If turnabout is fair play, then John McCain critics believe his association with controversial pastors should be held to the same scrutiny as Barack Obama’s ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

After all, they point out, one of McCain’s religious supporters, John Hagee, called the Roman Catholic Church “the great whore.”

Another, Rod Parsley, referred to Islam as a “false religion” that America was called on to destroy.

Still, when McCain’s link to both men came to light, the backlash was negligible compared with the furor Obama has faced for nearly two months over his relationship with Wright, his former pastor.

“McCain got a bit of a pass on that,” Democratic strategist Bob Beckel said.

Political analysts and the McCain campaign say it was the difference in his relationships with those pastors — more than the news media’s decision to use kid gloves — that spared him the kind of public trial Obama endured.

Hagee and Parsley are just supporters, McCain’s campaign points out. Obama’s relationship is personal, with Wright having officiated at the candidate’s wedding and baptized his two children.

“I didn’t attend Pastor Hagee’s church for 20 years,” McCain said last week, taking a shot at Obama. “There’s a great deal of difference in my view between someone who endorses you and other circumstances.”

But while Obama has repeatedly moved to reject and denounce such supporters, McCain will only go so far. And critics warn the issue could come back to hurt him.

Trouble Ahead?

“Obama may have a spring problem with Wright, but McCain’s gonna have a fall problem with the right,” Beckel told FOXNews.com.

Beckel said McCain’s move to cozy up to the religious right after famously calling televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell “agents of intolerance” is Democratic fodder.

“It’s an exploitable point for the Democrats and they’re going to take it,” he said.

MoveOn.org, which is supporting Obama, has already listed the Parsley/Hagee connection on an online flier blasting McCain. The list claims McCain is courting “the extreme religious right,” and the flier is a sign MoveOn could make hay out of that link come November.

The Democratic National Committee also has tried to make an issue out of the connection.

Media analyst and American University professor Jane Hall said if guilt-by-association is the game that’s going to be played this election year, then McCain should get his due.

“I just think if we’re going to crucify people over who they might have been associated with then let’s go over … John McCain and whatever ministers John McCain is supported by,” she said.

McCain has not outright rejected either pastor supporter (though he has repudiated backers he felt took cheap shots at Obama).

The New York Times made this point in an editorial after Obama lashed out at Wright for his remarks to the National Press Club on Monday.

“Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright,” the editorial said.

Pastor Problems

Bigotry is in the eye of the beholder, but each of these three pastors has put a religious or ethnic group in the crosshairs, angering many. Wright targeted white America. Hagee went after Catholics. Parsley went after Muslims.

– Hagee, a televangelist and leader of San Antonio’s massive Cornerstone Church, has suggested the Roman Catholic Church is “the great whore” and a “false cult system” and “the apostate church.” Hagee says his remarks have been mischaracterized, but has frequently attempted to link the Roman Catholic Church to the rise of the Nazis.

In his book “Jerusalem Countdown,” Hagee writes that history proves Adolf Hitler and the Catholic Church were linked “in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.”

He also said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the sins — specifically homosexual sins — of New Orleans residents.

– Parsley, leader of the World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, has described the conflict with the Middle East as a historic spiritual battle.

In his book, “Silent No More,” he writes that America was called upon to destroy Islam.

One YouTube video shows him telling Americans to “man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load.”

Another shows him repeating the words from his book: “America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed.”

– Wright, who earlier this year retired as head pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, became known for about a half-dozen fiery sound bites that surged across the Internet.

He said “God damn America” in one of his sermons, and called his country the “U.S. of KKK-A.”

Wright has pushed conspiracy theories, including the claim that the government invented HIV to destroy black people. He cast the country as institutionally racist and was dismissive of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy because, he said, she doesn’t know what it’s like to be called a “n****r.”

Wright has also suggested the United States brought the Sept. 11 attacks on itself for some of its foreign policy actions.

Under Pressure

A few liberal media outlets have tried to tackle the McCain pastor issue. Mother Jones magazine wrote a critical article on Parsley in March, while The Huffington Post published a flashback of Hagee’s controversial remarks shortly after he endorsed McCain.

Columbia Journalism Review published two essays in March complaining that the pastors were getting a free pass.

The McCain campaign rejects comparisons between Wright and his pastor supporters, but the Arizona senator did bow to pressure all the same to repudiate controversial comments.

Hagee first endorsed him Feb. 27. McCain, after initially defending the support, said he would “repudiate” Hagee’s anti-Catholic statements.

The uproar came around the same time Obama was pressured to “reject” the support of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan at a debate.

McCain later told ABC News it “probably” was a mistake to seek the endorsement, but he was still “glad” to have it.

Then when McCain visited New Orleans last week, he repeatedly said Hagee’s comments on Katrina were “nonsense.”

Asked if he would reject the endorsement once and for all, he answered: “I certainly condemn those parts of his remarks. … I repudiate as strongly as possible those remarks (about Katrina) and those (about) the Catholic Church as well.”

As for Parsley, campaign aides said McCain met him for only the first time when he shared the stage with him at a Feb. 26 rally in Cincinnati.

At the time, McCain called him a “moral compass” and “spiritual guide” for America. Parsley told The Columbus Dispatch he supports McCain because he’s tough on national security and would “protect the unborn.”

But a campaign official said attempts to compare Wright to Parsley are “totally absurd,” noting McCain never attended a Parsley service. Aides said McCain was not endorsing Parsley’s views by accepting his endorsement.

A Reuters profile in March of McCain’s actual pastor, Phoenix-based Dan Yeary, described him as a harmless preacher who rarely meddles in political affairs.

Robert Lichter, president of The Center for Media and Public Affairs, said backers like Hagee and Parsley would be more of an issue if McCain were already in a general election battle — but he questioned whether the matter will ever really rise to the surface, especially if Obama wins the primary.

“Obama will be faced with the tactical question, do you fight fire with fire, or do you worry that this will just make your fire burn brighter?” he said.

Lichter said no matter what his rivals do, McCain enjoys the fact that he’s a known commodity, while Obama is still being “defined.”

“McCain has been around for a long time, everyone knows what his views are,” he said. “The reason Wright is news is not what he said — it’s basically he’s linked to a candidate who talks about change but hasn’t filled in what that means.”

FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

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