Submitted by Anne Landman on
Pastor John Hagee, the controversial Christian televangelist who last March endorsed Senator John McCain's nomination for Republican candidate for U.S. President, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis were doing God's will when they chased the Jews out of Europe in order to herd them into Israel, where they could establish a Jewish state. In an audio tape of the sermon revealed by Huffington Post, Hagee went in and out of biblical verse as he preached, "'And they the hunters should hunt them, that will be the Jews. From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks. If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that." A Hagee spokesman confirmed the authenticity of the remarks, which can be found at around the 1:08 mark of his sermon titled "Battle for Jerusalem." Hagee later apologized for the remarks. But McCain, who had earlier sought Hagee's endorsement to improve his standing within the evangelical community, quickly distanced himself from the pastor, describing his comments as "crazy and unacceptable."
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Sven replied on Permalink
There's a very strange
There's a very strange dynamic at play here. On the one hand, Hagee's over-the-top rhetoric has largely immunized him from scrutiny. It's bracketed off by the press as "religion" and therefore out of bounds for criticism, at least up to the point it violates Godwin's Law.
What's been ignored is that this guy is not only a loon, but a real player. Senators and prime ministers have kissed his ample butt. I can't believe how many people have said "I never heard of this guy, what's the big deal?"