Posts by Bruce Wilson

Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.

Al Jazeera Special Covers Advance of Fundamentalism in US Military
Posted by Bruce Wilson on July 1, 2009 at 5:23 AM.

A June 23, 2009 report from Al Jazeera (English) by Josh Rushing, "Fault Lines - Religion in the Military", expertly covers a topic the US media has been reluctant to address: an aggressive effort, often abusive, coercive and even illegal, to advance a heavily sectarian, supremacist form of Christianity in the United States military.

Rushing, a United States Marine for 15 years, explained to Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft that he was initially very skeptical but had become personally convinced while researching his story. When Rushing told Scowcroft, "[Al Jazeera] received ...video of missionaries embedding with the US troops," Scowcroft responded, "...I would be very surprised if that were true. Missionaries embedded with the troops - I find a very unusual statement."

Rushing then informed Scowcroft that three half-hour show segments were aired on the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) popular reality TV show "Travel The Road," in which the show's central characters, "extreme" Christian missionaries Will Decker and Tim Scott, were embedded with US troops in Afghanistan and illegally proselytized and distributed native-language copies of the New Testament. "Travel The Road" claims to reach three million viewers per episode. Scowcraft, incredulous, testily declared he'd look into the matter. The reaction, denial, was a common and maybe even typical one for people confronted with verifiable, new information that contradicts their preexisting cognitive maps - they try to deny or block out the contradictory data.

[below, part 2 of Al Jazeera special report: Brent Scowcroft is incredulous]

[below: video clip from documentary aired on Trinity Broadcast Network, shows Christian missionaries embedded with US troops in Afghanistan]

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Gingrich, Huckabee Get Pro-Christian Martyrdom Movement Leader's Blessing
Posted by Bruce Wilson on June 7, 2009 at 6:14 PM.

On Friday, June 5, 2009, at an event featuring aspiring politicians Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich that was broadcast over the global media networks of GodTV, a rising leader in the rapidly reconfiguring Christian right who has publicly called for acts of Christian martyrdom prayed over and blessed Huckabee and Gingrich: TheCall founder Lou Engle.

The June 5, 2009, Rock Church event has received some media notice but coverage, which has noted Newt Gingrich declared Americans are "surrounded by paganism", and that he and Mike Huckabee made stump speeches calling for Christian conservatives to become more involved in electoral politics, has almost wholly missed the significance.

Leaders on the Christian right have been giving such speeches for decades, but the two-day Rock Church conference was not business as usual. Rather, it showcased the rapid reconfiguration of the Christian right around the rising, highly militant but poorly understood charismatic wing of the new Christian right, a movement which includes both Ted Haggard and Sarah Palin.) One point of the spear for the new Christian right is an intense, raspy-voiced man who presided over the June 5, 2009 Rock Church event, laid hands on Mike Huckabee, and pledged the commitment of his prayer warriors to Huckabee and Gingrich was Lou Engle, founder of TheCall - which played a significant role in the push to pass the anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight in the lead up to the November 4, 2008 presidential election.Only days before Huckabee and Gingrich received Lou Engle's endorsement at Rock Church, on Sunday May 31, 2009, late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in the lobby of his Wichita, Kansas church. The next morning CBS's Jeff Glor reported, "We did speak with the accused shooters' ex-wife yesterday. She said she was not surprised this happened and that she believed Roeder wanted to be a martyr for the cause." The November 1, 2008 TheCall San Diego event was the capstone event for the pro-Proposition Eight, anti-gay marriage push in California prior to the November 4, 2008 presidential election. Towards the end of the event, which attracted an estimated 30,000 attendees to San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium despite sweltering heat, TheCall founder Lou Engle, and his disciple Eddie Brown, as captured in footage taken at TheCall San Diego by documentary film-maker Michael W. Wilson made calls, from onstage before thousands of impassioned followers, for acts of Christian martyrdom. Engle has in the recent past declared that decades of legalized abortion since Roe v. Wade have incurred a blood debt which demands to be paid in blood. [ more on Gingrich, Huckabee and Engle ]

The New Christian Right is Global: What Mainstream Media Isn't Telling You
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on April 5, 2009 at 10:46 PM.

In Fighting Demons, Raising the Dead, Taking Over the World, published by Religion Dispatches, I describe Sarah Palin's strange new Christianity, rapidly becoming the face of the new, globalizing Christian right. Along with the story, Religion Dispatches also features my recent interview with Bill Berkowitz, The New Christianity: What the Mainstream Media Has Missed

Over the course of September and October 2008, I was one of a tiny group of writers who correctly identified the highly distinctive nature of Sarah Palin's Third Wave and New Apostolic Christianity. At the web site I co-founded in late 2005 with journalist Frederick Clarkson can be found over 20 unique stories and a score of short video documentaries including a 36 page report (link to PDF of report) concerning Sarah Palin's churches and her religious associations.

Sarah Palin is in the same radical new stream of Christianity as is Ted Haggard which, as I wrote in my Religion Dispatches story, has aggressively exported its new doctrines and practices to the global south: Latin America, Asia, and Africa:

In 1996 a team from Ted Haggard's New Life Church flew to Mali and began furtively anointing entire towns with cooking oil.

The strangeness of it gripped Dutch missionary René Holvast, who later wrote: "It was confusing and produced a growing uneasiness. It did not seem to fit our current evangelical theological and anthropological textbooks."...

René Holvast has theological training, but his perplexed reaction was similar to that of Alix Spiegel, a radio journalist who went to Ted Haggard's New Life Church in 1997 to do a story for This American Life...

As I told Bill Berkowitz,

Sarah Palin is, broadly speaking, in the emerging postdenominational movement, which by 2000 encompassed 385 million Christians and is vastly different from the faith as it has been practiced in recent centuries. We identified Palin as in a majority tendency of postdenominationalism known as the neocharismatic movement, or the "Third Wave."

Evangelical missionary reference work World Christian Trends calls the Third Wave "a new and disturbingly different" kind of Christianity whose members "can accurately be called radical Christians with some pentecostal /charismatic parallels" and which has, as one of the distinctive characteristics of Third Wave Christian ministry, a heavy emphasis on healing miracles including raising the dead--an emphasis promoted from the pulpit in sermons at Palin's most central church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

We also found extensive evidence that Palin is in a religious movement founded in 2001 that has coalesced out of Third Wave Christianity; the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

The NAR is bent on radically reinventing Christianity, and is fast becoming the vanguard of the global Christian Right.

Sarah Palin's new Christianity is rapidly moving to achieve dominance in the GOP, but few Democrats appear aware that Palin's movement even exists. Thus, the danger: that the Democratic Party will be blindsided in the 2012 presidential election, as the New Apostolic Reformation / Third Wave Christianity gambit - of peeling away ethnic constituencies that have traditionally voted for the Democratic Party - comes into play. For more, see: Proposition 8 : A Proving Ground For The New Christian Right

Rick Warren Proposes Hitler Youth as Model For Christian Activism
Posted by Bruce Wilson on January 17, 2009 at 6:21 AM.

On April 17, 2005, at the southern California Anaheim Angels sports stadium thirty thousand Saddleback Church members, more than ever gathered in one spot, assembled to celebrate Saddleback's 25th anniversary and listened as Rick Warren announced his vision for the next 25 years of the church: the P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

Towards the close of his nearly one hour speech, Pastor Warren asked his followers to be as committed to Jesus as the young Nazi men and women who spelled out in mass formation with their bodies the words "Hitler, we are yours," in 1939 at the Munich Stadium, were committed to the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, a major instigator of a World War that claimed 55 million lives.

Rick Warren has exhorted Christians towards Nazi-like dedication in at least several public speeches and also during a one hour video recording of a talk by Warren, explaining his P.E.A.C.E. Plan, that is currently hosted on the official P.E.A.C.E. Plan website (see 'video page', "The Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan").

A version of the anecdote can also be found on page 357 of Rick Warren's 1995 book The Purpose Driven Church, which sold over one million copies.
 

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Palin's Movement Urges 'Godly' To 'Plunder' Wealth of The 'Godless'
Posted by Bruce Wilson on November 1, 2008 at 10:46 AM.

The McCain campaign, during the 2008 election, has repeatedly attacked Barack Obama for advocating that the U.S. federal government seek more wealth equality in America, by "spreading the wealth."

But McCain's running mate Sarah Palin is closely associated, as noted in a recent New York Times story, with "spiritual warfare", an aggressive approach to evangelizing developed by the leaders of a worldwide religious movement which promotes a religiously based wealth transfer scheme as a means to implement theocracy.

Sarah Palin endorser Bishop Thomas Muthee, in a speech he gave before blessing and anointing Sarah Palin as a political leader, on October 16, 2005 at the Wasilla Assembly of God, laid out the current agenda of the New Apostolic Reformation - how "God's kingdom" needed to "infiltrate" seven sectors of society. Muthee listed most of them: business and finance, schools and education, media and entertainment, politics and government.

Muthee also stated "The Bible says the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. Sarah Palin was in the audience. Minutes later, she was anointed, and blessed, with the laying on of hands.

Thomas Muthee is an internationally known celebrity in the New Apostolic Reformation and a personal friend of the movement's head, C. Peter Wagner. In June 2006 Wagner proclaimed that "God has declared through His prophets that the wealth of the wicked will be released to the Kingdom of God," and declared, threateningly, "the enemies' camp will be plundered."

The New Apostolic Reformation is not a small movement: an apostle of C. Peter Wagner, one of the 500 apostles in Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles, owns what will be one of the tallest buildings in the world, the Jakarta Tower. One of the NAR's branches is successfully supplanting the Catholic Church in Brazil. The movement holds international conferences on advancing Christian hegemony in the business sector [link to PDF].

A new 36 page report ( read online / PDF file / some of the highlights of the report ), from an independent research team that has specialized in studying Sarah Palin's faith, contains ground breaking information on a religious movement Sarah Palin is tied to and which advocates that its members "plunder" the wealth of the "godless".

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Palin's Spiritual Warfare Network Partners with Homeland Security
Posted by Bruce Wilson on October 31, 2008 at 10:28 AM.

A new 36 page report, from an independent research team that has specialized in studying Sarah Palin's faith, contains ground breaking information on a religious movement Sarah Palin is closely and intimately tied to.

In a few days, Americans will vote for the next president and vice president of the United States.

Sarah Palin has confirmed relationships, substantiated by Palin's actions in political office, with two top leaders in an international religious and political movement most Americans don't even know exists; one of those leaders has urged movement members to "infiltrate" politics and government. The other has claimed Palin in her Spiritual Warfare network. In an October appearance on Focus on The Family had James Dobson's radio show, Sarah Palin thanked prayer warriors around the nation.

Mainstream media has almost totally failed to probe who Thomas Muthee and Mary Glazier are and what the movement they lead is, or what it is currently doing, or what its goals are.

Muthee, Glazier and, evidence suggests, Palin are together in a movement whose members and top leadership, as detailed in the 36 page report Spiritual Mapping and Spiritual Warfare - Muthee and the "Transformations" Franchise:

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Palin Linked to Second Witch Hunter
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on October 24, 2008 at 11:55 AM.

If Mary Glazier's claim, that Palin joined her prayer-warfare group almost two decades ago, is true it raises the possibiity that Sarah Palin personally participated in a 1995 campaign to drive an alleged "witch" out of Alaska.

At two key points bracketing most of 2008 GOP vice-presidential Candidate Sarah Palin's meteoric rise to political prominence, we find Palin tied to self-described witch-hunters. Not one, but two.

That alone is striking enough but Sarah Palin is also closely associated with an insurgent religious movement, within Christianity, whose members claim to cure crime and addiction by casting out demons, both from individuals and from whole geographic areas, and by hounding accused witches out of cities, towns, and U.S. states.

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Is Palin a Member of 'Spiritual Warfare' Prayer Group?
Posted by Bruce Wilson on October 8, 2008 at 10:58 AM.

Editor's note: The video posted with this article is silent for the first 45 seconds. Please watch it in its entirety if you are interested in hearing Mary Glazier's claims.

"I believe in warfare. We were given an assignment in Alaska ... we had the very liberal candidates running for governor, and we began to pray for God to give us a Christian," declared Mary Glazier. At a three day religious conference held in Everett, Washington last summer, on June 13, 2008, Glazier described how, nearly two decades ago, her movement helped propel Alaska Independence Party candidate Walter J. Hickel, in an upset write-in campaign, into the Alaska governor's office: Glazier's new prayer group member, a 24 year old woman named Sarah Palin, would later follow.

Like Thomas Muthee, Mary Glazier describes waging personal battles against witches and witchcraft and, also like Muthee, Mary Glazier appears to have a special religious connection to Sarah Palin. Bishop Thomas Muthee, in an October 2005 ceremony at the Wasilla Assembly of God, anointed and blessed Sarah Palin as a political leader.

On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told attendees at the "Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth" conference, who represented many of the New Apostolic Reformation's top leaders, that she had been present at the inception of Sarah Palin's political career and that Palin was in her personal prayer group :

There was a twenty-four year old woman that God began to speak to about entering into politics. She became a part of our prayer group out in Wasilla. Years later, became the mayor of Wasilla. And last year was elected Governor of the state of Alaska. Yes! Hallelujah! At her inauguration she dedicated the state to Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

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Palin's 'Heretical' Church: Censored Video the McCain Campaign Doesn't Want you to See:
Posted by Bruce Wilson on September 13, 2008 at 3:23 PM.

Editor's note: Make sure you scroll down to see both videos embedded in this post.

Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God and attended the church for over two and a half decades, and she has been publicly blessed by a number of pastors and religious leaders employed by and associated with that church.

Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing "inappropriate content".

At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election.

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Joining GOP's Bold March Backwards, Bobby Jindal & Louisiania Democrats Pass "Stealth Creationism" Education Bill
Posted by Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action on June 27, 2008 at 11:00 AM.

While American progressives propose forward-looking plans for improving American public education, whole sectors of America nonetheless stubbornly persist in a bold march backwards. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has just given a green light for a new, national "Stealth Creationism" initiative by signing into Louisiana state law a "stealth" Creationism bill, SB 733. [vote this story up on Digg here and here]

Barbara Forrest, author of [with Paul R. Gross] Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design describes the national controversy surrounding the bill in a Thursday, June 26, 2008 Talk To Action story:

The stealth-creationist SB 733, the "Louisiana Science Education Act," which in its pre-amended version as SB 561 was entitled the "LA Academic Freedom Act," received final passage in the Louisiana legislature on June 16, 2008, and is now (June 26) on Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk. The governor can either sign it, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it. Gov. Jindal, who in his June 15 appearance on Face the Nation reiterated his previously voiced support for teaching intelligent design (ID) creationism, is expected to sign the bill. At the behest of the LA Coalition for Science, e-mail petitioners from across the country and national scientific organizations have urged him to veto it. Both the New York Times and National Review columnist John Derbyshire have also publicly called for Jindal to veto the bill. Since Louisiana's passage of SB 733 could be a bellwether for such "academic freedom" legislation, advocates for science education and church-and-state separation in other states had better start preparing now.

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Clinton, The 'Nuclear Umbrella' & The NeoCons
Posted by Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action on April 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM.

On "Meet The Press" last Sunday April 20th, with David Brooks, E.J. Dionne and Michelle Norris, host Tim Russert brought up the "nuclear umbrella" idea that Hillary Clinton floated in her April 16th debate in Philadelphia with Barack Obama and DAVID BROOKS of all people, replied, "I’m amazed, I think like you, maybe,that it didn’t become a bigger issue. Because what it says, I think, to a lot of Americans, two Arab countries or two Middle Eastern countries get in a war and we’re going to get in the middle of it?... I don’t know why she would’ve said it, what policy thinking behind it was. It seems to me extremely perilous." E.J. Dionne concurred, "the term massive retaliation is a pretty strong term that she used in the course of that debate."

"Massive retaliation" is indeed a 'pretty strong term', to put it MILDLY and I've consulted with nuclear deterrence theory George E. Lowe, [link to Buzzflash.com interview with Lowe] who wrote the 1964 book "The Age of Deterrence" ( Little, Brown) and has won awards for his writing on nuclear deterrence as well, about WHY "massive [nuclear] retaliation" is such a loaded term and WHY the "Meet The Press" folks may have been taken aback by Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" idea.

As Lowe described it, Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" idea seems to have taken her adviser former NATO commander General Wes Clark, who as NATO head was in charge of a "nuclear umbrella" himself - it seemed to make Clark's head spin. He appeared blindsided by Clinton's talk of a US "nuclear umbrella" over Asia and George Lowe, who has studied nuclear deterrence for decades and also has written a book and award-winning articles on the subject, was quite taken aback.

NeoCons say such things, and there's a straight line, in such thinking, back to Herman Kahn, Curtis LeMay, and the SAC / RAND lunatics of the 1950's who envisioned fighting and WINNING "limited nuclear war".

Lowe, working as witnessed in the our close brush, 1960-1965, with nuclear incineration during those days, says his Naval "cabal" (O5D) group helped put the "Military Industrial Complex" warning in Ike's Farewell Address speech, says he worked with McCain's father in the Pentagon, and as a speechwriter in the Reagan Administration, thinks Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" idea is INSANE on the same order of madness.

The idea of a US "nuclear umbrella" is positively Strangelovian, even semantically. "Nuclear umbrella" ? What does that amount to ? Fallout settling to Earth during a nuclear winter ?

That would be an "umbrella" of sorts but not an especially pleasant one, and there are lots of wonkish reasons why Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" concept is insane but her apparent intention of flexing US nuclear throw-weight doesn't, as George Lowe told me, doesn't intellectually "track".

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Not Wright: Black Man Damns US and Gets Vilified, White Man Calls for Nuking Cities and Gets Applauded
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on March 26, 2008 at 2:13 PM.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has received copious criticism for the sermons of Obama's long-time (now former) pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Frank Schaeffer, son of seminal Christian right leader and author Francis Schaeffer, suggests there's a double standard at play which is both hypocritical and racist. But beyond Schaeffer's point is the sheer extremity of hate speech from the American right and religious right; at an October 2006 conference held by the Family Research Council in Washington DC, to thunderous applause, I heard Former US Secretary of Education William Bennett call for the incineration of entire Iraqi cities, for the crimes of a few. There were major religious and political figures present and no one, to my knowledge, objected in the slightest. If pastor Jeremiah Wright had called for the collective punishment of US municipalities in which racially-motivated murders had occurred, by incinerating their populations with tactical nuclear weapons or napalm, it is highly likely Barack Obama would have withdrawn his current presidential bid and might even have stepped down from his Senate seat. That is the state of American discourse, circa 2008. Hate speech is OK for whites, not blacks, and not Wright.

Frank Schaeffer is uniquely placed to level the following critique concerning the American's right's, and the mainstream media's, excoriation of Barack Obama because of condemnation of America from Obama's ex-pastor Wright. As Schaeffer wrote in an March 16, 2008 op-ed, "When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr." Frank Schaeffer walks right up to the accusation - that it is hypocritical and it is racist.

Frank's father Francis Schaeffer thought "humanism always leads to chaos" and, as a  seminal Christian thinker who studied under the Presuppositionalist theologian Cornelius Van Til along with R. J. Rushdoony, Schaeffer went on to write works in the 1970's such as The Christian Manifesto that helped inspire a radical politicization on the American Christian right which has transformed American politics. But Schaeffer's son Frank, groomed to follow in his father's footsteps, eventually took a different path, as suggested by the title of his latest book Crazy For God: How I Helped Found the Religious Right and Ruin America. As Frank Schaeffer writes,

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McCain Pursued Hagee Like a Dog In Heat
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on March 23, 2008 at 4:53 PM.

As someone who was over a year ago covering McCain's snuffling after the power that issues from John Hagee & his fundament I feel a special glee that pastor Hagee has opted to reopen the controversy, over his endorsement of McCain, by getting interviewed by a New York Times Magazine reporter concerning Hagee's views on gays, the Catholic Church and other hot-button positions. It's like watching nude mud wrestling, while a mob tries to catch a greased pig, at a monster truck rally.

The under appreciated Greg Mitchell, of Editor and Publisher Magazine, has just reported on an interview Pastor John Hagee has granted, due to show up this Sunday in the New York Times Magazine, that will confirm the obvious - that John McCain pursued John Hagee's political endorsement like Hagee was a bitch in heat called politicized apocalyptic fundamentalism. As readers would have picked up last year, in February, had they read my Talk To Action post on the McCain-Hagee tie. Mitchell showcased one critical point: Barack Obama didn't call a national press conference to trumpet a political endorsement from his ex-pastor, Reverend Wright. McCain chose to splash Hagee's endorsement across the national media landscape and therein lies all the difference. Vive le difference, and one day our mainstream media may just get up the jeuvos to underline that point.

Recently, I interviewed George E. Lowe [short video with audio clip of interview], a man who worked with John McCain's father, Admiral John McCain who, Lowe told me, "would be turning over in his grave" at his son's pursuit of political endorsements from men like John Hagee. Lowe says he and Admiral McCain were in a secret navy intelligence "cabal" which fought would-be fascists of the day, both religious and secular, and this does not mean that Admiral McCain was somehow a liberal. Far from it. It's simply that he would have been appalled, Lowe tells me, at his son's courtyard of people like Hagee (whose "thrilling worldview" I've covered at length). John McCain's father was, among other things, a man of this century and would have been sorely disappointed, it seems, at his son's apparent choice to regress, politically and culturally speaking, hundreds of years - back to the Sixteenth Century.

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According to McCain, By Choosing John Hagee, He's Choosing the 16th Century
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on March 7, 2008 at 10:12 AM.

In the 2000 Presidential election primaries, Senator John McCain accused Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson of being "agents of intolerance", and McCain called George W. Bush anti-Catholic for courting the political support of evangelist Bob Jones and for visiting Bob Jones University - which up until Bush's visit had prohibited interracial dating. Bob Jones called the pope the "anti-Christ" and the Catholic Church a satanic cult.

Senator McCain said that if he were invited to Bob Jones University he would have told Jones to "get out of the Sixteenth Century and into the 21st Century. What you're doing is racist and cruel." Now, in the 2008 presidential election, John McCain has aggressively courted, and enthusiastically accepted, the political support of John Hagee, who calls the Catholic Church "the great whore" and a "false cult system" and McCain's accusation, in the 2000 election, has come back to haunt him ; by his own measure, John McCain has chosen the Sixteenth Century.

Also see, McCain Reneges on Pledge To Never Seek anti-Catholic Support and, for general Hagee Background, McCain-backer Hagee's CUFI Worldview: "Thrilling" Rapture, Then "Holocaust"

UPDATE: Pelosi speaks out against McCain's embrace of McCain (from Steve Benen @ The Carpetbagger Report)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the highest ranking Roman Catholic official in the federal government, and not surprisingly, she finds John Hagee's anti-Catholic rhetoric offensive. Yesterday, to her credit, she pressed John McCain on why he refuses to denounce Hagee's bigotry. Nico Pitney has the story.

"That behavior is outside the circle of civilized debate in our democracy," Pelosi said during a Thursday conference call. "I certainly think John McCain should reject his endorsement and I'm sure it won't be long before he does."

McCain has come under heavy fire from Catholic groups across the political spectrum for appearing with Hagee last week and declaring he was "proud" of the endorsement. Subsequently, McCain told reporters that Hagee's backing "does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes," but added, "I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee's spiritual leadership to thousands of people."

But several Catholic groups insist that McCain should specifically condemn Hagee's "hate speech" about Catholicism. Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, charged in a statement that McCain "has shown horrendous judgment in buddying up to this bigot and spin doctor." The progressive group Catholics United yesterday circulated remarks from McCain in 2000 condemning the "strong anti-Catholic statements" of Bob Jones.

Pelosi apparently didn't realize that McCain had actively sought out Hagee's support, and when told about his on the conference call, Pelosi was surprised. She said that she "certainly" thinks that McCain should reject Hagee's support, and then added, "I can't imagine that he wouldn't reject it."

I can.

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Treason is Not Old News, Mainstream Media Wants to Trivialize McClellan Story
Posted by Valerie Plame Wilson, Joe Wilson, Huffington Post on November 22, 2007 at 2:02 PM.

This post, written by Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson, originally appeared on The Huffington Post

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." George Herbert Walker Bush, CIA dedication ceremony, April 26, 1999.

When Bush administration officials I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage and Ari Fleischer betrayed Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA operations officer, they fell into the category of "the most insidious of traitors." Now we learn from the president's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, that the president himself "was involved" in sending him out to lie to the American public about the betrayal. If his direction to McClellan was deliberate and knowing, then the president was party to a conspiracy by senior administration officials to defraud the public. If that isn't a high crime and misdemeanor then we don't know what is. And if the president was merely an unwitting accomplice, then who lied to him? What is he doing to punish the person who misled the president to abuse his office? And why is that person still working in the executive branch? Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made clear his suspicions about the culprit when he said "a cloud remains over the office of the vice president." But we may never know exactly what happened because President Bush thwarted justice and guaranteed the success of the cover-up when he commuted Scooter Libby's felony sentence on four counts of lying, perjury and obstruction of justice.

With the exception of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the intrepid David Shuster, the mainstream media would have you believe that McClellan's revelation is old news. "Now back to Aruba and the two-year old disappearance of a blond teenager." But treason is not old news. The Washington press corps, whose pretension is to report and interpret events objectively, has been compromised in this matter as evidence presented in the courtroom demonstrated. Prominent journalists acted as witting agents of Rove, Libby and Armitage and covered up this serious breach of U.S. national security rather than doing their duty as journalists to report it to the public.

So far there is no apparent desire for redemption driving the press to report on the treachery of senior officials. Instead, the mainstream press has compounded its complicity by giving the Bush administration yet another free pass and shifting blame. The New York Times failed to publish an article on McClellan's revelation and The Washington Post buried it at the end of a column deep on page A-15 in the newspaper. Earlier in the week, Newsweek magazine, owned by the Washington Post Company, proudly announced the identity of its new star columnist -- Karl Rove, one of the key actors in this collective treason. Robert Novak, who willfully disclosed Valerie's identity, having been twice warned not to do so by the CIA, and who transmitted his column to Rove before it was published, remains a regularly featured columnist in The Washington Post.

With nearly 70 percent of the public now believing that our country is on the wrong track, it is no wonder that many feel let down by major institutions, including the Washington press establishment that increasingly resembles the corrupt Soviet propaganda mill. One reporter from a major news organization even asked whether McClellan's statement wasn't just "another Wilson publicity stunt." Try following this tortuous logic: Dick Cheney runs an operation involving senior White House officials designed to betray the identity of a covert CIA officer and the press responds by trying to prove that the Wilsons are publicity seekers. What ever happened to reporting the news? Welcome to Through the Looking Glass.

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