# What tactics will Democrats use against McCain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 5, 2008, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166 "2008-03-05T12:13:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/41 "2008-03-07T01:47:50Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I’m not even sure you have a consistent definition of what a “Neocon” is except “Someone I dislike.” A willingness to change things isn’t “conservative.” [/quote] A willingness to use U.S. military power to change the face of the world is **neo** conservative. It is [a definite movement,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism) albeit largely an academic/intellectual one, and a separate phenomenon from [the mass-based post-Goldwater American conservative movement](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8794765&postcount=263). [QUOTE=RickJay] Islamic extremism IS a challenge. [/quote] But it is not the **kind** of challenge McCain seems to think it is. From the same article: > [@](#): > > Not surprisingly, the center of McCain’s foreign policy is the Middle East. “He’s bought into the completely fallacious notion that we’re in a global struggle of us-versus-them. He calls it the 'transcendental threat…of extreme Islam,” says Daalder. “But it’s a silly argument to think that this is either an ideological or a material struggle on a par with [the ones against] Nazi Germany or Soviet Communism.” For McCain, the Iraq War, the conflict with Iran, the Arab-Israeli dispute, the war in Afghanistan, the Pakistani crisis and the lack of democracy in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are all rolled up into one “transcendent” ball of wax. [QUOTE=RickJay] Potent coveert ops units? This is just silly talk; the USA already HAS potent covert ops units. [/quote] But McCain wants a new agency separate from the CIA. He’s on record as saying so. Many neocons regard the CIA as too “risk-averse.” [QUOTE=RickJay] Wait a second. According to this person, McCain wants a LEague of Democracies and an expanded NATO (which could be the same thing, if you dumped the NA in NATO) but wants a revived unilateralism? Which is it? It sounds like he’s not quite sure what McCain is actually saying. [/quote] It’s clear enough. You can have cooperation and unilateralism at once if the international organization in question is structured so that the U.S. is its undisputed leader. > [@](#): > > The UN, too, would be shunted aside to make room for McCain’s new League of Democracies. Though the concept is couched in soothing rhetoric, the “league” would provide an alternate way of legitimizing foreign interventions by the United States when the UN Security Council won’t authorize force. Five years ago, on the eve of the Iraq War, McCain said bluntly before the European Parliament that if Security Council members resisted the use of force, or if China opposed US action against North Korea, “the United States will do whatever it must to guarantee the security of the American people.” Among the targets McCain cites for his plan to short-circuit the UN are Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Ukraine and, of course, Iran–and he has already referred to “wackos” in Venezuela. According to Scheunemann, it’s an idea that bubbled up from some of McCain’s advisers, including Peters and Kagan, but it alarms analysts from the realist-Republican school of foreign policy. “They’re talking about a body that essentially would circumvent the UN and would take authority to act in the name of the international community, sometimes using force,” says a veteran GOP strategist who knows McCain well and who insisted on anonymity. “Well, it’s very easy to predict that the Russians and Chinese would view this as a threat.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/42 "2008-03-07T02:31:25Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] A willingness to use U.S. military power to change the face of the world is **neo** conservative. [/QUOTE] Oh, that’s it. So Lyndon B. Johnson was a neoconservative? Actually, can you name any President since FDR who was not, by this criterion, a neoconservative? > [@](#): > > "Not surprisingly, the center of McCain’s foreign policy is the Middle East. “He’s bought into the completely fallacious notion that we’re in a global struggle of us-versus-them. He calls it the 'transcendental threat…of extreme Islam,” says Daalder. “But it’s a silly argument to think that this is either an ideological or a material struggle on a par with [the ones against] Nazi Germany or Soviet Communism.” " (Clarification: This is not BrianGlutton’s own words, but the authority he is citing.) McCain is (mostly) right, and the second comment is just wholly, stupidly irrelevant. The Middle East IS the world’s major problem center, and the clash between fundamentalist Islam and the West IS a major source of problems and will be for a long time. McCain’s support of the Iraq war is, specifically, partisan and stupid. As to the second comment, so what? Of course this is different from the struggle against the Nazis. What’s funny, though, is that Daalder conflates two other struggles - the one against Nzzism, and the one against Communism - and implies an equivalence between them, even though they were vastly, vastly different from each other. There’s very little similarity at all between World War II and the Cold War, so why would we expect the conflict with Islamist zealots to be the same as either? Every conflict’s different; geez, we’re supposed to be impressed by that insight? How does that in any way mitigate the fact that there’s a conflict to be dealt with here? > [@](#): > > Among the targets McCain cites for his plan to short-circuit the UN are Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Ukraine… Cite? A primary one? > [@](#): > > But McCain wants a new agency separate from the CIA. He’s on record as saying so. Many neocons regard the CIA as too “risk-averse.” Well, first of all, let’s be clear what McCain wants, and what you allege unnamed “neocons” that you have a list of 78 of want. If it’s McCain’s position that the CIA should not engage in covert ops, that’s frankly an outstanding, and long overdue, idea. The Central **Intelligence** Agency should be in the business of gathering, collating, and analyzing **intelligence**. It’s a fundamental conflict of interest to have an intelligence apparatus engaging in operations; it’s convenient from an organizational and financial perspective, but results in the intelligence apparatus flying out of control and massaging data to justify its own operational activities. Speaking as a former military intelligence analyst, we weren’t even supposed to recommend, even SUGGEST, operational decisions; that was a clear, unambiguous no-no, because it was not our job and got in the way of the business of intelligence. It compromised our impartiality, our analytical skills, our ability to convey the plain truth to the people who needed to know it. Does the history of the CIA’s dirty tricks ops strike you as being something to be proud of? Have they done a good job, all in all? Not really, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/43 "2008-03-07T03:05:52Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] 20% hardly constitutes a fringe. That’s almost half of all Republicans. [/QUOTE] You’re assuming that the less-than-one-fourth of Americans who think Bush is doing a good job are all Republicans who participate in the primary/causus process. That’s a huge assumption. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/44 "2008-03-07T08:11:13Z")
[QUOTE=Sunrazor] You’re assuming that the less-than-one-fourth of Americans who think Bush is doing a good job are all Republicans who participate in the primary/causus process. That’s a huge assumption. [/QUOTE] But a reasonable one. Even if you make it 20% of Republicans who vote, that’s still nowhere near a fringe. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/45 "2008-03-07T12:47:33Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] As to the second comment, so what? Of course this is different from the struggle against the Nazis. What’s funny, though, is that Daalder conflates two other struggles - the one against Nzzism, and the one against Communism - and implies an equivalence between them, even though they were vastly, vastly different from each other. There’s very little similarity at all between World War II and the Cold War, so why would we expect the conflict with Islamist zealots to be the same as either? [/quote] The point is, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at least arguably represented **existential threats** to the U.S. and to Western civilization as a whole. Radical Islam does not. [QUOTE=RickJay] If it’s McCain’s position that the CIA should not engage in covert ops, that’s frankly an outstanding, and long overdue, idea. [/QUOTE] No doubt, but what McCain wants is another agency that **specializes** in covert ops. > [@](#): > > First is an unnamed “new agency patterned after the…Office of Strategic Services,” the rambunctious, often out-of-control World War II-era covert-ops team. “A modern day OSS could draw together specialists in unconventional warfare; covert action operators; and experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines,” wrote McCain in Foreign Affairs. “Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble, can-do organization” that would “fight terrorist subversion [and] take risks.” It’s clear that McCain wants to set up an agency to conduct paramilitary operations, covert action and psy-ops. > > This idea is McCain’s response to a longstanding critique of the CIA by neoconservatives such as Richard Perle, who have accused the agency of being “risk averse.” Since 2001 the CIA has engaged in a bitter battle with the White House and the Pentagon on issues that include the Iraq War and Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The agency lost a major skirmish with the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which put the White House more directly in charge of the intelligence community. And now McCain wants to put the final nail in the CIA’s coffin by creating a gung-ho operations force. Scheunemann, who credits Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations with the idea, says the new agency is urgently needed to “meet the threats of the twenty-first century in a time of war, much as the OSS was created in a time of war.” And he disparages the CIA as a bunch of has-beens. The new agency would eclipse “an organization created to meet the needs of the cold war and hang out in embassies and try to recruit a major or two or deal with walk-in defectors,” Scheunemann told The Nation. > > But John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA who retired in 2004, is more than skeptical, and he worries that McCain doesn’t understand the need for Congressional controls over spy agencies. “You need to have Congressional oversight and transparency,” he says. “I would not recommend a new agency that is set up parallel to the CIA… All of those things can be done within the boundaries of the CIA.” Told about McLaughlin’s comments, Scheunemann says, “Anyone who thinks that the agency today is a nimble, can-do organization has a different view than Senator McCain does.” ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/46 "2008-03-07T13:04:53Z")
I’d center around the theory that five years in a torture camp has to have rendered his brain into mush, and he therefore can’t be counted on to make sensible decisions 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/47 "2008-03-07T13:14:46Z")
The same article, BTW, notes that McCain wants to maintain an adversarial relationship with Russia and even kick Russia out of the G-8. I hope nobody here needs any convincing that this is a Very Bad Idea. Putin is a creep but he’s no revolutionary ideologue. At this stage in history there is no good reason why the U.S. and Russia should not be friends; we have no **material** interests in conflict and we have a common enemy in the Muslim extremists. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/48 "2008-03-07T13:47:24Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The point is, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at least arguably represented **existential threats** to the U.S. and to Western civilization as a whole. Radical Islam does not. [/QUOTE] Sure it does. It’s already killed lots people, and on a more fundamental, grand scale represents a significant barrier to the advancement and development of a lot of countries, keeping them poor and undeveloped, improverishing people and perpetuating utterly pointless hatreds and conflicts. It’s not the same thing as a single, identifiable nation-state waging a conventional war, but why does it have to be to be a threat? And I simply disagree that the Nazis and Soviets can be cnflated. The Nazis were actually bent on the destruction of liberal democracy and civilized existence in any moral sense we would understand it, and they actually made war on us, directly. The Soviets did not, and we made war on them as much as the reverse. It was, after all, NATO, not the Warsaw Pact, that came up with the idea of a massive nuclear first strike as a viable choice to win a war. As things turned out our conflict with the Soviet bloc was ended more or less peacefully. It would not have been possible to arrange peace with the Nazis. They’re just as different from each other as the conflict with radical Islam is, and it’s foolish to think this conflict doesn’t exist. It’s not quite as pressing right now as, say, the Nazi threat was in mid-1942, but maybe now is the time to think about dealing with it. > [@](#): > > No doubt, but what McCain wants is another agency that **specializes** in covert ops. Well, doesn’t that make sense? Are you saying a large nation-state should not have the capability to perform covert operations? Assuming it should have such a capability, would the logical thing not to be to have an organization that specializes in carrying them out? Unless you think a country should never do any such thing, I don’t see anything sinister about this. In any event, you’re off topic (as am I, but you started it) unless you really, honestly believe the Democrats should trot out “ZOMG McCain is going to create a covert ops unit!” to win the election. Get serious. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/49 "2008-03-07T14:46:40Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Sure it does. [/quote] You can’t be serious. Al-Qaeda is **feeble.** That’s why it uses terrorist tactics, to inflate its perceived importance, and because it has no other means available. We could afford to ignore Islamic extremism entirely if we did not mind losing a few hundred lives to terrorist attacks every decade. We do mind, so we have to take some action. But nothing in this situation warrants a [“Long War”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_War_(21st_century)) such as the neocons (and McCain) seem to want, or seem to assert that we’re in already. [QUOTE=RickJay] Well, doesn’t that make sense? Are you saying a large nation-state should not have the capability to perform covert operations? [/quote] So long as it’s based on “Congressional oversight and transparency.” Without that, you’ll get something like the CIA at its worst. But, really, at this stage we don’t **need** a new covert-ops agency; nothing in the current international situation justifies it. [QUOTE=RickJay] In any event, you’re off topic (as am I, but you started it) unless you really, honestly believe the Democrats should trot out “ZOMG McCain is going to create a covert ops unit!” to win the election. Get serious. [/QUOTE] No, that’s a detail; the general message should be, “McCain is a crazy cowboy who wants to fight the whole world.” ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/50 "2008-03-07T14:54:58Z")
Yes, ‘transparency’ is just what you want with your _covert_ ops. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/51 "2008-03-07T15:24:05Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Yes, ‘transparency’ is just what you want with your _covert_ ops. [/QUOTE] The point is that such an agency has to be answerable to **somebody** outside the executive branch. It could be a committee of Congresscritters with security clearance – just so long as nothing is ever concealed from **them.** I have my doubts as to our existing intelligence agencies’ track record in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/52 "2008-03-07T15:43:09Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] You can’t be serious. Al-Qaeda is **feeble.** [/QUOTE] Whoa, whoa.. when did we suddenly start talking about just al-Qaida? You said McCain was concerned about Islamic fundamentalism. One does not equal the other. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/53 "2008-03-07T16:00:50Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Whoa, whoa.. when did we suddenly start talking about just al-Qaida? You said McCain was concerned about Islamic fundamentalism. One does not equal the other. [/QUOTE] What I said applies to Islamic-fundamentalist organizations in general: None, separately or together, is powerful enough to warrant a “long war” on our part. Neither is Islamic fundamentalism as a cultural force. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/54 "2008-03-07T16:22:21Z")
> [@](#): > > McCain had a half-dozen chances to become something truly new and different over the past six or seven years, but never really did. He continued to suck up to the Bushies … I was surprised that McCain carried Bush’s water for so long and so faithfully, and if anything causes him to lose the election, that will probably be the thing that does it. That’s how I feel about it. McCain should have cut any ties with Bush and Rove right then and there. he could have given a nice “go to hell speech” or a “we have differences” speech. SOMETHING. But he didn’t he kept going back for more. Why? I want to know. Loyalty is fine, but there is such a thing as misplaced loyalty. Even a dog will bite if he gets kicked that one time too many. > [@](#): > > At the same time, some of those very same Bushies remember McCain as a harsh critic of Bush policies (the “maverick”), so he has to suck it really hard to get their blessing. OK, Why? Why should any reasonable person have to bow down to a ny extreme fringe? Even if you do, no matter what you give them it would never ever be enough, and some of these people are against every decent thing the country is supposed to be all about. Best to cut them completely off too. > [@](#): > > In terms of viral strategies, the Democrats might alienate the religious right from McCain by highlighting McCain’s rejection of some of their more extreme demands: prayer in schools, creationism in schools, his distaste for waterboarding, that kind of thing. And yet, those are the very same things that COULD have set McCain apart, and allowed him to easily say he was indeed a better choice… Those decisions on those things were what make me like him. Those were the things on which he took a stand - the right stand - and showed that he does know right from wrong. The things that would alienate the loonies, are the same exact things that make him more appealing to any REASONABLE and THINKING person. McCain was againt torture. He was against “forced” prayer. He was against the forced “teaching” of"creationism/ID/alternate science/whatever". Many of us (I really REALLY doubt I am alone in this) have had a belly full of the so called “religious” right. If McCain told them to “sod off” or whatever the phrase is, that would be a PLUS for most of us. The ONE thing that kills it for me, even though I like the man, is I think it would be just more of the same, and the way he caved after his own party treated him so damn shitty. Only a fool goes back for more. Forgive me if I am rambling - first cup of coffee, and not quite awake yet. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/55 "2008-03-07T23:02:46Z")
[QUOTE=dalej42] The Democrats also have to make sure independents learn about McCain pandering to the same religious ‘leaders’ that Bush did. Make sure they know about John Hagee and the [anti-vaccine crowd.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=458424) [/QUOTE] The Hagee endorsement might be played up enough to disenchant some Catholic voters, in particular. On the other hand, I fear that relatively few voters on the fence are going to care that McCain is courting the Ron Paul/antivax/They Don’t Want You To Know vote. And I would venture a modest wager that if you put the vaccine-thimerosal-autism question to the other leading candidates, you wouldn’t get a radically different answer from the one McCain gave. It’d probably be something like “Well, some say it’s the vaccines, some don’t. We must study this further.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/56 "2008-03-08T00:42:53Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] The Hagee endorsement might be played up enough to disenchant some Catholic voters, in particular. On the other hand, I fear that relatively few voters on the fence are going to care that McCain is courting the Ron Paul/antivax/They Don’t Want You To Know vote. And I would venture a modest wager that if you put the vaccine-thimerosal-autism question to the other leading candidates, you wouldn’t get a radically different answer from the one McCain gave. It’d probably be something like “Well, some say it’s the vaccines, some don’t. We must study this further.” :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Hagee. That slime ball. I want to steal an old phrase, the one Goldwater had to say about Falwell. I want to change it a little since that lousyhate mongering rat (Falwell) is gone. Every good christian should kick Hagee’s ass. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/57 "2008-03-08T01:07:19Z")
[QUOTE=SteveG1] Every good christian should kick Hagee’s ass. [/QUOTE] And then let him turn the other cheek! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/58 "2008-03-08T01:13:30Z")
People like Hagee make the Baby Jesus puke His little guts out. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166/59 "2008-03-10T19:36:05Z")
Speaking of John “Katrina wuz cause of the gay\*” Hagee, I’ve heard some pro-McCain pundits on Fox and CNN already trying to equate it with Farrakhan’s endorsement of Obama. Of course the little difference between the two enodorsements that they choose not to mention is that Obama renounced Farrakhan’s position on Jews and other matters, while McCain gave an unqualified and in person “I am honored” acceptance to Hagee _while standing beside him on the podium_! (Great vid montage on [YouTube](http://youtube.com/watch?v=4qNi7tPanUA).) \*Excerpts from the interview in which he stated that Katrina was the wrath of God for a “particularly sexual” gay pride event [that had not happened yet] are on the YouTube clip. Apparently God can stand a city having 150 years of slavery and being the voodoo capital of the U.S. and centuries of vice from “pirates, drunks, and whores” and the mafia and the killing of Indians and Madame Lalaurie’s little experiments and what-not, but that parade was just the last straw (and explains how Cooper arrived so quickly- probably was already there scoping out a spot). It’s similar perhaps to how Hagee can find all of the verses in the Bible that can be applied to men lying with men and how one shouldn’t, but can’t find the three times that Jesus himself says that a man who divorces a woman and remarries is living in adulterous sin. (Hagee’s first marriage broke up due to his infidelity and he married his current wife later; I’ve never heard him address this- note that I have no problem with divorce or remarriage, but one who favors literal interpretations of the Bible should.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tactics-will-democrats-use-against-mccain/440166.md?page=2)