deal and asked if Joe still believed Hagee was Moses. I guess we received our answer because Joe Lieberman has confirmed that he will speak at Pastor Hagee's big Summit after McCain disavowed him.
