McCain Endorsement Angers Catholic League President

The Washington Post is reporting today that

"the president of the Catholic League today blasted Sen. John McCain for accepting the endorsement of Texas evangelicalist John Hagee, calling the controversial pastor a bigot who has "waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church."

Hagee, who is known for his crusading support of Israel, backed McCain's presidential bid Wednesday, standing next to the senator at a hotel in San Antonio and calling McCain "a man of principle."

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that Hagee has written extensively in negative ways about the Catholic Church, "calling it 'The Great Whore,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system.'"

"Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee," Donohue said.

Catholics United, a national online group, also blasted McCain over the endorsement. "By receiving the endorsement of an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, McCain once again demonstrates that he is willing to sell out his principles for a chance to win the Presidency," said Chris Korzen, Executive Director of Catholics United in a statement. "We hope Senator McCain will take the principled position of publicly and unequivocally distancing himself from Pastor Hagee's anti-Catholic comments. Intolerance and bigotry do not belong in American politics."

The McCain campaign had no immediate comment on the statements. WaPost

It's wonderful to see anti-abortion Catholic League leaders and anti-Black Republicans leaders fighting each other over John Sidney McCain, III's presidential campaign. I wonder how they'll resolve the matter of whether the Republicans hate Catholics or not?

UPDATE 01/03/2008 10:25AM

In comments, AgentX said...

First it was Mexicans, next it was the Jews (McCain has Nixon's former "Jew Counter" on his campaign staff), and now he's ok with a Catholicism basher? This is AFTER he threw Bill Cunningham under the bus!

Who's next on his list? David Duke? Ted Haggart?

March 1, 2008 3:21 AM

In comments, AgentX said...

Sorry to post twice, but I did find something that a commenter on the WaPost had to say.

Hagee is a much more frightening fanatic than Farrakhan.

1) Hagee thinks 99% of humanity needs to be wiped out in order bring Jesus back.

2) Hagee claims all Muslims are required to murder Christian and Jewish babies.

3) Hagee believes Hurricane Katrina was sent by God to punish gay people.

Hagee is a more bigoted, backward fanatic than Farrakhan. The only reason the Tim Russerts of the world ignore this issue is because Farrakhan is black and Muslim, and therefore is an easy target, while Hagee is white and Christian, and therefore immune. McCain lies down in the mud with dogs -- don't let the Washington Media keep ignoring McCain's ties to the American Christian Taliban.

How Cindy McCain was Outed for Drug Addiction

Most Black people have paid little or no attention to the life of John Sydney McCain, III and his family in the past, because there was absolutely no chance that most of us would ever consider voting for this Republican, particularly since he never before became the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States. Now we find that we must quickly research and study this would-be president's life, in order to determine what it would mean for us if he ever were to become president.

Because we just took the unprecedented step of publishing here a diary with few citations about Cindy McCain that includes shocking details of her drug addiction and of John Sydney McCain, III, efforts to cover it up, so we are compelled to print the following excerpt from a Salon.Com story, which provides the background information necessary to evaluate all of the sordid details of Cindy McCain's drug addiction, unlawful obtaining and possession of drugs, and the McCain campaign's efforts to cover it up and keep her out of jail:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain's unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy's secret would have stayed secret if John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.'s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn't heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.

Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski -- Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower -- Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

It's a story of unintended consequences. It's also a story of power politics and media manipulation that's very un-McCain-like -- if you believe his national media hagiography. Salon.Com, October 19, 1999

When we read Cindy McCain story of drug addiction and illegally obtaining, possessing and using barbiturates (and who knows what all else), we cannot but think of the 2.3 million people in jail in the United States, record numbers that are the highest in the world, most of whose offenses were no more serious than the illegal drug-related acts of Cindy McCain, for which she was not punished at all.

We cannot help but feel a deep resentment when we learn that, even as Republicans like John Sydney McCain, III were voting for stiffer drug penalties for Black people, they were taking advantage of white privilege and their political power to assure that their own drug addicted family members would not be affected by those same draconian laws.

Read the entire Cindy McCain story, with all of the sordid and reprehensible details, at Salon.Com.

Sorry Cindy McCain, It's Time to Take the Gloves Off

The following details of the life of John Sidney McCain, III and his first wife, Cindy, as first reported at Salon.Com, are allegations so potentially damaging to John Sidney McCain's presidential bid that these allegation cry out for further investigation. I suggest that readers of this blog Google and verify each allegation because, if true, this information shows that John S. McCain clearly lacks the moral standing and respect for the rule of law as it applies to his family life needed to compete in 2008 for the presidency of the United States.

Sorry Cindy McCain, It's Time to Take the Gloves Off
by Mr Populist, DailyKos
Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 04:02:37 AM PST

I really don't care if McCain's trophy wife is proud of her country. She is just another GOP Stepford Wife as vacant as the previous ones. Whoopie for anorexic-looking Cindy McCain in her red $5000 Yves St. Laurent power suit, with her triple string of cultured pearls, her bleached blond hair and her shiny new face-lift telling us she's proud of America. Prouder of America than--- hmmmm, let's say Michelle Obama.

John McCain follows the usual "family values" profile of Republican social climbers. He divorced first wife Carol in April 1980 and married Cindy one month later. Infidelity? Hell no!... they were just "friends."

Cindy who is 18 years younger than Gramps McCain and she paid for McCain's first campaign for Congress in 1982 with loans from her well endowed trust fund. Her father's business and political contacts helped gain her husband a foothold into Arizona politics.

Cindy's biggest claim to fame is in 1989 she developed an addiction to perocet and vicodin, two powerful morphine based pain killers. In 1993 she was caught stealing percocet from supply of the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charity she founded to provide health care and medications to war victims in underdeveloped nations. The DEA was investigated her and with the intervention of her well connected parents and McCain himself, Cindy got off the hook with the usual 90 day trip to the posh rehab. The American Voluntary Medical Team folded shortly after it ceased to be a supply point for Cindy's opiate habit.

The DEA agreed to keep Cindy's little misadventure in Lala Land from the public, but then Cindy went and terminated the guy who reported her to the DEA and the details of Cindy's sordid past as a suburban trophy wife junkie all came out when the fired guy filed a wrongful termination suit against Cindy.

A few weeks after Cindy came clean about her addiction the Variety Club canceled her Humanitarian of the Year Award. Boo hoo!... Another respectable Republican mother of the Harper Valley PTA goes down. This is just a little Peyton Place of Republican family values and Cindy's a Harper Valley hypocrite.

John McCain kept Cindy under wraps during his bid for the presidency but now that she's out there telling us she's way prouder of America than Michelle Obama, So I'm doing America a service by telling the truth, and nothing but the whole truth about Cindy.

( . . . )

McCain's Autobiography Provides Frightening Exampes of Messainic Militarism

Hot McCain Tip from Agent X:

Would a John McCain presidency bring a dangerous expansion of Middle Eastern wars to include Iran and other countries? After reviewing John McCain's autobiography, Faith of My Fathers (8.98 w/shipping at Amazon.com), AlterNet says:

But McCain's entire career has been dedicated to the idea that America must always have the right to solve its problems by force. Throughout his political career, he has argued for increased use of force in virtually every military engagement the U.S. has been involved in since Vietnam. He complained about Bill Clinton's "excessively restricted air campaign" in Kosovo, campaigning strenuously for a ground invasion. During the 1994 flap over Pyongyang's nuclear program, he called for "more forceful, coercive action." Even before the latest Iraq War, McCain argued way back in 1999 that the only way to deal with Saddam Hussein was "to strike disproportionate to the provocation."

The most frightening example of McCain's fondness for force is on display in his own book, Faith of My Fathers, when he complains about the politicians who refused to allow pilots like him to attack, say, Soviet ships unloading arms in Vietnamese port cities. "We thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots," he writes.

Bombing Soviet ships, of course, would probably have started World War III, but McCain's vision, then and now, encompasses war as a way of life. There is significant evidence that McCain believes war is something righteous and necessary, a tonic for the national soul, intrinsically "noble" irrespective of context (he is still one of the only politicians to apply that word to the Iraq conflict). That is why it's no joke when McCain says casually, "There's gonna be other wars," or when he sings, "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." We have to assume that he will jump at the chance to expand this conflict and hit those politically sensitive targets his "complete idiot" civilian commanders once barred him from going after in Vietnam. AlterNet, February 28, 2008.

With American wars raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, voters want a president to successfully end the wars we have rather than spreading them to include more countries. That's why McCain's presidential candidacy is "bomb, bomb, bombing" with the American voters.

John McCain Donated to a Paramilitary Group Blamed for Torture, Kidnapping, Rape and Murder

With President Ronald Reagan, in 1988 Senator John McCain supported aid to the Contras, a paramilitary organization organized and sponsored by the US Central Intelligence Agency in an effort to overthrow the elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua. New York Times, January 19, 1988.

After the US Congress voted to discontinue funds to the Contras, in large part because of their human rights abuses, Senator John McCain personally sent $400.00 to a fund for the Contras, to replace the money the elected representatives of the United States voters refused to give to that right-wing Central American paramilitary group.

Human Rights Watch says,

the Contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners. Human Rights Watch

The New York Times reported on March 27, 1989,

A contra military tribunal has concluded that six Nicaraguan [Contra] guerrillas committed torture or other human rights abuses and has ordered their expulsion from the rebel movement.

( . . . )

One of the offenders, known by the pseudonym Israelita, has been deported from Honduras to Nicaragua. He was tried in absentia and was found guilty of murder, rape and torture, Mr. Matamoros said. New York Times, March 27, 1989.

Lately, John McCain has said that he doesn't believe in torture. But he didn't seem to have any problem with it when he donated $400.00 to the Contras and lent his stature as a US Congressman to the unconscionable tactics and fundraising efforts of that mercenary group.

John McCain concedes that he could very well lose over Iraq.

John McCain says that he will lose the election unless the American people believe that the Iraq War is being won. Yet, 60% of the public thinks the war never should have been started in the first place. Here's a video of John McCain explaining why he has to retract his statement that, "I lose. I lose," over Iraq:



"Let me not be that stark", Mccain.

Does John McCain Cheat on His Wife or Doesn't He?

In spite of the information developed by the New York Times, Sen. John McCain is " vigorously denying and denouncing a newspaper report suggesting an improper relationship with a female lobbyist." But, the issue just won't go away until the public has learned the whole truth. Yahoo News says,

At the very least, the episode gives Democrats an opening to try to exploit McCain's decades-long ties to Washington even though he's known as a Republican lawmaker willing to stand up to special interests and reduce the influence of lobbyists. It's a reputation he has carefully honed in the aftermath of the Keating Five influence-peddling scandal decades ago. The Senate cited him for "poor judgment" in that matter but took no further action.

The Democratic National Committee said Thursday in a statement: "After 25 years in Washington, the real John McCain is just like the other D.C. insiders he rails against on the campaign trail. John McCain's 'do as I say, not as I do' approach to ethics and lobbying reform can be called a lot of things. 'Straight talk' isn't one of them."

The Double-Talk Express: "I lose, I lose" because of Iraq.

John McCain presents himself to the public as a straight-talker who's always open with the public and the media. He considers that an asset. While it's an asset to be a straight-talker, it doesn't help when you're so stupid as to concede the primaries by admitting that the Iraq War will be your undoing. The New York Times reports,

Senator John McCain said Monday that he needed to convince the American people that the troop escalation in Iraq was working and that American casualties there would continue to decline. If he did not, he said, “I lose” the election.

“Is there any doubt?” Mr. McCain said to reporters on his campaign bus.

But then he pulled back from his blunt assessment. “Let me not put it that stark,” he said, explaining that he believed people would judge his candidacy on his ability to handle the economy, which has emerged as a pre-eminent voter concern, as well as on national security.

Nevertheless, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made clear that he believed his prospects in November would rest in large measure on the way the situation in Iraq played out.

“If I may, I’d like to retract ‘I’ll lose,’ ” he said. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me.” NYT, February 26, 2008

Now, John McCain is trying to straighten out his "straigh-talk" by claiming that the Iraq War will 'be over soon,' (see video), but he also says the insurgency will continue unabated. This sure is some incredible double-talk from the "straight talker"!

"...the war for all intents and purposes, although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis. ... " TheAtlantic.Com

It's one thing to shoot from the hip, but John McCain also shoots himself in the foot. You disqualify yourself as a straight-talker when you take back what you said once you've had a minute to think about it.

Who will make the better international leader? Barack Obama, who considers his words carefully and speaks eloquently, or John McCain who makes self-destructive statements and then tries to take them back when the damage has already been done?

What John McCain calls a "straight-talk express" is really a double-talk, "what I said versus what I meant express."

McCain Staffer Warned Him that His Big Contributor Was Trying to Bribe Him

Is John McCain too tainted with scandal and bribery accusations to become president of the United States? The New York Times reported on November 21, 1990,

Ms. van Paasschen, a banking expert on Mr. McCain's staff, explained her distrust of Senator DeConcini's motive in seeking Mr. McCain's cooperation on the Keating case by pointing out that Mr. McCain had received more campaign contributions from Mr. Keating. "So if the press were to ever get a hold of it," she said, referring to the Senators' assistance, "it would be more embarrassing for Senator McCain than for Senator DeConcini." NYT, November 21, 1990

Because John McCain failed to take appropriate action based on the warning that a major contributor of his was trying to bribe US Senators, this eventually became know as the "Keating Five Scandal", in which John McCain was investigated and embarrassed.

And John McCain still thinks he should be president of the United States?