Hagee States that McCain Sought Endorsement
 

Hagee, in 'NYT' This Sunday, Says McCain Sought His Endorsement

By Greg Mitchell

Published: March 20, 2008 5:35 PM ET

NEW YORK In an interview that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, "It's true that [John] McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."

McCain has attempted to distance himself from some of Hagee's views, much as Barack Obama is doing in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But unlike McCain, Obama has not stood on stage with Wright and accepted his accolades this year.

Interviewed by Deborah Solomon, Hagee refused to discuss his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for a gay rights parade in New Orleans, calling it "so far off-base." He claims, "Our church is not hard against the gay people. Our church teaches what the bible teaches, that it is not a righteous lifestyle. But of course we must love even sinners."

He also said that charges that he had bashed the Catholic Church ("false cult system," etc.) have been "grossly mischaracterized....I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels."

Asked what he thinks of Obama, he answers, "He is going to be difficult to beat, because the man is a master of communication. If he were in the ministry, he would make it in the major leagues overnight."

He also denies that he is a strong supporter of Israel because of any coming "Rapture" in the holy land.


http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/..._id=1003728364


This must be the Year of Reject and Denounce...I wonder how McCain will respond to this and if his simple denouncement a while back will be enough....I am beginneing to wonder if all these religious kooks coming out of the works are really helping or serving to distract...

McCain won't have to respond to this because the major news networks ignore him. Also because this isn't that big of a deal, I'm not offended by the remarks and I doubt that a large number of people will be. Wright is a close personal friend of Obama, not just some guy he asked to endorse him.

MSNBC just asked if McCain was getting a free ride considering what Obama has gone through. I damn near punched through my TV.

How can one network be so unabashedly biased and irresponsible and not get called out on it? And don't say Fox News, because they're roundly criticized by other members of the mainstream media on a daily basis.

But oh no, when Chris Matthews says that an Obama speech sent a tingle up his leg or that it was one of the best speeches in American history, that is just reporting the news. We'll ignore the fact that he is an acknowledged DEMOCRAT. Obviously I don't even need to get into Keith Olbermann, he defines an extreme leftist. Hell, I hear Matthews frame a question the other day to where it was something like, "Explain to the country why voting for Obama is crucial for America's future." Are you kidding me? This is $%&#@! Hardball?

Blatantly irresponsible, there are simply no other words.

Ok...let me ask you guys this then....what news channel do you think is mostly unbiased....?

To a certain point, I am beginning to wonder how much the media market is really trying to play the public like fiddles just to stay in business...think of how much money all these folks are going to make this election year ALONE....hell I would set up a news station myself if I knew I could get paid covering this kind of history... ( and lie a little bit too....heheheh)

I have no idea. I think Fox News is biased to the right, ABC is clearly on the left, as is CNN. MSNBC has moved to the far left.

I watch MSNBC the most, but it is starting to make me too angry on a regular basis. CNN would be a good alternative if they'd ever stop showing worthless public interest stories. However, I don't even know if i'm willing to go there considering the absurdly anti-administration coverage that CNN.com has given to the war in Iraq.

The only answer is to get your news from a host of sources. I don't like right slanted news, I just want the damn news. Just report, don't give me your freakin opinion about the speech, just tell me what it said.

I usually check Fox News and MSNBC several times a day, and I combine that with Drudge and the Washington Post. I do look at CNN.com too. The WSJ is sometimes a strong source as well.

Despite the obvious left leanings, I really love the Washington Post. At least they try to veil their bias, and don't engage in blatant agenda engineering like the NYT. I simply can't understand how people view the NYT as a fair source anymore.

^^^Watch the BBC. It's fascinating how different the news is reported (and prioritized) by non-American media outlets.

I do reference BBC and the Asian Times. However, the anti-American sentiment can be repulsive at times.

From the BBC?

Absolutely. I was first turned on to both of those publications in college while taking a media bias type class (class was slanted left, but still interesting). To its credit, since I've started paying more attention to BBC in recent years, it seems a little bit more two sided than I recall originally. I like that they're actually paying attention to Europe being threatened by Islamic extremism. It took long enough.

I'm not saying that scrutiny of the US shouldn't be paid attention to, or that it is always unjustified. When I want to get a fair picture of something, I almost always try and look to foreign sources. However, for everyday matters, I don't really need the biting tenor concerning the US that you see in foreign publications.

Also, publications like the Asian Times are crucial if you want to know about middle eastern events, because CNN is much more interested in Sanjay Gupta and Barack Obama's vacation to fill you in.

I have noticed that at times too actually...and most of teh time it's thinly veiled



Shiner, I think after that McCain and his aide flap it lost so much credibility

Talking about the Times? I think they lost credibility before that, but if the McCain thing didn't get you, you've gotta be just a partisan. And that is fine, as long as people recognize it for what it is.

Even some commentators I know to be fairly left-leaning were very disconcerted by the timing and lack of substance involved with the McCain story.

I guess I was thinking more of the BBC World newscasts on PBS. I'm always amazed at the difference when I catch the half hour news program there and then flip to one of the major US networks and watch their "world" news program. Print media slants I can imagine and believe, I don't tend to read many foreign print journals, though. We subscribe to the WSJ at home, I only read articles from other papers online.

I'm not trying to be a smarta$$, but if you don't want the human interest pieces and just want the brief stories, wouldn't CNN Headline have more of that. Granted, if I have it on for more than a few hours straight I want to poke my eyes out because it starts repeating.

MSNBC is Obama's personal network
CNN has the same crap on loop (including the public interest stories)
Fox is biased to the right, but easily the most entertaining and has the most opinion injected. I would say that lately they have been less biased than MSNBC but before Obama fever caught on, they were the most.

Ok...let's get back to the topic at hand...what do you all think McCain has to do in order to keep this from becoming another medai circus?

Also, does anyone think he should address any of the issues that Obama brought up in his speech?

If so, should he do it now or should he wait til later to do so?