John Hagee's free ride in the media

Imagine this: A preacher endorses a candidate for president. Then we learn the preacher has, for years and from the pulpit, made disgusting, inflammatory and un-American statements. Yet the mainstream media totally ignore the preacher's remarks and never pressures the candidate to explain all the ugly things the preacher has said and done over the last 20 years.

Impossible scenario? That depends on whether your name is Barack Obama or John McCain – and whether the preacher's name is Jeremiah Wright or John Hagee. Obama, of course, was held personally responsible by the media for everything Jeremiah Wright ever said, and forced to repudiate him. McCain, on the other hand, has been given a free ride by the media and never challenged to answer for Hagee's comments – even though, in many ways, they are more outrageous than anything heard from Pastor Wright.

Hagee is founder and senior pastor of San Antonio's 19,000-member Cornerstone Church. He's also a leading televangelist, whose radio and television broadcasts are seen and heard in 99 million homes. On many occasions since he began his ministry in the '70s, Hagee has come under criticism for his controversial remarks on women, gays, Israel and Catholics.

Hagee shows no mercy for the Catholic Church, telling viewers in one telecast that Hitler learned his hatred for Jews from growing up as a Catholic. When launching his wholesale slaughter of Jews, according to Hagee, Hitler told his followers: "I'm not going to do anything in my lifetime that hasn't been done by the Roman Church for the past 800 years. I'm only going to do it on a greater scale and more efficiently."

On women, Hagee makes St. Paul, notorious for treating women like second-class citizens, look like a feminist. "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher?" asks Hagee. "The answer is lipstick." As if that's not insulting enough, he continues: "Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? ... You can negotiate with a terrorist." Real cut-up, that John Hagee.

We all remember that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were condemned for asserting, the day after Sept. 11, that God had punished America for, among other "sins," our tolerance of gays. Yet John Hagee made a similar claim five years later about Hurricane Katrina and nobody cared. Appearing on NPR's "Fresh Air" on Sept. 18, 2006, Hagee said: "The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades."

Incredulous host Terri Gross asked if he was really saying that God had flattened the entire city of New Orleans, because a gay pride parade was scheduled in the French Quarter. Yes, said Hagee, that's exactly what I meant. "All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Hagee is also founder of Christians United for Israel, which sounds innocuous enough until you realize that, like most evangelical Christians, he only supports Israel in order to trigger another war that would bring about the end of the world. As he himself told a July 19, 2006, CUFI event in Washington, D.C.: "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West ... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ."

Now, here's what's different about Obama/Wright and McCain/Hagee. John McCain actually sought out Hagee's endorsement, said he was proud to receive it and continues to brag about it.

My question is not: How could a Christian preacher say such ugly things? But rather: Why did the media pay so much attention to one preacher, and zero attention to the other?

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