Lieberman Insists He'll Speak To Hagee's Group Despite Protests

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman said Wednesday he will address a conference hosted by the Rev. John Hagee, who was spurned by Republican John McCain for his claim that God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land.

"I believe that Pastor Hagee has made comments that are deeply unacceptable and hurtful," Lieberman, I-Conn., said in a statement. "I also believe that a person should be judged on the entire span of his or her life's works. Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews."

Lieberman is one of the strongest supporters of likely GOP presidential nominee McCain. He also has been mentioned as a possible running mate.

Lieberman plans to appear at Hagee's "Christians United for Israel" summit in Washington. He called Hagee's group "a vital force in supporting the war against terrorism and defending our ally, Israel."

The liberal advocacy group Democracy for America called on Lieberman to cut his ties to Hagee and his extremist views.

"If even Lieberman's new best friend, Senator McCain, can figure out that Hagee's message is bad for America and bad for Israel _ so can Joe," the group's executive director, Arshad Hasan, said in an e-mail to supporters.

McCain, R-Ariz., last week rejected Hagee's months-old endorsement after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment "crazy and unacceptable."

Hagee has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and called it a "false cult system." He also has linked Hitler to the Catholic church, suggesting it helped shape his anti-Semitism. Hagee apologized to Catholics earlier this month.

Lieberman had praised Hagee during his speech to the pastor's group last year.

Lieberman was Democrat Al Gore's running mate in 2000. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

Comments

[lthuedk 1]

Why the Armageddonist alliance, Joe? Won't you just leave politics and questions of war to the moderates, Labor and others who actually know how to reach non-violent solutions?

[MessageForceMultiplier]

McCain/Liberman '08. It will be a landslide... for the Obama/Broken Toaster ticket.

[SaskiaStars]

HA!!!

[Podewumun]

I knew that toaster would come in handy! LOL

[UrbanInterloper]

If Lieberman wants to hang with this crowd so badly, he should do it and be proud. I'd rather have his fringe radicalism on display for all to see than some fake, half-hearted denouncement followed by persistent behind-the-scenes dealings. Meanwhile, the sane part of this country will call him out on it.

[SouthJerseySteve]

Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew, meaning he is a right winger, just not of the Christian kind. Right-wing nuts are all the same. As a Reform Jew, I can speak for others who don't all fit the mold and believe Senator Lieberman does not represent all of us.

[KBAR]

Abraham Geiger (1810-1874), the most influential of Reform’s second generation, boldly proclaimed in 1837, Geiger called the first Reform rabbinical conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, and declared: “The Talmud must go, the Bible, that collection of mostly so beautiful and exalted human books, as a divine work must also go.”With this declaration, Reform became the first known group in more than 3,100 years of Jewish history to deny the Torah’s divine origin. The Reform rejected the Mesorah.

[TrevorAlan]

Again, my Jewish friends out there. Crazy right wing Christians might SAY they love Israel but they are not your friends. They think of Israel ONLY as bait for Armageddon, and they are hoping for WW3 to start there.

[KBAR]

they are hoping for WW3 to start there.

So, what knowledge do you have that WWlll would be the 'last' war?

[Shozen]

Nuclear war would be the last war. Period. Then the cockroaches will rule. No messianic help needed.

[Podewumun]

So, knucklehead, where do you stand on WWIII.
Are you for it or against it?

[NicoleAnonymous]

Thank you for stating the obvious - we didn't know that already. I thought evangilists really cared for us but now I know better because you told me.

[2liveNdie]

It's up to you Connecticut!!!

DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS TRAITOR AGAIN!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!

[ILoveNYC]

AMEN!!!! What a GD turn coat!!!

[KBAR]

One rabbi—specifically the one who knows him best, longtime friend Aryeh Scheinberg—believes that Hagee’s theology isn’t loony at all. “Pastor [Hagee] interpreted a Biblical verse in a way not very different from several legitimate Jewish authorities,” Rabbi Scheinberg said Friday at a joint press conference with Hagee in San Antonio on Friday. “Viewing Hitler as acting completely outside of God’s plan is to suggest that God was powerless to stop the Holocaust, a position quite unacceptable to any religious Jew or Christian.”

Scheinberg, who leads a modern Orthodox congregation in Hagee’s hometown and has counted the minister as a friend for almost 30 year, defended his friend by pointing to words written during the Holocaust. “No less an authority than the author of the Eim Habanim Semeichah, Rabbi Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal of blessed memory wrote these words while cowering in a Budapest cellar in the very midst of Hitler’s Holocaust: 'Furthermore, the sole purpose of all the afflictions that smite us in our exile is to arouse us to return to our Holy Land.’”

[Podewumun]

Christian or Jew, they're all cuckoo.

[LittleSanityLeft]

"Viewing Hitler as acting completely outside of God"s plan is to suggest that God was powerless to stop the Holocaust, a position quite unacceptable to any religious Jew or Christian."

Utter garbage. Gods greatest gift to mankind was the ability to chose. Those choices are independent of Gods interference because if he were to interfere it wouldn't be your choice anymore, now would it. Choice was one of the main reasons the fallen angles had problems with God, they were the first of His creations yet were relegated to servitude, including serving and taking orders from humanity. The fallen Angels wanted choice and freedom and they were denied.

To imply God has power over choice or that all choices are part of His plan is to believe that choice is an illusion, that the war between Heaven and Hell is a farce seeing as Satan will inevitably lose unless Satan winning would be a part of Gods plan. The war for the souls of mankind will be won and lost by the choices each individual makes. Hitler had choices and made demonstrable ones. To imply God had any part in those choices IS a sin.

[Taaj]

joe liberman has no credibility, his nose is so brown and he stinks of "irrelevancy".

[TRichards]

Gee, Joe, what a novel take on what comprises a profile in courage.

What a four-star jerk!

[Rescisco]

Having discovered his inner Republican, Joe is no longer able to comprehend reality.

[Tommygun264]

It looks as though Lieberman is vying for the VP position under Hillary Clinton on the "Say and Do Anything" ticket.

[Terriac]

This guy has truly gone off the deep end. He and Hillary must be smoking the same weed.

[colleen2]

"He and Hillary must be smoking the same weed."

Their suppliers are Al From, Bruce Reed, Dan Gerstein and the rest of that lot at the DLC.

[kellygrrrl]

*flush*

there goes LieberCon's last shred of credibility

[jeffp26]

I am a new york jew. Hard core. A lifer.

A little while ago I offered one of my out of town friends to trade Hillary for either of her senators. Going forward I'll have to amend that offer: it does not apply in CT!!!!

[VOTER]

Good One!

[NicoleAnonymous]

Please go back to Zabars and stop insulting Clinton here.

She has enough problems as it is. And also Jews are a race - you're either Jewish or you're not. You can't be a "lifer" because we're not talking about prison and you don't get a life sentance.

[smoo]

Jews are a race? I didn't know that.

[dsbsh]

"Jews are a race" the same way Methodists are; if your parents are Jewish, that's how you're raised. Last time I checked, it's pretty difficult to convert to Caucasianism.

Granted, your statement isn't moronic like jeffp26's prison analogy, but it's still wrong.

[Shozen]

What are converts to Judaism then? Judaism is not a "race." There is only one "race." HUMAN.

[loax]

I hope the people of the Jewish religion are watching how this right hand man of McBush is defaming his own religion!

[rinpochet]

I'm Jewish and Lieberman has always been a joke to me. He is now a disgrace! The Democrats need to boot him out .. NOW!

I wonder is he doing this as a "wink, wink, nod, nod" to the evangelicals, giving them the message that even though McCain had to publicly repudiate Hagee, just don't worry about it .. it's okay!

[Terriac]

Anything's possible. Your theory sounds as reasonable as anything.

[NicoleAnonymous]

But many Jews don't mind evangelists supporting Israel although they're only doing it because they think Jews have to be there for the apocalypse or something like that so apparently we're not very concerned about our religion.

And anyway Lieberman is really a Republican pretending to be a Democrat so what do you expect from him.

[colleen2]

"they think Jews have to be there for the apocalypse or something like that so apparently we're not very concerned about our religion."

They think that Jews have to convert to some form of Evangelical Christianity. Perhaps that's what Lieberman is doing

[masterself]

I see Bush chicken are coming home again.