The Catholic League is satisfied with John McCain’s repudiation of “any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.” As in this from Donohue: “Sen. McCain has done the right thing and we salute him for doing so. As far as the Catholic League is concerned, this case is closed.” No more legs to the story for now.
Last week’s Forward made clear that the organized Jewish community was not going to get involved. The question, for the ADL’s Abe Foxman, was simply, Is it bad for the Jews?
Hagee’s endorsement “is not a Jewish issue,” Foxman told the Forward. “Are we troubled by Hagee’s support of McCain and McCain’s acceptance? The answer is no, and that’s where it ends for us.”
The difference “between Farrakhan and Hagee is self-evident,” Foxman said. “So to compare the two and to say: ‘Well, if you ask Obama to distance from Farrakhan — well, Farrakhan is a black racist, an antisemite, anti-Israel, consorts with America’s enemies. Hagee is a supporter of Israel, an advocate of Israel, opposed to antisemitism, and there are issues on which members of the Jewish community and some organizations disagree with, and so from time to time they or we have indicated our disagreement, but it’s not of the same nature or category or being.
As for Hagee himself, I suspect that his profile–in the McCain campaign and in the wider public world–will not be quite as elevated as he might have liked.
