Berkeley Bubble

It appears that John McCain may be forced to answer and account for the anti-American views of one of his backers. Pastor John Hagee has been preaching anti-Americanism and bigotry, and the mainstream media are only now beginning to focus on it–from the New York Times:

It is an injustice, a legacy of the racist threads of this nation’s history, but prominent African-Americans are regularly called upon to explain or repudiate what other black Americans have to say, while white public figures are rarely, if ever, handed that burden.

Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.

Here’s what Pastor Hagee said in a chapter of Day of Deception (1997):

In “America Under a Curse,” a seventeen page chapter in Day of Deception, John Hagee wrote, “As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now. Look at the scriptures and see for yourself. The stand we have taken on abortion, the stand we have taken against God in our classrooms, just may have sealed or doom.”

Sadly, the mainstream media has focused disproportionate attention on the Rev. Wright, and very little attention on McCain and Hagee, with WaPo and the NYT publishing 12 times as many articles about Wright as the McCain-Hagee connection.

Should McCain and the Republicans try to continue to run a racist ad war involving Wright in the fall campaign, they probably should expect a fair dose of McCain-Hagee commercials.