McCain dumps Hagee

I'm not surprised that John McCain has disavowed himself of John Hagee's endorsement. Had he bothered to run a NEXIS / LEXIS, he never would have sought it out in the first place. Nor would he be going after the endorsement of so many other televangelists. Some of the stuff they come up with you can't possibly make up, but they make for comedy reels. (Just run any televangelist's name with "comedy" at YouTube and you'll get at least a few videos.) Suggesting the Holocaust was pre-ordained in the Bible? That Hitler had to come along because the Bible said so?

Sheez.

Take Hagee for instance.

Shortly after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, controversial San Antonio broadcaster and preacher Hagee insisted the murder -- like the Holocaust or the refounding of Israel -- was preordained in the Bible. I can't recall the exact chapter and verse he cited, but he said something about a million people witnessing their king being murdered; and said such a thing would not have been possible until the modern electronic age when the attack was shown live on television. After stating this, Hagee was careful to condemn the murder but in the next breath basically said, "I told you so. The world's coming to an end!"

I got sick of these newspaper preachers years ago -- you know, the kind that holds a Bible in one hand and a paper in the other and tries to corelate the two. And I'm not just talking about the "fig leaf" and Israel.

For decades they've claimed the European Union is the seventh and final revival of the Roman Empire, pointing out it was founded by the Treaty of Rome; not recognizing the first six -- if you can say there were six -- were all personal dictatorships and one of the terms of becoming and retaining membership within the Union is being a democratic state. This precludes the Vatican from ever joining the EU, although it has expressed an interest in joining Schengen (the border free regime) as it already has an open border with Italy.

Given that a major swath of Europe is Protestant and the rest that is Catholic is a secular Catholicism at best it's highly unlikely we'll ever see a Pope who's also President of the European Commission. A moral influence, perhaps, but that's all Vatican Hill can ever hope to be.

Many of the same televangelists have tried to connect the Roman Catholic Church (the alleged "Whore of Babylon") and the European Union, pointing out among other things Vatican City is permitted to mint Euro coins with the Pope's effigy on it.

Oh please.

Of course the Vatican mints Euro coins, but that's owing back to the time when it minted a Vatican lira alongside the former Italian currency. While it is technically legal tender through most of the continent you rarely see those coins in circulation in Europe -- the same as Monaco and San Marino, the other two "out" members of the Euro zone. The Euro coins the three authorized microstates makes mostly sell as proof collector sets; and anyone who can fish out a Vatican or Monegasque or Sanmarinese coin in any of the eighteen countries is very lucky. Definitely not a leech for the so called "Whore." And anyone who manages to have a complete coin set each of from all eighteen countries (which is a hobby in itself, since coins made by any of the eighteen countries can be used in all eighteen of them) would be very lucky. Again, not a leech for the "Whore."

Take a vote from whomever one wants, an endorsement from whomever one wants. But remember, people judge you by the company you keep and whether they can get their facts straight, about world events or even as simple as currency.

To his credit, Pastor Hagee said afterwards he's not going to actively campaign for McCain anymore. He shouldn't have in the first place, if he wanted his mega-church to keep its tax-exempt status.

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