Huckabee Angry Over An Extreme Evangelicals Endorsement of McCain

February 29, 2008

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In a surprising fit of anger last night, Mike Huckabee, while addressing the crowd at a rally in Texarkana,, Texas, accused the Rev. John Hagee of playing politics over principle by endorsing Sen. John McCain earlier in the day. Huckabee continued on his high horse calling out John McCain for not accepting a debate, which in fact would have been the first and only head to head debate between members of the Republican party this primary season. It is somewhat confusing why Huckabee would even want the endorsement of Hagee, an influential activist in the Christian Zionist movement, who eagerly awaits the Armageddon, considers the Catholic Church to be the Anti-Christ, and has said that Jews brought their own persecution upon themselves. Maybe Huckabee realizes what’s going on right now in terms of the comical double standard being applied to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Obama was pressed relentlessly by both Russert, a moderator, and Clinton about repudiating Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement, which Obama had already denounced, not to mention ever asking for in the first place. This however did not stop Russert who insisted on leveling a barrage of questions, which had ultimately already been answered. By the end of the tag teaming of Clinton and Russert, Barack Obama had disowned Farrakhan multiple times, using the strongest language he possibly could.

Obviously, the precedent had been set for candidates and the endorsements of controversial religious figures, and how the candidate was expected to deal with them. Well, not so much, when it came to McCain’s extremely controversial backer, the press didn’t do more then lift a finger, illustrating a clear double standard, one that Huckabee may have picked up on. You see Huckabee realized that he can get the endorsements of these fringe elements in the evangelical movement and not fact the same scrutiny, as say, Barack Obama would have to answer to. And that may be what led Huckabee to say this, regarding Hagee and McCain, at last nights rally:

Huckabee said he was surprised by Hagee’s endorsement because of McCain’s lack of fervor on abortion — despite his 100% anti-abortion rights voting record. (McCain has, however, voted for stem-cell research.) Huckabee also said Hagee told him he endorsed because he assumed McCain would win the nomination.

He just thought that the political rationale was he wanted to get on Sen. McCain’s team, and he thought he was gonna win the nomination,” Huckabee said. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion, and even if I did, I would stand on principle more than I would politics.”

Huckabee said he spoke with Hagee, expressed his disappointment and surprise” and asked him to hold off on publicly backing McCain.

I felt that it was totally out of character for what I knew he believed,” Huckabee said, or at least I thought he did.”

It should be noted that Mike Huckabee should be careful for what he asks for. The Hagee endorsement seems to be causing a splinter effect within the religious sect of the GOP, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has seemingly popped a blood vessel over this endorsement, mainly because he views the teachings of Hagee as crossing the line into the realm of hate speech. And his writings, particularly his denunciations of the Catholic Church as unacceptable and down right radicalism. Donohue pointed to instances in which Hagee has referred to the Catholic Church as, “The Great Whore,” an “apostate church,” the “anti-Christ,” and a “false cult system.” At one point during a statement Donahue was giving last night a incredibly rare even took place, that is, Bill Donahue stood up for Barack Obama, and actually called out the media on their differing treatment of the two situations:

Is Tim Russert going to repeat any of that to McCain, in the same way he read out Farrakhan’s “gutter religion” line about Jews?
“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot,” Donohue wrote. “McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee.”

You know this is a historical race when you have far right religious figures fighting amongst themselves, Bill Donahue sticking up for what looks to be the Democratic nominee, and a weight losing, ex governor from Arkansas complaining the whole time because he isn’t involved in what is turning out to look like the religious crusades that took place in mid-evil times. All joking aside though, I do think it will be very telling as to the future of this race too see whether or not the same media outlets that pressured Barack Obama so hard about Louis Farrakhan’s uninvited endorsement, will now ask John McCain to denounce and reject the support of John Hagee, which McCain, unlike Obama, actually sought and publicly accepted.