Hagee: Nuts
Whew. Here's a short video from TPM with clips of Hagee. I sometimes watch televangelists for entertainment, but this guy's vocal mannerisms are too annoying, so I've never been able to stay with him for more than a minute or so, so I didn't know much about him. Man, this guy's quite the lunatic. And he really, really does not like the Catholic church, hoo boy. (I had a Mormon friend who used to claim that the Pope was the antichrist. Though I don't know why that's relevant here...)
I don't know what's wrong with McCain. He really does need to say "this guy's nuts" or something similar. I mean, he's right to say that one doesn't necessarily agree with all one's supporters. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't have some obligation here.
I guess it's also hard not to be struck by the double standard here. Imagine if Obama had acted like this with regard to the Farrakhan business. Whew. He'd be out of the race by now.
I have a certain amount of faith that McCain will eventually do the right thing here... But if this is an indicator of how the refs are going to call it in the general election, Obama is in big trouble.
Whew. Here's a short video from TPM with clips of Hagee. I sometimes watch televangelists for entertainment, but this guy's vocal mannerisms are too annoying, so I've never been able to stay with him for more than a minute or so, so I didn't know much about him. Man, this guy's quite the lunatic. And he really, really does not like the Catholic church, hoo boy. (I had a Mormon friend who used to claim that the Pope was the antichrist. Though I don't know why that's relevant here...)
I don't know what's wrong with McCain. He really does need to say "this guy's nuts" or something similar. I mean, he's right to say that one doesn't necessarily agree with all one's supporters. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't have some obligation here.
I guess it's also hard not to be struck by the double standard here. Imagine if Obama had acted like this with regard to the Farrakhan business. Whew. He'd be out of the race by now.
I have a certain amount of faith that McCain will eventually do the right thing here... But if this is an indicator of how the refs are going to call it in the general election, Obama is in big trouble.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:01 PM
5 Comments:
Well-drawn, WS, and on the only other blog I comment on, I called into question my own honesty on this, since McCain's my party's nominee.
Best I came up with was this:
"As a putative Catholic, I’ve tried to sort through my intellectual honesty as to why McCain’s acceptance of Reverend Hagee’s endorsement troubles me less than Sen. Obama’s somewhat slippery yet clear rejection of Minister Farrakhan’s.
[My teeth grate at assigning the honorifics “Rev.” and “Minister” to these individuals.]
I think I’m basically being dishonestly partisan in favor of the Republican, except I don’t mind Hagee’s theological disdain for Catholicism, as I think it’s protected by the principles of the Founding, but Farrakhan’s calling Judaism a “gutter religion” seems racist, as Jews are both a religion and a people...
Somehow it doesn’t bother me when someone’s virulently anti-Catholic on a theological level, but I have trouble separating anti-Judaism from anti-Semitism, so Judaism-as-gutter-religion alarms me more.
Something to do with various unpleasantnesses towards Jews in Europe in the past century, I think. The Papists and anti-Papists have been done with wantonly massacring each other for awhile now."
So I admit I might be dishonest here. But you've done your share of slagging on the Catholic tradition, and I'm really OK with it. In fact, I love you a lot more than Louis Farrakhan and John Hagee. Put together.
Well, I don't think my responses, e.g. to Mr. Ratzinger's slanders against atheists, count as slagging on the Catholic tradition...but I could be wrong.
I also have an inclination to think that anti-Jewish slander is worse, I guess b/c history shows this to be really dangerous; whereas I don't think violent anti-Catholicism is a real possibility.
On the other hand, Hagee's endorsement--and McCain's acceptance--were more overt and robust. So, even if what Hagee is pushing is less virulent, McCain explicitly, personally and publicly accepted his endorsement.
I mean, we clearly need consistency. If Obama had to "denounce and reject," or renounce and object, or whatever verbal hoops he had to jump through, seems like McCain is under a similar obligation. Maybe McCain isn't--I can see arguments for that. But if not, then neither is Obama.
Yeah, that's where I ended up. In a two-party system, an obligation to push out your bedfellow's bedfellow leaves an empty bed.
Tom--
Farrakhan calls Judaism a 'gutter religion.' Hagee thinks that Israel was established so all the Jews can get slaughtered in Armageddon. And I have a hard time drawing any distinction. McCain used to call this kind of creep an 'Agent of Intolerance.' But something happened to him in the last 8 years. First he abandoned any sign of fiscal sanity, then he sold his soul to the religious wingnuts.
-mac
I'm not in the mood to defend Hagee, but I don't believe that's quite an accurate description of his views.
And I'm not ready to draw much of distinction between him and farrakhan either, except I noted that as a putative Catholic, I'm qualified to note I'm troubled less by anti-Catholicism than anti-Semitism.
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