But on one point, there is no dispute. Despite CNN's assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.

From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I'm not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I've got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

Chuck Todd of MSNBC was quick to note the strikingly different answers Obama and McCain offered, but not the clearly different questions they were asked:

"Take the VERY first question Warren posed to both candidates: who are three people you'll depend on for wisdom in the presidency. Obama seemed to answer this in a very personal way, talking about his wife and grandmother. McCain went right to this message, checking boxes on Iraq (Patraeus) and the economy (Whitman) for instance. Now, I'm betting Obama's answer came across as more authentic but McCain's was probably more effective with undecided swing voters."

Given the very different framing of the question Warren posed, it's no surprise that Barack Obama and John McCain produced strikingly different responses in both substance and style. Obama took Warren's personal question personally, and cited his wife and grandmother as both "wise and honest'' before moving on to a litany of political figures on both sides of the aisle. (Obama's mention of the radical social conservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) was transparent pandering to his audience.) For his part, McCain responded to Warren's political question and pointed to General David Petraeus, Obama supporter Congressman John Lewis and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. (McCain was quick to return to his stump speech and extol the glories of eBay as America's economic future.)

But Warren's divergent paths for Obama and McCain split further with the very next question on leadership and moral weakness. Again, Warren turned to the Bible for Barack Obama, but to Dr. Phil for John McCain:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: Let's talk about personal life. The Bible says that integrity and love are the basis for leadership. This is a tough question. What would be looking over your life, everybody's got wings [sic], would be the greatest moral failure in your life and what would be the greatest moral failure in America?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: We had a lot leaders because of their weaknesses, character flaws, stumbled, become ineffective [and] are not serving anymore, serving our country. What's been your greatest moral failure and what has been the - what do you think is the greatest moral failure of America?

Again, the different framing of the question put Obama at a distinct disadvantage. After admitting his own troubled, selfish youth as his personal failing, Obama turned to scripture to highlight America's failure to live up to its own ideals:

"I think America's greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don't live by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you for the least of my brothers, you do for me."

In contrast, McCain killed two birds with one stone. He dispensed with his own marital infidelity in a single sentence, "my greatest moral failing, and I have been an imperfect person, is the failure of my first marriage." (The issue never surfaced again, and Warren's admission Friday that he "absolutely" would have compunctions about voting for an adulterer never became an issue for McCain.) More important, McCain highlighted America's greatest shortcoming as a failure to "serve cause greater than yourself." That theme - "country first" - is the rhetorical cornerstone of the McCain campaign. And the contrast of his response with Obama's discussion of his own battle with what Warren termed "fundamental selfishness" couldn't have been more strategic for McCain.

Warren's different framing of the inquiries he posed and the tailored, selective follow-ups continued in his discussion of marriage. Warren asked Obama and McCain alike to "define marriage." But while Obama was then asked, "Would you support a constitutional amendment with that definition," Warren instead offered John McCain an opportunity to weigh in on a hotly contested ballot measure being pushed by the religious right in California:

"Let me just ask a related question to that. We got a bill right here in California, Proposition 8, that's going on because the Court overturned this definition of marriage. Was the Supreme Court of California wrong?"

It's no secret that the foes of same-sex marriage see Proposition 8 as essential to fueling Republican turn-out in November.

And so it went all night. Thanks in no small part to Pastor Warren's biblical guidance, Barack Obama spoke in a personal, conversational style, making a point throughout to refer to the principles of his Christian faith in the misguided attempt to please an audience indifferent to him at best, downright hostile at worst. So while Barack Obama talked of "trying to do God's work," John McCain did the work of his campaign advisers. Despite Warren's feeble requests not to do so, McCain just repackaged his stump speech and made purely political appeals. In so doing, John McCain probably had the best night of the campaign.

(This piece originally appeared at Crooks and Liars.)

In ways large and small, Barack Obama's visit to the Pastor Rick Warren Saddleback Church resembled a Christian taking on the lions. The audience, after all, was overwhelmingly predisposed to the Republican John McCain. To be sure, the questions posed by Warren had a purpose-driven life for the conservative agenda. And making matters even more difficult for Obama, Reverend Warren edited out scriptural references for McCain, a man notoriously uncomfortable speaking about matters of religious faith.

In theory, Warren was to pose the same questions to each candidate during their separate appearances on stage. But starting with the very first question to each man, Rick Warren made sure John McCain was treated with biblical kid gloves:

While the anti-gay Warren and his co-sponsor the multi-denominational group Faith in Public Life will apparently be the arbiters of presidential compassion, Reverend Warren insists Saturday's event is not about "gotcha" questions for the candidates:

"This is a critical time for our nation and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart -- without interruption -- in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan 'gotcha' questions that typically produce heat instead of light."

But for the good people at the Red State blog, that's simply not good enough. Declaring that "abortion on demand is non-negotiable," Red State's open letter to Reverend Warren insists he promise to confront Obama on the issue. Failing to do so at the event, "it would be better to cancel it."

No doubt, Rick Warren will ask Barack Obama about his views on abortion and women's reproductive rights. But among the questions on AIDS, poverty, climate change and the candidates' personal faith, the notoriously reserved on religion John McCain can rest assured he won't face tough questions about his own.

Here, then, are 10 questions Rick Warren won't ask John McCain.

1. In 2006, you recanted your claim six years earlier that Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell were "agents of intolerance." What changed your mind?
During the 2000 campaign, you famously claimed that the late Jerry Falwell was an "agent of intolerance." But when Meet the Press' Tim Russert on April 2, 2006 asked whether you "still believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?" you reversed yourself and said, "no, I don't." The next month, you gave the commencement address at Reverend Falwell's Liberty University. Just weeks earlier, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart asked you, "Are you going into crazy base world?" to which you replied, "I'm afraid so." Why did you change your position on Falwell and Robertson being agents of intolerance? Were you pandering to the "crazy base world" of Republican primary voters?

2. You've said, "The most important thing is that I am a Christian." Why is that the most important thing?
Campaigning in South Carolina last fall, you responded to questions about whether you were a Baptist or an Episcopalian by proclaiming, "the most important thing is that I am a Christian." What did you mean by that? Was your Christian faith the most important thing for you personally, or just for the heavily evangelical voters of South Carolina?

3. Speaking of which, are you an Episcopalian or a Baptist?
You were raised as an Episcopalian and during your "Service to America" tour in April made a point of visiting your old prep school, Episcopal High. A Congressional directory lists your religion as Episcopalian, as did a questionnaire your campaign staffers completed in August for a debate in South Carolina. Yet you've attended the 7,000 member North Phoenix Baptist Church for 15 years. Despite never having been baptized, you said of your faith in September, "It plays a role in my life. By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist." So just to clear up any lingering confusion, are you an Episcopalian or a Baptist?

4. Will you ask your supporters to respect Barack Obama's Christian faith?
On more than one occasion, you pledged to run a "respectful" campaign. Yet despite Barack Obama's repeated and heartfelt proclamations of his Christian faith, many in the conservative movement accuse Obama of being a Muslim. Polling data show that the percentage of American who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim increased to 12% in July. Do you believe Barack Obama is a Christian? Will you ask your supporters to stop promulgating the myth that his is a Muslim? Will you ask them to respect Obama's Christian faith? For that matter, will you ask them to respect the faith of Muslim Americans?

5. Do you agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy?
Back in February, you shared a stage with Pastor John Hagee and said you were "very proud" to have his endorsement. Then in May, you announced that you "must reject his endorsement, given "deeply offensive and indefensible" remarks he had made about the Holocaust. But given your own tough talk and past jokes about "bomb bomb Iran" and killing Iranians with cigarettes, do you join Pastor Hagee in believing the United States must attack Iran to fulfill the biblical prophecy of Armageddon in Israel in which 144,000 Jews will be converted to Christianity and the rest killed?

6. Why did you change your position on overturning Roe v. Wade?
In 1999, you announced your opposition to overturning Roe v Wade, "But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." But in November 2006, you answered "yes" when ABC's George Stephanapolous asked if "you'd be for that?" Why did your change your mind on overturning Roe? Was it so your campaign could claim in a February press release during the Republican primaries that "John McCain is far and away the most consistently anti-abortion of all the top contenders?"

7. Do you support the Bush administration's attempt to redefine many forms of birth control as abortion?
A draft proposal by President Bush's Department of Health and Human Services would "withhold government funds from health-care providers and organizations that don't hire people who refuse to perform abortions or provide certain types of birth control." Senator Hillary Clinton wrote HHS Secretary Leavitt that "this definition would allow health-care corporations or individuals to classify many common forms of contraception - including the birth control pill, emergency contraception and IUDs - 'abortions' and therefore to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it." Do you agree with the Bush administration's proposal to redefine these contraception methods as "abortion?" While you're at it, have you decided whether or not you believe insurance companies covering Viagra for men should also be required to cover birth control for women?

8. Do you believe, as you said last September, that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation?"
In an interview with BeliefNet last September, you said that:

"I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who has a grounding in my faith."

"I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."

After withering criticism from Jewish and Islamic groups, you backtracked the next day and claimed, "Yes, I believe a Muslim could be president." Do you still believe that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation?" Do you agree with Mike Huckabee that "what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards?"

9. Do you believe Americans should pray for rain to end droughts - or to wash out Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention?
Last November, Georgia Republican Governor Sonny Perdue held a public vigil at the state house to "pray up a storm" to end the drought in the Southeast. His plea followed on the heels of Alabama Governor Bob Riley's week-long "Days of Prayer for Rain" that June. Just days ago, Focus on the Family, led by James Dobson (who recently announced "the possibility is there that I might" endorse you) posted a video calling on its supporters to pray for "rain of biblical proportions" during Obama's DNC speech in Denver. Should your supporters pray for rain on Obama's parade? Should elected officials lead public prayers for rain to end droughts? Do you believe those prayers work?

10. Do you know the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims?
You've long touted your commander-in-chief credentials in the struggle against Islamic extremism. Yet on four occasions in under a month, you confused Sunni and Shiite, friend and foe in Iraq. Given you repeated - and mistaken - statements about a non-existent Al Qaeda alliance with Iran, can you tell the American people: what are the differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims?

Of course, those are just some of the uncomfortable questions John McCain could - but won't - face from Pastor Rick Warren Saturday. McCain's endless reversals on teaching intelligent design in public schools and his dependence on PEPFAR opponent Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) for his AIDS policy are just two. And then there's issue of McCain's past adultery. When asked by ABC's Jake Tapper during a discussion about John Edwards if he would have "compunctions about voting for someone who had cheated on his wife," Rick Warren answered, "Absolutely I would."

(This piece originally appeared at Crooks and Liars.)

UPDATE: Despite the fact that the first joint appearance by Obama and McCain is being hosted by an evangelical minister at his megachurch, Red State whines that Pastor Warren sold out to the "pro-abortion and anti-Israel crowd."

As the so-called Sons of the Confederacy no doubt let loose with a rebel yell over their display of the world's largest confederate flag outside Tampa, John McCain has apparently been silent. Given his own sad experience of gymnastic flip-flops over the Stars and Bars since 2000, his reticence is understandable.

Unlike the flying of the confederate flag over the South Carolina state house, the Florida display occurs on private property near the junction of two interstate highways. Yet the issue remains tricky for McCain, given his on-again/off-again pandering to his party's neo-Confederate wing during the 2000 primaries.

Back in April 2000, McCain admitted his flirtation with the Confederate flag-waving crowd in South Carolina was an unprincipled mistake, hardly the stuff of straight talk:

"I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So, I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth."

Then in January 2008, McCain again claimed to Katie Couric of CBS News that his dishonesty over the Confederate flag 8 years ago was the exception to his supposed maverick rule:

"I knew it was a symbol that was offensive to so many people. And afterwards, I went back and apologized. But it was needless to say, by saying that I wouldn't have anything to do with an issue like that was an act of cowardice."

Ultimately, American citizens using private property to fly a banner offensive to the vast majority of their fellow citizens likely won't rise to a make-or-break issue in national presidential politics. (The Tampa Bay Business Journal did ask its readers if the Sons of the Confederacy flag would adversely impact the region's economy.)

No, the episode will probably merely serve as fodder for the Colbert Report (video here). That, and a reminder to Americans that on this as on so many issues, John McCain is no rebel.

Just days after rejecting the endorsements of his "ministers of war" John Hagee and Rod Parsley, John McCain may be about to confront another faith-based conundrum. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) is facing withering criticism from prominent conservatives and evangelical leaders over his Senate probe into the finances of Kenneth Copeland and other so-called "prosperity gospel" televangelists. Republican nominee McCain may have to choose between his party's increasingly disgruntled religious right base and a fellow Republican Senator he once called a "f**king jerk."

As the Washington Post details, the Senate Finance Committee's inquiry to determine whether Copeland and five other televangelists "are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles" is raising hackles among Christian conservatives. In January, former Arkansas Governor, Baptist minister and now McCain VP hopeful Mike Huckabee stood by Copeland, a supporter who raised - perhaps illegally - over $100,000 for his presidential campaign. Now Copeland and Georgia minister Creflo Dollar are refusing to cooperate further with Grassley's probe.

Alleging bias by the Baptist Grassley against the Pentecostal preachers, Copeland and many familiar faces among the religious right are fighting back. Copeland has launched a web site called Believers Stand United, which claims the Iowa Republican is "publicly questioning the religious beliefs of the targeted churches, their ministers, and their members while ignoring televangelists of other denominations." Copeland went on to liken Grassley, the man John McCain labeled a "f**king jerk," to the devil himself:

"Satan has an agenda. He is looking for a way to drive a wedge and get strife between one another."

Other high profile conservatives are lining up with Copeland. Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich, former Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell and Anthony Verdugo of the Christian Family Coalition joined other figures in the religious right in sending a letter to the Senate Finance Committee. Their missive claims that ministries were under investigation because they shared "the same branch of evangelicalism" and that Grassley's inquiry infringes the churches' First Amendment rights. Signatory Matthew Staver, dean of the law school at the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, personally attacked Senator Grassley while warning that the probe:

"Sets a terrible precedent that...should be a concern to all houses of worships across the board -- Christian and non-Christian." It may be that Senator Grassley has some kind of personal opinion with regards to the doctrines of these churches."

Doug Wead, an informal adviser to President Bush who also served as a liaison to the evangelical community during his father's presidency, revealed the stakes for John McCain and the GOP:

"You've got a Baptist senator attacking six Pentecostals. The timing is not good for the Republican Party."

The timing is especially dangerous for John McCain. In the wake of McCain's rejection of the Hagee and Parsley endorsements he previously sought, evangelical leaders are increasingly questioning his new-found commitment to people he once deemed "agents of intolerance." Evangelical leader Bishop Harry Jackson complained, "Now folks don't know what he means," adding, "Is he for us or against us?" Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said simply of McCain's faith-based flip-flop on Hagee and Parsley, "this doesn't help."

McCain's running mate search is also sure to shine a spotlight on the controversy. Back in April, Weyrich joined two dozen other conservative activists in signing a letter titled "No Mitt" calling on McCain to reject Mitt Romney as his vice presidential choice. Governor Huckabee, who like Romney has made no secret of his desire for the #2 slot on the ticket, has made it clear he's with Copeland and not Grassley's committee in the controversy ("Why should I stand with them and not with you? They've only got an 11 percent approval rating.").

As Chuck Grassley's probe of Copeland and the other prosperity gospel ministers unfolds, John McCain may well find he's damned if he does and damned if doesn't. If he backs the Senate investigation, McCain may only further raise the ire of his party's hard right as the November election nears. If he sides with Copeland, Weyrich et al, he will be seen as pandering to social conservatives at precisely the time his campaign is running hard to the center.

But in reversing his 2000 position and embracing the religious right he once criticized, the Episcopalian-turned-Baptist McCain brought his upon himself. Asked by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart in 2006 if he was "going to crazy base world," John McCain replied, "I'm afraid so."

Back on March 9th, McCain offered a conditional apology for Hagee's slanders "if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics." Today, Hagee himself tried to help dig McCain out of the hole he created among America's 80,000,000 Catholics. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Hagee sought to make amends:

"Out of a desire to advance greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful," Hagee wrote, according to an advanced copy of the letter reviewed by Washington Wire.

In the letter, addressed to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and one of Hagee's biggest critics, Hagee pledges "a greater level of compassion and respect for my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ."

But while McCain "categorically" repudiated Hagee's anti-Catholic bigotry and labeled as "nonsense" Hagee's assertions that Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans as divine retribution for the city's "painful sin" of a "homosexual rally," the Arizona Senator has yet to reject Hagee's End of Days vision for war with Iran.

On February 27, 2008, Senator McCain shared a stage with the End Times minister and declared, "I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support." As it turns out, John McCain not only actively sought Hagee's endorsement. In 2007, McCain addressed Hagee's organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which just happens to believe the final biblical battle against the Anti-Christ will be fought by the United States - against Iran. During the annual CUFI conference in July 2006, John Hagee bluntly described his vision of Armageddon as foreign policy this way:

"The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

On January 29, 2007, Hagee emailed a "Newflash" to CUFI members about a meeting he held that day with McCain. While noting that he did not "want to put the specifics of our conversation in this update" because "I don't want to read it in the media tomorrow," Hagee crowed about the future Republican presidential nominee:

"Senator McCain's comments concerning Israel are on target! He gets it!"

But what exactly is that McCain "gets?" During an April 2, 2006 interview by Tim Russert on Meet the Press, McCain gave a hint. Discussing Tehran's nuclear program and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric towards Israel, John McCain sounded as much preacher as president:

MR. RUSSERT: So we could have two wars at once?

SEN. McCAIN: I think we could have Armageddon. But I think that, that if we handle this right, and our European allies stand with us, and the Russians and the Chinese stand with us, sanctions might do the job. And I am confident that this administration will exhaust every effort before contemplating seriously a military option.

Russert, of course, did not follow up to clarify with McCain what he meant when he said "we could have Armageddon." Was he literally speaking of the final conflagration involving the mass conversion and killing of the Jews described in the Bible? Does John McCain believe, as Pastor Hagee clearly does, that American foreign and national security policy should be governed by the Book of Revelation?

During an April 2007 campaign event, John McCain joked about confrontation with Tehran, singing "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." But as tensions with Iran continue to rise, the end-times views of McCain supporter Hagee are no laughing matter. So 76 days after they shared that stage in San Antonio, the McCain-Hagee Armageddon watch continues. When will the American media ask John McCain the question he must answer: does John McCain agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy?

In just the latest blow to his tattered maverick myth, the McCain camp is signaling its man will perform yet another about-face on abortion. Eight years after attacking George W. Bush's defense of a Republican platform which called for banning all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother, John McCain too will kowtow to the GOP's radical right. As it turns out, that surrender follows Mr. Straight Talk's earlier reversal on overturning Roe v. Wade.

During the 2000 campaign, John McCain ripped into then Governor George W. Bush for supporting a GOP abortion ban plank at odds with his stated position recognizing exemptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother. Just last year, the Arizona Senator reiterated that he wanted to revise the Republican platform to recognize those exceptions.

Alas, that was then, this is now. Already walking a tightrope between his party's conservative base and independent voters his campaign is now trying so hard to woo, John McCain is having yet another born-again experience on the issue. Facing threats from the likes of the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins (who claimed McCain would be "aborting his own campaign"), McCain backer Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) made clear the Republican nominee would likely abandon his earlier position. As ABC reported:

Despite McCain's support for changing the platform in 2000 and 2007, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the co-chairman of McCain's Justice Advisory Committee, significantly downplays the possibility that McCain would revise the party's call for a nationwide constitutional ban on abortion with no exceptions.

"I don't think that's going to happen. I think you're going to see a platform process that is going to maintain that plank," said Brownback, a leading abortion rights opponent who endorsed McCain after ending his own White House bid.

"There are going to be a number of people supporting his nomination that want that plank left exactly as it is," he said. "They're going to be a strong majority."

Such a reversal would constitute John McCain's second major flip-flop on reproductive rights in 18 months, all in the cause of assuaging the Republican Party's suspicious social conservatives.

McCain in the run-up to his '08 presidential bid reversed course on the issue of overturning Roe v. Wade. In 1999, the supposed maverick was supposedly concerned about the health and safety of American women:

"I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

But by 2006 with his knee-bending to Jerry Falwell and others now well underway, McCain announced to ABC's George Stephanopolous that he not only wanted to see Roe overturned, but supported a constitutional amendment banning abortion as well:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask one question about abortion. Then I want to turn to Iraq. You're for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, with some exceptions for life and rape and incest.

MCCAIN: Rape, incest and the life of the mother. Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So is President Bush, yet that hasn't advanced in the six years he's been in office. What are you going to do to advance a constitutional amendment that President Bush hasn't done?

MCCAIN: I don't think a constitutional amendment is probably going to take place, but I do believe that it's very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should - could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you'd be for that?

MCCAIN: Yes, because I'm a federalist. Just as I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states, so do I believe that we would be better off by having Roe v. Wade return to the states. And I don't believe the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v. Wade.

Ever since locking up the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has been trying to run away from both his party and his president and towards the middle of the road. On Sunday, his senior strategist Charlie Black engaged in some wishful thinking, labeling his McCain "slightly right of center." But when it comes to the abortion issue, as Jennifer Blei Stockman, the co-chairwoman of Republican Majority for Choice put it, "the word 'moderate' is going to disappear from any description of McCain."

UPDATE: CNN legal analyst and The Nine author Jeffrey Toobin notes that a McCain Supreme Court could overturn Roe in "maybe a year."

On Sunday, Barack Obama appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and marked an end to the right-wing network's 772-day "Obama Countdown Clock." Meanwhile, another clock, this time for Republican John McCain, keeps on ticking. 61 days after accepting his endorsement, the media has not asked - and John McCain has not answered - whether or not he agrees with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of Armageddon.

On February 27, 2008, Senator McCain shared a stage with the End Times minister and declared, "I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support." As it turns out, John McCain not only actively sought Hagee's endorsement. In 2007, McCain addressed Hagee's organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which just happens to believe the final biblical battle against the Anti-Christ will be fought by the United States - against Iran.

During the annual CUFI conference in July 2006, John Hagee bluntly described his vision of Armageddon as foreign policy this way:

"The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

On January 29, 2007, Hagee emailed a "Newflash" to CUFI members about a meeting he held that day with McCain. While noting that he did not "want to put the specifics of our conversation in this update" because "I don't want to read it in the media tomorrow," Hagee crowed about the future Republican presidential nominee:

"Senator McCain's comments concerning Israel are on target! He gets it!"

But what exactly is that McCain "gets?" During an April 2, 2006 interview by Tim Russert on Meet the Press, McCain gave a hint. Discussing Tehran's nuclear program and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's inflammatory rhetoric towards Israel, John McCain sounded as much preacher as president:

MR. RUSSERT: So we could have two wars at once?

SEN. McCAIN: I think we could have Armageddon. But I think that, that if we handle this right, and our European allies stand with us, and the Russians and the Chinese stand with us, sanctions might do the job. And I am confident that this administration will exhaust every effort before contemplating seriously a military option.

Russert, of course, did not follow up to clarify with McCain what he meant when he said "we could have Armageddon." Needless to say, no one in the mainstream media has, either.

Ironically, on the very day Barack Obama stopped the countdown clock over at Fox, John McCain attacked Obama over his association with a minister of his own, Jeremiah Wright. In the wake of Wright's appearance before the NAACP, McCain made him an issue, declaring "I can understand why people are upset about this" and concluding of Wright's comments, "it will probably be a political issue."

As tensions with Tehran continue to rise, the views of McCain supporter Hagee are also increasingly a vital issue in the presidential election. So the Armageddon watch continues. When will the media ask John McCain the question he must answer: does John McCain agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy?

Just one day before lambasting Barack Obama over his recent comments about religion, John McCain was a no-show at Sunday's CNN Compassion Forum on faith. That's because when it comes to discussing his own religious beliefs, the Republican presidential nominee believes that silence is golden. And judging by the fawning stories from the Washington Times, CNN and the Politico, the press corps seems to agree. But McCain's reticence to speak about his faith doesn't represent a generational preference for private piety. No, McCain's silence is an essential strategy to avoid alienating his party's evangelical base and independent voters alike by drawing attention to his confusing religious conversion, his myriad past gaffes and his current backing from extremist ministers.

During his address to the annual convention of the Associated Press, John McCain made it clear that Barack Obama can't hide from his comments about religion in small town America:

"Nor did they turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. On the contrary, their faith had given generations of their families purpose and meaning, as it does today."

But hiding from religion is exactly what John McCain has in mind. Judging from recent headlines from CNN ("McCain More Private About Prayer Than Rivals") the Washington Times ("McCain Keeps his Faith Out of Politics") and the Politico ("McCain Shies Away from Religion Talk"), the American media seems content to give John McCain yet another free ride.

In a June 2007 interview with the McClatchy papers, McCain put described his golden rule this way:

"I think it's something between me and my creator. It's primarily a private issue rather than a public one. When I'm asked about it, I'll be glad to discuss it. I just don't bring it up."

But there are important reasons why John McCain was so eager to avoid answering questions on his personal faith during Sunday's Compassion Forum. That's because in all likelihood, he couldn't.

Pick a Religion, Any Religion

For starters, McCain would have had to address the fundamental question about which religion he professes to follow. No doubt, his contradictory and suspiciously-timed statements regarding his on-again, off-again Episcopalian-to-Baptist conversion is a story that still needs telling.

During this presidential campaign, McCain has shifted positions when it comes to what he religion now considers himself to be. In June 2007, McClatchy reported, "McCain still calls himself an Episcopalian." But as the 2008 South Carolina primary approached, McCain had a convenient-timed change of heart as he appealed to the Palmetto's State's massive evangelical base. In August, as ABC reported, "McCain's campaign staff identified him as 'Episcopalian' in a questionnaire prepared for ABC News' August 5 debate." But by September 2007, McCain announced he had in fact switched teams:

"It plays a role in my life. By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist."

Interestingly, as the Carpetbagger Report noted at the time, congressional directories "all identify McCain as an Episcopalian." And in a flattering Reuters profile last month, Dan Yeary, McCain's pastor of 15 years at the 7,000 member North Phoenix Baptist Church, "declined to comment on McCain's reluctance to finally undergo a baptism ceremony, a key ritual of the faith." As Yeary put it, "John and I are having continual dialogue about his spiritual pursuits."

McCain's Faith-Based Follies

McCain's present hesitation to speak out on issues of faith may also be due to controversies that engulfed him in the past. At almost every turn, John McCain found himself in hot water.

Take, for example, Mr. Straight Talk's hate-love relationship with the religious right. As he prepared for his second presidential run, John McCain in the spring of 2006 sought to repair his frayed relationship with the religious right, one that cost him so dearly during the 2000 South Carolina primary. On April 2, 2006, McCain appeared on Meet the Press and retracted his famous 2000 claim that the late Reverend Jerry Falwell was an "agent of intolerance." (Asked by Tim Russert whether he still viewed Falwell as an agent of intolerance, McCain grudgingly owned up to his flip-flop, "no, I don't.") On May 13, 2006, McCain delivered the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. There, the two men walked on stage together, where Falwell then praised his former foe, "the ilk of John McCain is very scarce, very small." It's no wonder the Daily Show's Jon Stewart asked McCain that April, "Are you going into crazy base world?" It's even less surprising that McCain replied, "I'm afraid so."

In the fall of 2007, McCain's rhetorical outreach to the GOP's evangelical base assumed comic proportions. In September, the Episcopalian-turned-Baptist McCain said, "The most important thing is that I am a Christian." One month later in October he declared, "I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." Facing an immediate backlash from the Anti-Defamation League and others, McCain relented and acknowledged, "Yes, I believe a Muslim could be president."

McCain's Pastor Problems

No doubt, John McCain doesn't want to discuss his ham-handed reversal and shameless pandering when it comes to Christian conservatives. Even more problematic is that the effort has been only partially successful: the religious right leaders that now back him may be just as damaging to him as the ones that don't.

Clearly, McCain's work with the GOP's evangelical leadership is incomplete. Early on, James Dobson of Focus on the Family said, "I'm praying that we will not get stuck with him." Just two weeks ago, Dobson continued to publicly voice his concerns, "I have seen no evidence that Sen. McCain is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold," adding, "to the contrary, he seems intent on driving them away."

Given John McCain's tight-lipped attitude when it comes to the details of his own spiritual journey or the hot button social issues of the day, many rank and file evangelicals remain hesitant to aggressively support him. As CNN's Dana Bash reported:

"Honestly, I haven't gotten a good feel for him. I've been to his Web site a few times and I haven't gotten a good feeling about where he stands when it comes to other issues that aren't mainstream issues that Christians look at," said Doug Enders, an evangelical voter at New Covenant Fellowship Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

But some of the leading lights of the radical right have been more than willing to stand up for John McCain over his hard-line foreign policy views. As it turns out, the distance from Falwell's Lynchburg campus to the stages shared with John Hagee and Rod Parsley was a short one.

In February, McCain declared himself "very proud" and "very honored" to have Hagee's endorsement. The End-Times Texas pastor and head of Christian United for Israel (CUFI) isn't merely an anti-Catholic bigot (he called the church "the great whore" and a "false cult system"), but an advocate of accelerating Armageddon by promoting a nuclear showdown with Iran. As for Parsley, whom McCain deemed his "spiritual guide," the gay-bashing Ohio minister said of Islam that "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed."

Ultimately, McCain offered a half-hearted apology for Pastor Hagee's more extreme views on Catholicism, if not his desire for an End of Times conflict with Iran. Still, it reflected McCain's belief that on matters of faith, the less said, the better.

About Those Ten Commandments

In its glowing piece, the Washington Times theorized that McCain's general refusal to discuss matters of religion and morality merely reflects his own supposedly unimpeachable personal integrity. As Paul Lichterman, an associate professor of sociology and religion at the University of Southern California, put it:

"I think people look for some kind of sign that a candidate has a strong moral reputation. I think that may be in part why John McCain doesn't need to use religion in this campaign. His moral reputation is already pretty secure in a lot of people's eyes."

Not if those people are familiar with John McCain's marital history. As Salon detailed back in 2000, the tale of John and Cindy isn't exactly the stuff of supposed Republican family values:

It seems that McCain, who had once revealed to fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam that he wanted to be president, was restless in 1979. As Navy liaison to the Senate, he didn't have the career momentum he had counted on to propel him into an admiralty and on to the White House. He was 42, mired in stifling ordinariness. (Civilians call it "midlife crisis.")

But McCain was making bold career moves on the home front, hotly pursuing a 25-year-old blond from a wealthy Arizona family -- while married. Carol, his wife at the time, had once been quite a babe herself apparently, until a near-fatal car accident (while her husband was in Vietnam) left her 4 inches shorter, overweight and on crutches. The couple had three children, whom Carol cared for alone while her husband was in Vietnamese prisons.

McCain's strategy worked perfectly: After chasing Cindy Hensley around the country for six months, he closed the deal late in the year, had a divorce by February and was married to Hensley shortly thereafter. Bingo! McCain was a candidate for Congress by early 1982, his coffers full, his home in the proper Arizona district purchased.

John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life described McCain's religious philosophy as a sense of commitment to duty, not doctrine, concluding, "His could be called a 'soldier's faith.'" As a military man, John McCain it would seem can follow orders, just not commandments.

Leading God's Own Party

By all indications, John McCain thus far has been wildly successful in threading the needle when it comes to his religious faith. On the one hand, he has secured the nomination of a faith-based Republican Party increasingly committed to tearing down the wall between church and state. On other, the media have utterly failed to press him on the changing personal beliefs and policy positions he adopted in order to garner the GOP nomination. So while John McCain claims that "I'm unashamed and unembarrassed about my deep faith in God," he's understandably none too eager to talk about it. As Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus stated without a trace of irony, "It is to John McCain's credit that he is not using his faith as a political tool."

In advance of his first papal visit to the United States this week, Time this morning examines the clergy sex abuse challenge Pope Benedict will face here. But missing altogether from the analysis of that continuing crisis in the American Catholic Church is any discussion of then Cardinal Ratzinger's essential role in perpetuating it.

Time highlighted the daunting task awaiting Benedict XVI as confronts an American church wrestling with demographic upheaval and still grappling with the fallout from its sex abuse scandals:

The American visit, however, poses an unprecedented pastoral challenge for the 80-year-old pontiff. Benedict's is the first papal trip to the United States since the priest sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001. It is a controversy that has left much of the American laity bitterly disillusioned with their Church's leadership. For many of the 67 million American Catholics, how the Pope confronts the lingering fallout from the pedophilia scandal may largely determine the success of this visit.

Benedict's arrival in the U.S. is being seen as a make-or-break moment for Rome to regain the trust of its American flock, the third largest national contingent within a worldwide Catholic Church of 1.1 billion faithful. In recent days, the Vatican has confirmed that on at least one occasion Benedict will specifically address the issue.

Whether Pope Benedict will address his own role is another matter.

Since the 1990's, the plague of sex abuse cases has cost the Catholic Church in America almost $2 billion in settlements. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay 508 victims almost $1.3 million a piece. Previously, the diocese of Boston paid out $84 and Orange County, California another $100 million, with Portland, Oregon distributing an additional $52 million for its 175 reported victims. Five dioceses in Tucson, Portland, Spokane, San Diego and Davenport, Iowa have declared bankruptcy as a result of the financial devastation they incurred.

After the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached its $660 million settlement last year, Cardinal Roger Mahony said, "It should not have happened, and it should not ever happen again."

Sadly, Pope Benedict apparently does not seem able to match even Mahony's perfunctory expressions of failure and shame. After all, it was then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope John Paul II right-hand man on doctrinal matters, who brought Boston's disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law to the comfort - and cover - of the Vatican. Despite Law being implicated in the protection and relocation of 80 child abusing priests, Ratzinger brought Law to the Holy See, where he remains "a highly respected member of the Catholic Church's hierarchy in Rome." Apparently, Ratzinger believed his 2002 recommendation of a public day of penance by U.S. bishops was sufficient to cleanse the stain of clergy sexual abuse.

Yet despite all the sins of his American Church, Benedict instead seems focused on ensuring his conservative footprint in the U.S. In 2004, then Cardinal Ratzinger proclaimed that pro-choice Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry should not receive communion. (Ironically, Pope John Paul II himself had offered communion to the pro-choice mayor of Rome in 2000.) And just this past May, Pope Benedict reiterated his policy of withholding communion from American Catholic politicians (including Rudy Giuliani, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson) who fail to oppose abortion rights.

Complicating matters further for Americans, Benedict's other recent forays have not encouraged religious tolerance either here or abroad. Almost from the inception of his papacy, Benedict sent strong signals that he would not continue his predecessor's policy of dialog with and outreach to other faiths. In September 2006, Benedict created an uproar throughout the Muslim world with his Regensburg University speech approvingly citing a quote from 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus which derided Islam as "evil and inhuman." (He later offered an apology of sorts.) And just this past November, Benedict issued the papal encyclical "Saved by Hope" assigning to atheism responsibility for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in human history."

As Benedict begins his much anticipated U.S. tour, Time notes that the "American flock requires much mending." But many of his followers here worry that Benedict's tone-deafness to the Church's scandals past and present may continue. As Kevin O'Toole, a faithful churchgoer from Manchester, Vermont put it:

"They still don't get it. They are trying to do the right thing, but it's still a measured response. And I think the time for being measured is gone."

Admission of responsibility would be a good first act of penance.

As I wrote in February, the End Times pastor is at the bleeding edge of a Christian Zionist movement seeking to confrontation with Iran in order to accelerate the Second Coming of Christ and the final battle in Israel. In addition to its prodigious fundraising and public relations efforts on behalf of the hard right in Israel, ince the 1990's, Hagee and his group CUFI (Christians United for Israel) has tried without success to breed the "red heifer," the "perfect calf that will signal the Second Coming."

Now, just weeks after John McCain traveled to Israel, Hagee and his allies are throwing another faith-based monkey wrench into the peace process in the Middle East. As the AP reported:

Hagee and his group, Christians United for Israel, joined keynote speaker Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition Likud Party, at a rally in support of Jerusalem remaining united and under Jewish control.

"Turning part or all of Jerusalem over to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban," Hagee told an audience filled with Americans who waved Israeli flags and cheered...

...Hagee said his group was giving $6 million to 16 Israeli causes. Recipients include the Magen David Adom rescue service and a conference center in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel.

For a Bush administration desperately hoping to manufacture a peace agreement by year's end between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Hagee's latest venture comes as unwelcome news. As far back as 2002, President Bush insisted "Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop." Speaking in Jordan on March 31 during her latest swing through the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated Bush's firm opposition to new settlement activity in the West Bank, even as the Israeli government announced plans to build hundreds of new homes in the occupied West Bank:

Asked, however, about Israel continuing to approve construction of new housing in contested territory, Rice criticized the close U.S. ally.

"Settlement activity should stop - expansion should stop," Rice said.

That position is shared by all three of the remaining presidential candidates, including John McCain. As the Israeli paper Haaretz reported last week:

At the end of the day it is hard to find differences in the promises being made by the candidates that have survived in the race - Clinton, McCain and Obama - regarding the peace process. All of them want involvement, all are opposed to Hamas, all are in favor of a Palestinian state and against Palestinian terrorism, all are in favor of security for Israel and against the settlement construction.

All of which means that John McCain hasn't seen the last of his John Hagee problem. A featured speaker at CUFI's July 2007 conference in Washington, McCain said of Hagee February 2008 endorsement:

"All I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."

As we get closer to election day in November, we'll see if John McCain still feels the same way.

(For more background, see "McCain, Hagee and Armageddon as Foreign Policy.")

UPDATE: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met today in an attempt to advance the Annapolis peace process. As the AP noted, the settlement issue dominated the talks, with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat claiming, "The settlement activities occupied a large part of the negotiations."

In the latest stop on his biographical trip down memory lane, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain returned to his old high school in Alexandria, Virginia. As it turns out, that may have been an odd choice for a man trying to reintroduce himself to the American people. Years after leaving the august halls of Episcopal High School, John McCain became a Baptist.

To be sure, John McCain's visit to his old stomping grounds certainly won't convince many Americans that he is a man of the people. Home to the children of Washington's political and military elite since 1839, fees at EHS (excluding computers and textbook costs) top $38,000 per year. The school's rigorous instruction apparently also includes a serious commitment to its students' spiritual development, featuring religious services three times a week.

But somewhere along the way to his "Service to America" biographical tour, John McCain traded in his Episcopalian faith and became a Baptist.

Just last week, Reuters offered a fawning portrait of John McCain's Southern Baptist minister of 15 years, the Reverend Dan Yeary. The clear message of the piece ("McCain's Pastor a Sharp Contrast to Obama's") was to highlight John McCain as well within the American mainstream while depicting Democrat Barack Obama as beyond the pale:

That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the Republican presidential candidate firmly in the U.S. Southern Baptist mainstream, and in line with the Republican Party.

He offers a sharp contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who has stirred controversy with his fiery comments on race and America.

Yeary, glowingly described as "a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist," leads the 7,000 member North Phoenix Baptist Church McCain has attended for 15 years. In an interview last year, the one-time Episcopalian McCain claimed he was drawn to Yeary's "message of reconciliation and redemption which I'm a great believer in," adding, "And so I began attending North Phoenix Baptist church and I'm grateful for the spiritual advice and counsel that I continue to get from Pastor Dan Yeary."

But McCain's faith-based swap (an experience a recent Pew study showed is shared by 44% of Americans) is more complicated than it first appears. Despite the fact that his wife Cindy and their two children were baptized at Yeary's church, John McCain himself has yet to take the plunge (so to speak). As Reuters suggested, that still rankles McCain's minister:

Yeary declined to comment on McCain's reluctance to finally undergo a baptism ceremony, a key ritual of the faith. "John and I are having continual dialogue about his spiritual pursuits," Yeary said.

Even more curious is McCain's shifting positions when it comes to what he religion now considers himself to be. In June 2007, McClatchy reported, "McCain still calls himself an Episcopalian." But as the 2008 South Carolina primary approached, McCain had a change of heart as he appealed to the Palmetto's State's massive evangelical base. By September 2007, McCain announced he had in fact switched teams:

"It plays a role in my life. By the way, I'm not Episcopalian. I'm Baptist."

Of course, John McCain's personal religious faith is his own business and normally should not impact voters one way or another. But with the media's obsession with faith-based politics in general and the Obama-Wright imbroglio in particular, McCain's confused conversion (and possible Palmetto State pandering) on the way to the White House shouldn't be ignored.

Back in June, McCain admitted his reticence when it came to discussing his spiritual journey. "When I'm asked about it, I'll be glad to discuss it," he said, adding, "I just don't bring it up." With his return to his old Episcopal High School today, John McCain just brought it up.

UPDATE 1: ABC and Reuters now offer profiles of the "rambunctious" John McCain, a "punk" also known to his schoolmates as "McNasty." But so far, no mention of the McCain's post-Episcopal High School spiritual journey.

UPDATE 2: For more ironies surrounding McCain's magical, mystery biographical tour, see "John McCain's Bio Waste."

After Barack Obama himself, no politician in America may have had a greater stake in Obama's critical speech on race yesterday than former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The former Baptist minister, after all, hasn't been shy about his interest in being John McCain's choice for vice president. Like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Huckabee's closet of sermons may be full of skeletons. Which may just explain why minister Huckabee was quick to defend Obama today, and even quicker to ensure that records of his own past sermons were nowhere to be found.

Appearing on Joe Scarborough's show this morning, Huckabee gave Obama the benefit of the doubt and offered the appearance of understanding the painful legacy of the civil rights struggle:

"[Obama] made the point, and I think it's a valid one, that you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't. Whether it's me, whether it's Obama...anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements...

...Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Reverend Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say 'Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that.'"

That may be. But as the history shows, just to be on the safe side, Mike Huckabee apparently made sure his own past sermons would not be available to the public.

Back in December, Governor Huckabee dared the media to dredge up his past, declaring, "Nobody's going to find some YouTube moments of me saying something radically different than what I'm saying today." Writing in Mother Jones, David Corn and Jonathan Stein took Huckabee up on his challenge ad asked the campaign for copies of his sermons from his days as a pastor at two Baptist churches. Unsurprisingly, they hit a brick wall:

Before beginning his political career, Huckabee was a Southern Baptist minister for 12 years in his home state of Arkansas. He assumed the pastorate at Immanuel Baptist Church in the town of Pine Bluff in 1980, at the age of 25. Six years later, he moved to Beech Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana...

...When asked for copies of the sermons Huckabee delivered at Immanuel Church, an employee there claimed none could be found. A Beech Street Church pastor's assistant maintained that much of the archival material from Huckabee's tenure as pastor had been destroyed during a remodeling. The rest, she said, was not available to the press.

When Mother Jones contacted the Huckabee campaign and asked if it would help make his previous sermons available, the campaign replied in a one-sentence email that it had received multiple requests for such material and was "not able to accommodate" them.

Apparently, Mike Huckabee believes Americans should see no evil from his days in the pulpit.

Which is not to say candidate Huckabee didn't offer Americans a treasure trove of clues as to what might be found in the conveniently missing sermons. For example, in his vituperative declaration of culture war tome, Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence, Huckabee laid virtually of all of America's ills at the feet of everyone - and everything - he hates:

"Despite all our prosperity, pomp, and power, the vaunted American experiment in liberty seems to be disintegrating before our very eyes."

"Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities."

"It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations - from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia."

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Governor Huckabee returned to the pulpit in a Granite State church to reprise his 1998 call to "take this nation back for Christ." Given his own lack of military service, Huckabee ironically exhorted the congregants to become "soldiers for Christ" in "God's Army." Just days later, Huckabee declared his personal crusade to amend the Constitution by copying and pasting from the Bible:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

Those words, needless to say, eviscerated Huckabee's pretense of upholding the separation of church and state. In December, Governor Huckabee offered this charade on Meet the Press, words which obviously are no longer operative:

"The key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone. And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict."

To his credit, Mike Huckabee this morning showed empathy for the suffering of African-Americans under the yoke of slavery and Jim Crow. He also seemed quite willing to cut Reverend Wright a great deal of slack for irredeemable statements contained in incendiary sermons past. But given his own history and the stakes in the Republican VP derby to come, Mike Huckabee's deference isn't surprising at all.

For more background on Mike Huckabee's extremist past and present, see:

The Wright furor is so potentially damaging to Barack Obama precisely because it undermines perhaps the greatest source of his appeal. The Obama brand has come to represent an inspirational call for a post-racial America transcending group conflict and identity politics. Wright's diatribes about "rich white people," "U.S. of KKK-A," and "Hillary ain't never been called a n****r" are a shocking rejection of everything Obama claims to stand for. For many Americans outside the reliable right, his 20 year association with Wright may call into question Obama's lofty pleas for national unity.

Exacerbating matters further is Wright's perfect fit with the emerging conservative narrative that Barack Obama represents incarnate the stereotypical "hate America" liberal. This is not merely a matter of ham-handed reactionaries like Iowa's Steve King perpetuating the Muslim myth of "Barack Hussein Obama." (That myth, by the way, is now accepted as fact by 13% of Americans.) The right-wing caricature is far more comprehensive. Here, Michelle Obama did her husband no favors with her February statement, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." And to be sure, Pastor Wright supplied ammunition to the right-wing message machine with his angry words, "God Damn America."

And then there is matter of "judgment," a cornerstone theme of the Obama campaign. Obama has deflected Hillary Clinton's attacks on his national security credentials by citing his superior judgment in opposing the Iraq war from its inception. In his eloquent statement Friday, Obama was certainly right to "reject and denounce" the hateful words of his minister:

"I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."

But over the years of their association, Obama never broke from the man or his church. (It is almost certainly too late to do so now.) Obama is surely wrong that a minister is not a "member of the family" or a crazy "old uncle" whom one cannot disown. No matter the impact of his uplifting social gospel or his continuous contributions to the community, Wright's words are beyond the pale. They are simply irredeemable. While Barack Obama may not have heard them all until now, he no doubt heard some. And yet he stayed on at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Which is why Obama's faith-based follies will be seen as differing in degree and kind from the recent evangelical endorsements of John McCain. Of course, the End Times Pastor John Hagee and Reverend Rod Parsley deserve media scrutiny and the opprobrium that should ensue. Hagee, after all, called the Catholic Church "the great whore" and "a false cult system", all the while hoping to accelerate Armageddon in an "end of days" conflict with Iran. And the anti-gay crusader Parsley, whom McCain at a Cincinnati rally labeled a "spiritual guide," played a key role in the 2004 campaign in Ohio while claiming "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed."

Needless to say, Hagee and Parsley do matter. Not so much for suggesting John McCain's latent bigotry than shining a bright light on his blatant opportunism. Adopting men he once deemed "agents of intolerance" as political allies, McCain has added them to a growing list of reversals that includes his positions on tax cuts, overturning Roe v. Wade and so many more. The untold story of McCain '08 is the transformation of a supposed political maverick into indisputable political prostitute.

Yet, Barack Obama is destined to lose the PR war over the madman ministers. Hagee and Parsley are radical, angry men who preach hate towards many of their fellow Americans. But in the conservative-dominated media narrative to come, they will not be portrayed as "hating America." That will be applied to Jeremiah Wright alone, the man who presided at Obama's wedding and the baptism of his children.

On Friday, Barack Obama acknowledged as much. He told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that should he be the nominee, he fully expects a barrage of ads from the litany of right-wing 527 activist groups featuring the incendiary Wright. Obama asked Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of "guilt by association." And in the aftermath of the Ferraro episode, Clinton adviser Lanny Davis was willing to give Obama "the benefit of the doubt," arguing "we should stop this guilt-by-association thing, because some of our supporters say stupid things."

But that association may yet determine how many Americans evaluate Obama's fidelity to his oft-repeated vision for the nation. In 1984, Gary Hart's campaign never escaped the impact of Walter Mondale's "Where's the Beef" taunt. In 2008, we can only hope Wright's "God Damn America" rant doesn't become the epitaph for Barack Obama's.

In San Antonio on Wednesday, the Texas pastor and head of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) threw his support behind McCain:

"John McCain has publicly stated his support of the state of Israel, pledging that his administration will not permit Iran to have nuclear weapons to fulfill the evil dreams of President Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map."

For his part, Senator McCain was only too happy to have Hagee's blessing. "All I can tell you," he said, "is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support."

Donahue, who has raised frothing at the mouth to an art form, demanded that McCain reject what he deemed Hagee's anti-Catholicism. "If someone said to me: who is the biggest anti-Catholic bigot in the evangelical community," Donahue fumed, "I would say: hands down, John Hagee."

Be that as it may, Americans of all faiths should be frightened indeed by Hagee and his view of Armageddon as foreign policy. If Hagee has his way, the biblical battle against the Anti-Christ will be fought by the United States - against Iran.

As I wrote back in May 2006 ("Bush, Iran and the Second Coming"), key figures in the radical religious right see Israel and end-of-times conflict with Iran as the fulfillment of biblical prophesy contained in the Book of Revelation.

But it is Hagee who is at the bleeding edge of a Christian Zionist movement seeking to accelerate the Second Coming