John McCain has repudiated the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, but should that be the end of the issue? MCain and his campaign went to pained lengths to differentiate themselves from the relationship between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright.
But let me also be clear, Rev. Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for 20 years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today.
Is it possible that no one on the McCain campaign staff bothered to do a web search of Hagee's comments before they solicited his endorsement? And what of his comments when he accepted the endorsement of Rod Parsley? John Ross of ABC News showed the video of Mccain saying...
At a campaign appearance in Cincinnati, McCain introduced Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide."
Again, it makes one wonder if all this wasn't just some cynical ploy by the McCain campaign to try to use these pastors for political cover in an attempt to cozy up to the right wing and then jettison them when they got called on their strategy. Perhaps McCain was injecting religion into the campaign in a totoally inappropriate way or they naively got rolled by pastors who were looking to play the role of king maker. Either way, it does not bode well for McCain's capability to lead.
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