Just How Crazy IS McCain Supporter John Hagee?

How crazy is John Hagee — the anti-Catholic, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-gay evangelical preacher who serves as official Louis Farrakhan to the John McCain campaign?

In a sermon on the coming Russo-Arab invasion of Israel (and really, what's the difference between Russians and Arabs when you think about it?), which will drown the Jewish state in rivers of blood, Hagee bolsters his prophecy with some (to put it mildly) tendentious biblical interpretation, and ominously warns that if the US helps facilitate Israel-Palestinian peace, we, too, will be subject to divine wrath. Concluding his exposition of God's plan for middle Eastern politics, Hagee does the Lord's work of parting fools from their money. And he's got a unique marketing tool, namely this more than a little cracked take on symbolism of the one dollar bill:

George Washington wanted to do something to honor the Jewish people, so he put a tribute on the American dollar. It’s over the head of the eagle, it’s to the Jewish people. Right over the head of the American eagle is the star of David – that’s a six-pointed star. Around that star is the shekinah glory of god that’s a starbust. The shekinah glory of God that dwelt over the tabernacle. If you turn it upside-down this is the menorah – the flames of the menorah that are lifting up. For all of you who are now reaching for a dollar bill, we’ll take an offering in just a moment and receive every one of them.

Just as Moses, our Orthodox friends would tell us, wrote the very Bible that describes his death, I suppose it's possible that Washington designed the original greenback. But he would have had to do so from beyond the grave, since the buck went into circulation in 1862 featuring a portrait of the distinctly goyish Salmon P. Chase. Also, the menorah Hagee descries on the back of the bill — no kidding — is the eagle's tail-feathers.

So a preacher who blames the historical persecution of Jews on the Jews themselves for their refusal to accept Jesus, who propagates the Whore-of-Babylon strain of anti-Catholic bigotry, who sees Muslims as mindless killers, and blames buggery for natural disasters, is actively lobbying the government to adopt policies whose announced goal is to bring about the end of the world, and in particular, the annihilation of the Jewish state. This same ridiculous, hateful figure has the ear of a major party presidential candidate, and the support of senior legislative officials like Joe Lieberman.

One would think that John McCain's slobbery embrace of Hagee and his subsequent, chickenshit non-disavowal, would merit some media attention. One would be wrong. According to Steve Benen, the "combined number of articles" on McCain and Hagee "from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe is zero." So, at least until Hagee puts on blackface, it looks like he's going to get a pass.