McCain’s textbook non-rejection rejection

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I was fully prepared to let this go, but now that John McCain, for the first time in nearly a week, has finally commented on the John Hagee controversy, it's worth noting exactly what he had to say.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday repudiated any views of a prominent televangelist who endorsed him last month "if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics."

Let's pause right there to consider how truly vacuous this new line is. Hagee has called the Roman Catholic Church "the Great #######," the "apostate church," the "anti-Christ," and "a false cult system" that inspired Adolf Hitler to initiate the Holocaust. "If they are anti-Catholic"? For goodness sakes, if John McCain isn't sure whether these remarks constitute anti-Catholic animus, what, pray tell, would do the trick?

For that matter, the second part of the quote is no better. Hagee believes the Catholic Church is a whorish anti-Christ, and "if" Catholics find that "offensive," McCain repudiates it. I see. So, as far as McCain's concerned, maybe some Catholics like it when their church is denounced as "the Great #######" and "a false cult system"?

The way McCain said this, it's like a textbook non-apology apology, except in this case, it's a non-rejection rejection.

My hunch is, reporters — who've gone to almost comical lengths to give McCain a pass on this controversy — will consider McCain's comments yesterday as the end of the story. After all, they'll figure, he repudiated Hagee's anti-Catholic comments. What else is there?

Plenty.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/