On the video that tore John McCain and John Hagee asunder

By now you've all likely seen the "God sent Hitler" video that went viral and led John McCain to reject the support of the Rev. John Hagee, who had already sparked a massive controversy over his comments about the Catholic Church.

None of these videos that go viral crop up organically -- a little virtual rain, some virtual sun and voila! the seed germinates.  The guy behind the dissemination of the Hagee video is named Bruce Wilson, and the folks at techPresident link up to his explanation of what happened, and when.

Reading it is a bit like watching sausage getting made, but for those with more than a basic consumer's interest in how some of this stuff works, it makes for interesting reading.

-- Scott Martelle

Comments

[Bruce Wilson]

There's another such sausage that some friends and I just made over the weekend, and the name of this sausage is :

"John Hagee says the anti-Christ will be German, Gay and 'Partly Jewish, as was Hitler".

And another part of this new sausage will be called:

"John Hagee claims that a Rothschild, Jewish international banking conspiracy controls America"

These sausages will shortly be available for public consumption via a news story soon to be posted by Max Blumenthal, on the Huffington Post and The Nation.

Bon Appetit !

More of the sausage recipe will be available at Talk To Action ( http://www.talk2action.org )

[Bruce Wilson]

Also, Religion Dispatches has a second story [ see : http://religiondispatches.org/Gui/Content.aspx?Page=AR&Id=273# ] I wrote about the making of the "God Sent Hitler" viral video and also about the general context of the McCain-Hagee embrace and also some of the reasons why John McCain pursued, for over a year and with great dedication, John Hagee's political endorsement in the first place.

As far as the viral video itself, I'd like to make the point that the vast majority of media coverage of the Hagee "God Sent Hitler" audio clip has claimed, based on my highly conservative dating, that the audio clip came from a "late 1990's" Hagee sermon and some coverage even turns that into "1990".

This is indicative of a pervasive malady afflicting mainstream media - one of the few media outlets to get this right was Keith Olbermann's "Countdown". Had mainstream media journalists bothered to do much research they would have figured out that John Hagee Ministries STILL SELL the "God Sent Hitler" sermon (under the name "Countdown To Crisis") and if journalists had BOTHERED to actually listen to the sermon in question they would have learned that it was given some time in 2006: in the sermon John Hagee mentioned hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

[L. MacDill]

I shake my head and wonder how someone who calls himself a man of God can preach hate day in and day out. He is a very pitiful human being indeed.

[Jenna]

Sorry Dems, this one doesn't have legs. You can try to beat it all you want, but it simply doesn't have the same impact as a pastor saying Hillary aint never been called a ni%%er and God Damn America. I am a (Catholic) Dem myself, and I think the whole Hagee thing is much ado about nothing. If Hagee was McCain's pastor for 20 years, that might be different.

[Bruce Wilson]

Actually, John Hagee has said God has "cursed" and "doomed" America.

The relationship of McCain & Hagee was different, sure. In 2000, McCain made forceful attacks against preachers such as Hagee. The issue is one of spinelessness, pandering and hypocrisy.