Let's say there was a religious leader, a pillar of his community, an influential preacher with a large flock, who had supported a certain presidential candidate and he might have said some things that could be construed as offensive to some.

Maybe some of the things went beyond offensive and roamed, as Kinky Friedman once said, out there where the buses don't run.

Let's say that preacher said things like Hurricane Katrina was "God's punishment" of New Orleans for the city's general decadence and "a level of sin that was offensive to God," citing, specifically, gays.

Funny thing, though, the city's "gayborhoods" and the beyond-decadent French Quarter were spared the flooding, indicating that God, apparently working through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had failed to adequately maintain the levees that kept the sea out of the city, had apparently missed the mark.

Let's also say this theoretical preacher also said God was angry with the United States and sought to punish the nation because the Bush administration was pushing for Israel to compromise with the Palestinians to achieve peace. He said God was mad because the Bushies screwed up His plans for an end-of-the-world conflict involving Israel that would lead to the second coming of Jesus. (Is there anything that Bush hasn't screwed up?)

And let's say that preacher called Jews "Christ killers" and said anti-Semitism was God's punishment on the Jews for being disobedient.

Let's say

Advertisement
he said: "It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day. . . . Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come. . . . it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people."

So anti-Semitism is the Jews' own fault, according to this preacher.

Or maybe it's the Catholics' fault.

Let's say this same preacher said Adolph Hitler learned to be an anti-Semite at Catholic school. He said the Catholic church encouraged anti-Semitism, going back to the slaughter of Jews during the Crusades.

Let's say the preacher called the Catholic church "the great whore" and "a Godless theology."

Let's say he believes the end of the world and the return of Jesus is near and that the United States could help bring it about by bombing the bejesus, so to speak, out of Iran.

You might say that preacher is a lunatic.

So let's say that preacher endorses a political candidate, and the candidate accepts the endorsement, standing on a stage with the preacher and putting his arm around him and gladly accepting his support because it means votes.

And let's say when there's a minor dust-up about the candidate accepting the crazy preacher's endorsement, the candidate defends it and says, "I'm very proud to have (the preacher's) support."

And when asked about some of the preacher's nuttier comments, the candidate says he's "still glad" to have the endorsement.

You would think this would be a big deal.

Wouldn't you?

Well, it isn't.

While the political world is working itself into an orgasmic frenzy over the statements of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the response from his former parishioner, Barack Obama, the story of this preacher and the politician he supports is going ignored.

The preacher is a fundamentalist minister from Texas named John Hagee.

The politician is John McCain.

There are differences. Obama attended Wright's church. Wright performed his wedding and baptized his kids. Obama has known Wright for 20 years.

McCain probably didn't know Hagee from haggis until he sought his endorsement.

Wright had no official position in Obama's campaign and hadn't campaigned for him.

Hagee is an official McCain supporter and campaigns for him among his flock.

And while Obama has always distanced himself from his preacher's more controversial remarks and has, just last week, cut his ties with the minister, McCain continues to embrace Hagee.

Sure, McCain said he doesn't believe everything the preacher says, but he still says he's glad to have his support.

There is one other big difference.

Obama has consistently rejected the controversial statements of his former minister.

McCain, on the other hand, well, it just matters what day it is.

It wasn't so long ago that McCain called people like Hagee and televangelist Pat Robertson and the late Rev. Jerry Fawell "agents of intolerance" and decried their influence on the political process.

In 2000, he gave a speech in which he said Robertson and Falwell and other evangelicals who had highjacked the Republican Party "are corrupting influences on religion and politics" and "shame our faith, our party and our country."

My, how times have changed. Now that McCain needs the votes of the followers of these "agents of intolerance," he's sucking up to them in a way that would embarrass Smithers, the sycophantic assistant to J. Montgomery Burns on "The Simpsons."

He's spoken at Falwell's Liberty University and actively sought endorsements from Hagee and Robertson.

McCain has also accepted the endorsement of a man named Rod Parsley, leader of something called the "Patriot Pastors."

Parsley advocates the criminal prosecution, and imprisoning, of adulterers.

McCain, who has called Parsley "a spiritual guide," is an adulterer, having cheated on his first wife with his current wife. So McCain gladly accepts support from a guy who would put people like McCain in jail.

No one's asking McCain to denounce and reject Parsley or Hagee. They aren't playing Parsley's or Hagee's greatest hits in heavy rotation on the cable news outlets. The pundits aren't wringing their hands over what it all means in the trivial pursuit of the presidency.

I wonder why.

Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Visit his blog at mikeargento.com.

TO SEE MORE

To see the Rev. John Hagee's greatest hits, visit Mike's blog at mikeargento.com.