All Blog Posts from Horserace

The Rev. John Hagee made headlines recently after presumptive GOP nominee John McCain rejected his support following revelations that Hagee said in the late '90s that God sent Adolf Hitler to help get Jews to the promised land of Israel.

Now the Associated Press reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat-turned-independent who is a strong McCain supporter, has not abandoned Hagee. Lieberman will speak at a July conference hosted by the pastor, "Christians United for Israel," in Washington.

According to the AP, Lieberman said that "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."

Hagee has been criticized for his comments about other groups as well. He suggested that "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans," noting “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.” Hagee also made derogatory statements about the Catholic Church, including referring to it as "the great Whore," for which he later apologized.

John Hagee, the pastor who endorsed John McCain and subsequently saw his support repudiated, said today that his life's work has been "mischaracterized and attacked," the Associated Press reports.

"I have worked tirelessly to eliminate the sin of anti-Semitism from the Christian world and to ensure the survival of the state of Israel," Hagee said at a news conference.

McCain rejected Hagee's support following revelations that the pastor had said Adolf Hitler was sent by God to get Jews to the Promised Land. Hagee has also withdrawn his support from the presumptive GOP nominee.

Hagee also said today that he doesn't condone the Holocaust, calling Hitler a "monster." His break with McCain, he added, is "best for both of us and the country."

John McCain today said he was rejecting the endorsement of evangelical leader John Hagee as more of the pastor’s past controversial remarks came to light. McCain’s move comes after a report in the Huffington Post quoting Hagee seeming to argue that the holocaust was God’s way of hastening the establishment of the state of Israel.

“How did it happen,” Hagee said of the holocaust in a 1990s sermon. “Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."

In a statement released this afternoon, McCain said: “Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well. I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today.”

Hagee has been a controversial figure since his public endorsement of McCain. The pastor has apologized for disparaging remarks he has made against the Catholic Church and once claimed Hurrican Katrina was caused by plans to hold a gay pride event in New Orleans.

Another pastor with connections to a presidential candidate is under scrutiny for controversial remarks he’s made in the past. It’s not the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the news this time but John Hagee, a televangelist who has endorsed John McCain. In a letter to the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, Hagee is apologizing for once referring to the Catholic Church as “the great whore” and calling it “the apostate church,” reports the AP.

"Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good,” Hagee wrote Catholic League president William Donohue, “I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful." Donohue appears to have accepted the apology, telling the AP, “to me, it’s basically over.”

Hagee has been under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Rev. Wright controversies. While there is no evidence McCain has a close past relationship with the pastor, he accepted his endorsement and the two appeared together at an event earlier this year. Hagee has made other controversial remarks, including apparently an assertion that Hurricane Katrina was the result of planned gay pride parade in New Orleans around that time. “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that,” Hagee told NPR.

On Wednesday, John McCain received the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, the evangelical Texas mega-church leader.

The endorsement could help McCain shore up support amongst conservatives in a state where Mike Huckabee has been running relatively strongly. Huckabee complained about Hagee's decision to back McCain, saying, “I felt that it was totally out of character for what I knew he believed. Or at least I thought he did.”

But what Hagee believes could turn out to be a problem for McCain, if the reaction over the past few days is any indication. As CBS News' Dante Higgins points out, Catholic leaders asked McCain to distance himself from Hagee over anti-Catholic comments such as calling the Catholic Church "The Great Whore."

McCain responded to a question on the issue today by saying that while he is "very proud of the 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," it "does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues."

And there are, it turns out, a fair share of "other issues" to worry about. Bloggers such as Salon's Glenn Greenwald have been pouring through Hagee's record and uncovering controversial statements on a whole range of issues. The pastor made this comment in an interview with NPR:

"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."

Hagee also said, in the same interview, "Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews."

Read full post…