(cross-posted at Motley Moose and Clintonistas for Obama)

Straight talk.

Apparently it's a dying art.

John McCain was never a maverick. He was a staunch Republican whose positions deviated from those of his party only on occasion. But the one thing he had going for him was honesty and sincerity. He told the country what he believed and why he believed it, firmly and unapologetically. He stood up for his beliefs even if they were unpopular. He defended his principles. But somewhere along the line John McCain gave up. He sacrificed his principles, he surrendered to the sordid tactics of his party, the tactics he once despised and vocally denounced. To fully understand the magnitude of his fall, one must look back -- a glance at the McCain of a month ago, really, is sufficient to understand the duplicity of his statements and positions, but the differences between the McCain of 2000 and the McCain of 2008 are staggering. A brief list compiled by blogger Alex Valentine shows the stark contrast between the two McCains:

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Just wondering, why do white fundie nutjobs and the politicians who love them get a pass while Jeremiah Wright is being allowed to single-handedly bring down Barack Obama?  Click the link to read Frank Rich's excellent piece in the NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinio n/04rich.html?em&ex=1210046400&e n=1ab063165842695f&ei=5087%0A

My favorite juicy tidbit:

"BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for "John Hagee Roman Church Hitler," and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

(snip)

"Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee's views? This particular YouTube video -- far from the only one -- was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.

"Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it's true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled 'homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.'"

Not that I think Obama's relationship with Wright should not be scrutinized, and not that Hagee's relationship with McCain is anything like the former, but if Wright is sooo scary (and he is), why not Hagee and others like him?

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If you're a Republican presidential candidate and your skin is white, then your pastor can curse and damn America as much as he wants, and the media doesn't care.  Take John McCain's favorite pastor, John Hagee.  Apparently whitosphere blogger Bruce Wilson at Propeller.com has read from Hagee's 1997 book, "Day of Deception", and here's what he found, and his comments:

"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 sought, secured, and recently affirmed to ABC News that 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.

Although Senator McCain recently told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that his seeking of Hagee's endorsement was "probably" a mistake, he then doubled back to affirm his approval of Hagee's endorsement, stating, "I'm glad to have it.

"If McCain did not know of Hagee's belief that God is against America, he should have: Hagee's pronouncement of God's "curse" and "doom" on our nation was not a passing comment. It was a major theme of Hagee's book, Day of Deception (1997). In fact, Hagee devotes a whole chapter to it. Here's the curse and doom quote in context:

In "America Under a Curse," a seventeen page chapter in "Day of Deception" ($0.01 cents used at Amazon.Com), John Hagee wrote, "As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now. Look at the scriptures and see for yourself. The stand we have taken on abortion, the stand we have taken against God in our classrooms, just may have sealed or doom."

( . . . )

America is also collectively cursed for specific reasons, such as legalized abortion and a Supreme Court decision against sectarian Bible classes in public schools but also, more generally, for rebelling against God. As a consequence of America's disobedience and rebellion, according to McCain-endorser John Hagee, God's has cursed America and that curse has caused American military defeats, in Korea and Vietnam, plagues such as AIDS and social blights like violent crime. God's curse on America has also led "hundreds of thousands" to secretly sacrifice children to the devil. Propeller.com

If John McCain and John Hagee were Democrats or, even worse, Black Democrats, then this would be big news.  But, since they're white men, they can damn America as much as they want.  It's their country, afterall?

The author is the editor of the Truth About McCain Blog and the American Journal of Color Arousal (AMJCA).

Go below the fold for a John Hagee linklist, courtesy of Propellor.Com.

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Yesterday, John McCain appeared with John Hagee, a high-powered evangelical pastor from Texas, to accept his endorsement.

Sen. John McCain picked up the support of Texas pastor John Hagee, an evangelical Christian who has made support for the state of Israel a centerpiece of his ministry.

Hagee endorsed McCain today, saying he did so because McCain is a pro-life, pro-Israel politician who has pledged to secure the country's borders.

"John McCain is a man of principle," Hagee, a televangelist and the pastor of Cornerstone Church, told reporters. "He does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue."

Sounds harmless enough, doesn't he? Erik Kleefield enlightens us as to the true extremism of Hagee's beliefs.

Some readers might remember Hagee from this video put out last year by Max Blumenthal, from Hagee's Christians United For Israel conference. During the event, Hagee proclaimed that the United States must consider a preemptive strike on Iran, and also said that Jews had been responsible for their persecution throughout history because of a failure to properly accept God. [...]

In 2006, Hagee laid out his views on eschatology in a book called Jerusalem Countdown, in which he claimed that sources had told him a year earlier about world events to come -- and amazingly enough, all those predictions had come true over the past year. Next on the agenda, according to his March 2006 interview in Human Events: Israel would go to war with Iran before May 2006. And from there, Hagee eagerly anticipated an all-out world war against Iran and Russia, followed by the Second Coming.

Sounds about as extreme and divisive as Louis Farrakhan, whose endorsement Barack Obama was compelled to denounce yet here John McCain is free to appear on stage with Hagee to accept his endorsement. As dday says:

If we had a press that applied the same rules to John McCain that it has to Democrats as of late... [...]

We'd have constant questions asking McCain to renounce or reject or oppose or renouncereject or just say no to the support of John Hagee, a Biblical end-timer who believes that God caused Hurricane Katrina for its gay pride parades, that Muslims are programmed to kill nonbelievers, and that we must hasten the Rapture by invading every country in the Middle East. McCain should be asked about every single one of those statements and whether he explicitly supports them. I mean, I know Hagee's not black, but you'd think his rhetoric of hate would be held to the same standard as Louis Farrakhan.

In the strange bedfellows department, this is a sentiment shared by none other than Catholic League's Bill Donohue (h/t TPM).

"There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it `The Great Whore,' an `apostate church,' the `anti-Christ,' and a `false cult system.' To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. Note: he isn't talking about the Buddhists.

"In Hagee's latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. `The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,' he writes. [...]

"Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee."

At this point, having appeared with the guy, even if McCain is asked to renounce Hagee you know he won't. But this episode does point to the difficult tightrope McCain has to walk between sending signals to the right to assure them he's one of them and not alienating independents who are suspicious of the right, especially the religious variety. Luckily for McCain, it's a balancing act that's made easier by the extraordinary continued kid gloves with which the media handles him and the double standard they have for Democrats and Republicans. I'd love to see Barack Obama call John McCain out on this, maybe then the media will cover it.

Update [2008-2-28 21:54:26 by Todd Beeton]:Jane Hamsher makes a great point:

I have noticed that the passion that fueled the virulent hatred against Hillary Clinton in comments across the blogosphere just does not transfer to John McCain. Those who were the most vociferous about accusing her of racism, of running a "Southern Strategy," of gaming the system, of conducting a scurrilous smear-driven campaign, who would argue until the death that she must be defeated lest she continue the war forever, just do not get that worked up about John McCain appearing on stage with religious wack-job racists or threatening to bomb Iran and stay in Iraq for 100 years. Every word uttered by the Clinton campaign would propel a hundred outraged "did you see this?" emails into my inbox. John McCain? Not so much.

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