Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

The "responses" from McCain and a U.S. Senator from Hagee's own state of Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, have been truly pathetic.  McCain and Hutchison indicated that, while they assuredly disagree with certain statements made by Pastor Hagee including the aforementioned, that he has been a steady supporter of Israel through the years and for this he deserves praise.

The statement about Israel and Hagee's position about the Jewish people is the perfect segue into an area of the Hagee persona and overriding philosophy that, based on what this reporter has and has not seen, has been satisfactorily covered by only two reporters, both of whom were born and raised in Texas, the aforementioned Lou Dubose and current Public Broadcasting System television talk show host Bill Moyers.

Check the record and you will find that Hagee, who receives a $1.25 million a year compensation package and lives in a 5,200 square foot classic revival style home in an exclusive gated community of San Antonio, is an ardent believer in rapture.  This is predicated on a deeply held fundamental belief that Armageddon is soon at hand and nuclear war is inevitable.

Yes, the Jewish people figure in this all-embracing scenario in which Jesus Christ will ultimately descend earthward from the clouds to run His kingdom, but in a way that has prompted many Jews to stoutly refuse Hagee's offer of a mutual friendship pact.  On the other hand, others have supported him, which is tragic in view of the ultimate fate that the rapturists perceive for the Jewish people.

When Tom DeLay served as Speaker of the House and was riding high, he formed a proud alliance with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party.  Netanyahu would speak at joint functions in Washington which included fundraising to serve both the interests of the Likud and the Republicans.  A smiling DeLay was proud to call the Likud Party "the Republican Party of Israel."

The alliance was formed due to strong ties between the rapture movement and conservative Jews.  As for those who declined, often with sharp disdain, to join forces with Hagee and others in the rapture movement, their opposition is based on logic while any alliance Jewish elements form with Christians eagerly anticipating the Apocalypse is specious.

Hagee takes the same view that the later Jerry Falwell adhered to regarding Armageddon and where most Jews were headed.  On a revealing appearance with Phil Donahue, Falwell revealed that he had plenty of Jewish friends and that some of them were in the audience that day, but that if they did not accept Jesus Christ that they were ultimately headed for eternal damnation.

The same Reverend Hagee who was and continues to be saluted by McCain, Senator Hutchison and others in the Republican high command for unflagging support to the Jewish cause, in his book, "Jerusalem Countdown:  A Prelude to War", blamed the Jews for the anti-Semitism that has dogged them for 5,000 years:

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day."

Hagee alleged that Jews are responsible for "birth(ing) the seed of anti-Semitism that would rise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come ... it rises from the judgment of God upon his rebellious chosen people."

Really, with friends like Hagee, what would those Jewish elements who praise him consider to be an enemy?

One of the most informative of all of Bill Moyers' PBS programs occurred in 2004 when he focused on the rapture movement, interviewing some U.S. rapturists that had visited Jerusalem on a tourist pilgrimage.  

These individuals were then warning George W. Bush that they would stay home rather than vote for him in that fall's presidential election unless he abandoned his then stated efforts to encourage Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

They stated unequivocally, as does Hagee, that Armageddon must take its historical course and that meant nuclear war with Jesus Christ descending from the clouds.  

One woman interviewed in Jerusalem who was not with the traveling party, but shared the same view, explained that she had bought a residence as close to the site of where Christ would return as possible, pointing out the very spot where this event would occur.

Meanwhile Republicans attempt to keep the focus on Reverend Jeremiah Wright while Hagee and other extremists such as Reverend Rod Parsley continue their inflamed and irresponsible rhetoric as John McCain continues to keep them on board as "spiritual advisers."