Updated update: Wages of wisealeckery...In my original opening for this post, I joked, in pretty fatuous bad taste, it does appear, about John McCain's physical appearance and manner. I have been taken to task in the comments below, and have apologized. I've further decided to remove that original opening (you can get a sense of its provocations from the comments) because I don't want it to distract from my larger points. Namely, that those who rise to defend my insults to Mr. McCain's courage and suffering will also rise to condemn the egregiousness of his embrace of John Hagee. Or is that just "politics"? At what point does "politics" start carrying larger consequences involving much suffering -- physical as well as emotional -- for lots and lots of people? I think we've crossed that point most hellaciously since, say, 2001. And John McCain has been and still is complicit in this.
More trouble for John McCain in whom he chooses to say yes to. His huggings of George Bush, image and politics, are bringing him trouble enough.
Now there's redoubled trouble because he won't renounce and denounce the endorsement of this Pastor John Hagee, one bonafide wacko, medieval crank, anti-Catholic bigot and slaughter-monger, who happens to be grotesquely pro-Israel.
I used to watch Hagee on TV and marvel, back in the early 90s when I lived in L.A. I don't think he'd even warmed up his pro-Israel bit at that time, but he sure was something to behold.
Other people down there in Texas, where Hagee has his megachurch, might be pressed about their relations with him, not just McCain. For instance, I read that the San Antonio chapter of B'nai B'rith (Hagee's hometown) once gave him their "Humanitarian of the Year" award -- the first Gentile to be so honored.
I wonder if they'll rescind it.
I see former Mayor Kathy Whitmire of Houston set aside a special day of honor, declaring Pastor John C. Hagee Day in her city.
Rescind that too?
Appreciations to Uber.com, where a version of this piece first appeared on my blog, Brain Flakes.
Also at Smirkingchimp.com