Potemkin Village

The date is May 22, and the Associated Press is reporting that Sen. John McCain has just rejected the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX. Those of you who do not recognize Mr. Hagee’s name may recall some of the inflammatory comments he’s made, regarding everything from Middle Eastern affairs to anti-Catholicism, such as:

“A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years produced a harvest of hate.” – Mr. Hagee regarding Catholicism

“…those who live by the Qu’ran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews… it teaches that very clearly…There are 1.3 billion people who follow the Islamic faith, so if you’re saying there’s only 15 percent that want to come to America or invade Israel to crush it, you’re only talking about 200 million people. That’s far more than Hitler and Japan and Italy and all of the Axis Powers in World War II had under arms.” – Pastor Hagee regarding Islam and our affairs in the Middle East

“It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day… Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of antisemitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come…. it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people.” – Mr. Hagee regarding the Holocaust

Yes, this is the same gentleman who stated that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God, stating that a “homosexual parade” that was to be held in New Orleans was proof “of the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” What’s interesting about this rejection of Pastor Hagee’s endorsement is that it has been nearly 3 months since Mr. Hagee endorsed Sen. McCain on Feb. 27th. I am sure all of you remember the controversy regarding Sen. Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The media discovered that Sen. Obama was a member of said church towards the end of March this year, and the uproarious coverage of this by the press went on for nearly 2 months, with repeated cries that Mr. Obama’s “rejecting” and “denouncing” of the inflammatory comments made by Mr. Wright were not enough. At one point, as this alleged controversy rose to its’ peak in the media, it seemed as if Mr. Obama was going to have to publicly crucify Mr. Wright for the press to be satisfied with his repeated renouncing of Mr. Wright. Rev. Wright never formally endorsed Sen. Obama, and in fact, Sen. Obama did not have much of a relationship (even less of one now) with Rev. Wright – other than the fact that he was the pastor of a megachurch with over 10,000 members that Sen. Obama attended for years. Yes, Rev. Wright did officiate the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Obama, as he did for each and every member who was married in the Trinity United Church.

On the contrary, Sen. McCain actually went out of his way to seek the endorsement of Pastor Hagee. He has publicly defended the inflammatory diatribe that Mr. Hagee has made on a consistent basis, stating that Mr. Hagee’s comments have been “taken out of context.” In fact, the McCain campaign has said that they “welcome his support” and while the Catholic League has been calling for Sen. McCain to denounce this endorsement since February, it has taken Sen. McCain almost THREE MONTHS to make a public rejection of Pastor Hagee’s endorsement.

This issue has gone virtually untouched by the mainstream media, there has been no call for clarification of McCain’s stance on Pastor Hagee’s views, whether he “rejects” and “denounces” them, or whether or not the 3 month silence on this issue can be seen as Sen. McCain supporting the racist and unacceptable hate speech made by Mr. Hagee over and over again. Sen. McCain must come forward and make public where he stands on these views. The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal.” If Sen. McCain holds the views of Mr. Hagee, that “all men are created equal” as long as they’re Christian and not Catholic or Muslim, then it is unacceptable for him to hold public office, let alone potentially be Commander-in-Chief of one of the most influential nations in the world. It would simply be aloof of us as the American populous to not demand that Mr. McCain make clear whether or not he endorses Mr. Hagee’s views, the mainstream media has done an absolute disservice to the American public by not bringing this issue to light.

UPDATE: As if on cue, ABC News is reporting that Sen. McCain’s pastor, Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Columbus, OH has stated that “Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world” and “America was founded with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe Sept. 11, 2001 was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.” Sen. McCain has called Mr. Parsley “one of the truly great leaders in America.” It will be interesting to see if this reaches the level of coverage and controversy the Rev. Wright issue did, or if we even hear of this again. Stay tuned.

Sen. Obama should start calling for Florida and Michigan to be counted. Here’s why:

Right now, Hillary is able to take the stance of the “fighter” for the rights of the Florida and Michigan voters. And there is no argument as to whether or not the FL/MI voters’ were infringed upon, the state legislatures made some horrible decisions and one might even call it conspiratorial. Remember, the Republican controlled legislature in Florida (headed by none other than McCain’s most likely veep, Gov. Charlie Crist) were the ones who ultimately decided to move Florida’s primary to Jan. 29th. If Sen. Obama does not start taking the stance that FL and MI voters were disenfranchised and misrepresented, and calling for their votes to be counted – he will face serious hurdles in winning both states in November.

Unfortunately, there are some problems if Sen. Obama does call for the counting of said votes: Even if Florida and Michigan are counted to the fullest according to the results of their January primaries, Obama still maintains a solid pledged delegate lead, but Sen. Clinton will gain a 26,000 vote lead in the popular vote. This gives her case to superdelegates much more credence – she is the leader of the popular vote, and the entire concept of proportional delegation is unconstitutional. However, this very slim lead (there have been over 33,000,000 votes cast in the primary) is entirely dependent on Sen. Obama receiving none of the “Uncommitted” votes from Michigan. It is unrealistic to assume that not one of those 40.07% of 594,398 votes cast in Michigan is for Sen. Obama. But since there is no appreciable measurement of appropriating votes towards the candidate said voters had in mind when they voted “Uncommitted”, allocating even so much as one of those votes to Obama will be decried by Sen. Clinton as “unconstitutional” and “disenfranchisement”. If said delegates are kept “Uncommitted”, this would free up the “Uncommitted” delegates to vote for whomever they wish, which frankly would allow the Clinton campaign to do everything in their power (money, influence – they have a lot of it) to get these delegates to vote for Sen. Clinton at the convention.

The issue is obviously extremely complex, and one can only hope that the Rules & Bylaws Committee makes a wise decision that is satisfactory to both campaigns (that’s a stretch) on May 31st.

UPDATE: Sure enough, Politico’s Avi Zenilman is reporting that Harold Ickes wants the Michigan delegates that were not allocated to Mrs. Clinton to stay “Uncommitted”.

The Associated Press is reporting that Clinton, in one of the most blatant statements this cycle, is willing to take the battle over Florida and Michigan to the Democratic National Convention. The Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet on May 31st to hear appeals from leaders of both states, and may make a decision on seating these states’ delegates at this point. Clinton has said that if the states are not satisfied with the results of the deliberation (or more appropriately, if Sen. Clinton is not satisfied), she will take the fight all the way to the Convention. Some interesting perspective here: The DNC meets on August 25-28. The 2008 United States presidential election takes place on November 4th. This would give the eventual Democratic nominee little over 2 months to campaign for the general election. Sen. McCain has been the presumptive nominee of the Republican party since March 4th. He has had over 2 months to campaign already, and has over 5 months more to campaign before November. Assuming this is taken all the way to the DNC – this seems a bit like self-sabotage for the Democratic Party in the 2008 Election. I’ll wait until May 31st to make further judgment.

A new Reuters/Zogby poll released this morning shows Sen. Barack Obama ahead of Sen. John McCain by 8 points in a hypothetical November matchup. Keep in mind that national polling is somewhat useless, considering the Electoral College system we have in place, but it’s a good measure of how Obama’s heavy losses in the past few contests (West Virginia, Kentucky, etc) have affected his momentum. The answer: not much. The same poll also shows Sen. Obama ahead of Sen. Clinton nationally by a margin that seems insurmountable – 26 points. Once again, remember that national polling is all but a frivolous undertaking at this point (especially in the Democratic primary, with only 3 contests to go).

Halperin is reporting that the UMWA, which had previously endorsed Sen. Edwards voted unanimously this morning to endorse Sen. Obama as the Democratic Nominee. The United Mine Workers of America has around 86,000 members and represents approximately 40% of all employed miners in the US. Just another piece of evidence that the party is coalescing around its’ eventual nominee.