Being a presidential candidate is nasty business. You live on a bus, you don't sleep, and you're force fed fatty local food so voters will know that you, like them, don't care how big your ass gets. But that's nothing compared to fending off endorsements and support of psychos who happen to like you, namely religious figures. Like persistent stalker girlfriends, these bunny-boiling preachers and pastors turn on the men who have courted them.
Let's look at the comments of Texas preacher John Hagee. Here's a guy who makes Reverend Wright look like Sidney Poitier.
Hagee told his congregation that God sent Hitler to send the Jews back to Israel. Here's what I don't get. If God is so powerful, why didn't he just skip the middle-man and tell the Jews himself to go to the promised land? The guy is sitting up there on a cloud watching everything. Why didn't he just yell down, "Hey Jews, go back to Israel! Don't make me create some guy to kill you and then, in a very unclear and roundabout way, make whoever is left go to Israel. Or Florida."
And why did such a powerful force need to create Hitler to do his dirty work? He could have sent the Jews back to Israel any number of ways. Why didn't he just send a hurricane, like he did with Katrina, which Hagee claims was sent by God to punish homosexuals? And if God did create Katrina to punish homosexuals, why did all the black people get caught in the middle? Talk about killing a mosquito with a shotgun. Damn, God, be a little more specific, would you? Hagee also called the Catholic Church "the great whore." Again, not to pick nits, but how can a religious institution be a whore?
And then there's the pastor in Ohio, Parsely, who is all up in arms about Islam. He called it an anti-Christ religion. Technically, Parsley is right. Islam is not pro-Christ. So, by definition, it IS anti-Christ. But even a semi-truth surrounded by hateful speech is too much for a candidate to bear. McCain was quick to point out that these pastors were not spiritual advisors to him and he is not a member of their churches. The tiny detail he so conveniently omits is that he spent a year kissing up to the evangelical right. So these endorsements were hard-earned victories for McCain that he then kind of, sort of rejected before he was forced to reject them outright.
As recently as April, he was trying to have it both ways as evidenced by his statement on ABC's This Week. McCain said, "I'm glad to have this endorsement. I condemn remarks that are, in any way, viewed as anti-anything."
A candidate can't be anti-anything? That is rich.
The good news from all this is that each candidate has a few loose cannons supporting them. It's a Mexican standoff, except instead of holding guns, Obama and McCain each have a Religious Nut pointed at the other. Candidates, step away from your preachers.
And perhaps a more pressing question is, how much would you pay to watch Reverend Wright debate John Hagee? Are you listening, ABC News?