McCain’s Second Wright
You’d never know it by the shouting about Jeremiah Wright on the right, but John McCain has more than just a Hagee problem. We reported on Rod Parsley back on March 14. Now, ABC News has reviewed some of the DVD’s of the pastor whose support John McCain sought during the Huckaboom. McCain refers to Parsley as “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.” But McCain’s staff must never have seen Parsley’s sermons on DVD or read his book Silent No More, where the preachers says things like:
“Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world,” Parsley says on the DVDs reviewed by ABC News.
and
“America was founded with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed,” Parsley says, “and I believe Sept. 11, 2001 was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
McCain talks about how we need to win the hearts and minds of those in the Arab world:
“The cold war was won not with a tank battle in the Fulda Gap,” McCain argues, “but by winning the hearts and minds of the people that democracy was better than Communism. And so it must be in our struggle with Islamic extremism.”
Yet, the calls to distance himself from the man whose endorsement he sought nowhere near as loud as the calls for Barack Obama to distance himself from a man whose endorsement Obama did not seek.
“If there is a McCain presidency, he will start with a serious handicap in the Arab world,” said former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou. “And the handicap is that it is already assumed in Muslim countries that they will not get a fair shake from a McCain administration,” said Kiriakou.
Update: McCain has offered the obligatory renoucement:
“I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn’t endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement,” McCain said in a statement.
If referring to someone as a “spiritual guide” and “moral compass” isn’t an endorsement. I don’t know what is.
At a campaign appearance in Cincinnati, McCain introduced Parsley as “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.”
It’s media attention Alan. Hagee and Parsley just aren’t getting any, and I think they should given the frenzy over Rev. Wright. I don’t believe in guilt by association, and I’ll forgive McCain as long as he denounces them both as forcefully as Obama had to denounce Wright. But I’ll certainly hold it against him if he says that he’s happy to have their endorsements, especially given that he SOUGHT THEM OUT. That shows that he’s selling his soul to the far right, and that’s just unacceptable.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Muslims don’t want to take over the world? Do we forget the Middle Ages? I disagree with the “America was founded to see Islam destroyed,” but a large percentage of Muslims are extremists. 10%?
From heritage.org (/Research/Europe/bg2073.cfm), a 2006 survey said that among Muslim youth in Britain, 31 percent believe that the 7/7 bombings in London were justified because of British support for the war on terrorism, and 13 percent understood why young British Muslims might want to carry out suicide operations. Among British Muslims, 42 percent of Muslims in the South of England would prefer to live under Shari’a law rather than under British law, 28 percent would like to see Britain as an Islamic state, and 45 percent believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy by America and Israel.
Next comes the “CHRISTIANS HAVE EXTREMISTS TOO!” line, but far, far, far fewer than Muslims.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
From author Susan Jacoby: Two guys sit at a bar in NYC. They’re dressed in expensive suits and look like prosperous businessmen. It’s the morning of 9/11.
“I guess this is how Pearl Harbor felt,” says one.
“Pearl Harbor?” says the other. “What the hell is that?”
The first one replies, “That’s when Vietnam attacked Hawaii to start the Vietnam war.”
True story.
So I’d say forget about anybody “forgetting about” the Middle Ages. People would have to know about it first.
As for Muslims wanting to take over the world, I really have to think that there’s a difference between wanting this or that, and actually doing something about it. Most people, I suspect, are more concerned with having their morning coffee, or, say, a nice hot cup of tea.
And if you’re right then all the more reason we should focus our resources on ferreting out the jihadist crazies, in whatever numbers they might comprise.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Oh I forgot: “The cold war was won…by winning the hearts and minds of the people…”
Which Cold War was that? Because the one I remember seemed to have a great deal to with the Soviet economy all but collapsing under the weight of military spending.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Hagee sounds like a hate filled man. I do not want any God who would allow a Hitler to come to power. But the Christian Bible in the Book of Romans claims that God places all leaders of nations in power. I would not want a God who is responsible for dictators or discriminatory, hateful, immoral leaders like Hitler. Hagee might claim that if it is in the Bible it must be true, well I would say that God is no God; instead that God is a Devil pretending to be God. Might Hagee be a victim of the ultimate deception?
“my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s Truth, was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the lord at last rose in his might…..” “As a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” Hitler April 12, 1922, “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler” Vol. 1 of 2, pg.,19-20, (Oxford Press, 1942).
Letter to Gerhard Engel 1941 – “I shall remain a Catholic for ever” A. Hitler
From Mein Kampf and at the Reichstag 1938: “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the almighty Creator by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” A. Hitler.
Napoleon-“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”
Was Hitler an atheist or a secular leader as many would have you believe? Not if you do a little reading of his speeches, his top officers speeches, or any correspondence he had with his fellow hate-mongers.
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s Truth, was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the lord at last rose in his might…..” “As a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” Hitler April 12, 1922, “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler” Vol. 1 of 2, pg.,19-20, (Oxford Press, 1942).
Napoleon-“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”
Was Hitler an atheist or a secular leader as many would have you believe? Not if you do a little reading of his speeches, his top officers speeches, or any correspondence he had with his fellow hate-mongers.
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s Truth, was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the lord at last rose in his might…..” “As a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” Hitler April 12, 1922, “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler” Vol. 1 of 2, pg.,19-20, (Oxford Press, 1942).
Letter to Gerhard Engel 1941 – “I shall remain a Catholic for ever” A. Hitler
From Mein Kampf and at the Reichstag 1938: “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the almighty Creator by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” A. Hitler.
Yet Many conservative try to paint Hitler as a secular leader. Why? They try in vein to further their wish for a Christian Theocracy or a fusion of Church and State here in the USA. This attempt is out of pure greed for their view of ideology or religion and how they view government in the US. In order to throw mud and discredit secular government this sick tactic of the outright distortion of history is thrust upon American secular government. The distortion is that secular government is bad because Hitler was an Atheist or Secular. Both of which are falsehoods that spit on the memory of all those who perished under Hitler’s ugly, immoral, vulgar, dream for racial and religious homogenization. This historical revisionism is unethical to begin with, but also dishonest, ignoble, and a threat to the authenticity of real historians everywhere. If greedy ideology can create history based on personal agenda, what is there to stop the Bush administration from writing his own history of an administration gone wrong? This is why there is a deep seeded political rift in this nation today. It is due to the fact that there is a history for any viewpoint one can imagine. We cannot have a debate in this nation with any relative place from which to start. Because we have no common agreement upon what is history. We cannot debate anything and reach a real conclusion due to the fact that much of the information given by one side or the other is not true or the truth is taken out of context in order to obtain political posturing.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hey guys~ since I’m only reading and responding to things that make me laugh, I think I’m going to call myself the resident “Denier”. I deny the reality of the sorry state of American politics and society.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Let’s do the math, Mr. Colmes.
That 5 lobbyists and 2 religious figures that McCain has booted off the Stray Talk Express.
That’s 7 in one week. 7!
There are 24 weeks between now and November the 4th. If he’s kicking of 7 people a week, at the end of the campaign, he will have expelled 168 people.
Does he even have that many people on his staff? Is he going to go into the final day with only his wife and children at his side?
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:58 am
The difference between Christian extremists and Muslim extremists is that the ones claiming Christianity act outside of the teachings of Christ and the Muslim ones act accordingly with the teachings of Mohammed (sp?).
Islam most certainly is a religion of violence. Our politicians are just too scared of the backlash to call it what it is.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Craig, I generally concur with what you said.
Many on the left try to draw moral equivalence between Christian extremists and Muslim extremists, but the nature and number of each one is very different.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Hey Frank, you say this: “Hitler’s ugly, immoral, vulgar, dream for racial and religious homogenization….”
You also bashed God earlier in your diatribe. Why was ANYTHING Hitler did wrong? Based on what? Zeus? YOUR situational idea of morality? The consensus of society, who is composed of many immoral people? The generally very moral but imperfect Alan Colmes?
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I wish my mind wasn’t a mass of frustrated mush. This seems like a good discussion to jump into.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Point is, it’s not Hagee’s extensive record of obscene comments that is the real newsmaker here…
It’s MCCAIN’S horrendous judgment of ACTIVELY SEEKING OUT Hagee’s endorsement that is the real story here. One that Democrats can and should address straight through November.
The whole “I didn’t know” line is total BS. Anyone in McCain’s camp could have googled Hagee and found a litany of deeply offensive statements.
McCain should not talk about anything about Obama’s ex Pastor Wright when he has a controversal Pastor also. We should watch what we say because it could come back to bite you in the rear of your body part.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm