Tuesday night, I sat down to watch the Democratic primary debate on MSNBC. Unfortunately, my 3-year-old decided to pitch a fit because I had the audacity to turn off SpongeBob again, to watch "da boring pot ticks."

Needless to say I only caught bits and pieces of the debate from my laptop, as the connection was very slow, but it certainly wasn't boring. I managed to see Tim Russert repeatedly question Barack Obama regarding his endorsement by controversial minister Louis Farrakhan, and this exchange drove me mad.

The day before the debate, Obama said in a speech that he is a "consistent denunciator of Louis Farrakhan" and that he finds the minister's comments to be "unacceptable and reprehensible".

Yet Russert carried on and continued to ask what seemed like the same question, only worded differently, in hopes of forcing Obama to say something he would regret later.

Further, NBC News political director Chuck Todd criticized Obama's answers in response to Russert's questions. While liveblogging the debate, he asked, "Why didn't Obama simply say he rejected Farrakhan's support? That's an answer he's going to wish he had over."

Neither Russert nor Todd noted that Obama denounced Farrakhan's comments before and during the debate.

(BlogHer's Morra Aarons has more about this, here. )

Yesterday, another controversial pastor, John Hagee, announced his endorsement of Republican candidate John McCain and the media has barely batted an eyelash on the matter. This reeks of a "double standard", don't you think?

Thank goodness we have reliable bloggers to bring us up to speed on what's wrong with this picture.

Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo writes:

Barack Obama was questioned at Tuesday night's debate by Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton about repudiating Louis Farrakhan's endorsement — which Obama said was unsolicited — in the strongest terms possible. He was repeatedly badgered by Russert, and was forced to disown Farrakhan over and over again. The very next day, John McCain appeared onstage in Texas with Pastor John Hagee, an influential activist in the Christian Zionist movement. Hagee's comments about world affairs can make Farrakhan seem pedestrian at times: He eagerly awaits the Armageddon, considers the Catholic Church to be the Anti-Christ, and has said that Jews brought their own persecution upon themselves.

From The Caucus:

Senator John McCain got support on Wednesday from an important corner of evangelical Texas when the pastor of a San Antonio mega-church, Rev. John C. Hagee, endorsed Mr. McCain for president. Mr. Hagee, who argues that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive, biblically prophesized military strike against Iran that will lead to the second coming of Christ, praised Mr. McCain for his pro-Israel views.

From Crooks and Liars:

A highly controversial San Antonio evangelical pastor has endorsed John McCain. Notice in Elisabeth Bumiller’s piece—she fails to bring up anything about Hagee’s core beliefs. I guess they are all the same to her. McCain is happy as a clam. Looks like the pastor had a bit of a problem with the IRS and Hagee’s not too fond of the Catholic church either. From his book Jerusalem Countdown:

"Adolf Hitler attended a Catholic school as a child and heard all the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther. When Hitler became a global demonic monster, the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII never, ever slightly criticized him. Pope Pius XII, called by historians ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ joined Hitler in the infamous Concordat of Collaboration, which turned the youth of Germany over to Nazism, and the churches became the stage background for the bloodthirsty cry, ‘Pereat Judea’…. In all of his [Hitler’s] years of absolute brutality, he was never denounced or even scolded by Pope Pius XII or any Catholic leader in the world. To those Christians who believe that Jewish hearts will be warmed by the sight of the cross, please be informed—to them it’s an electric chair."

This is the kind of hate that permeates the extreme wing of the religious right.

The Catholic Knight writes:

Last December Mike Huckabee's speech at Pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church caused quite an uproar in Catholic circles. Hagee is known for his venomous anti-Catholic rhetoric. Many Catholics called upon Huckabee to renounce Hagee's anti-Catholicism, which he did. Still more were convinced that any association with an anti-Catholic like Hagee would tarnish a candidate too much. 'The Catholic Knight' protested by defending Huckabee, pointing out that guilt by association is unfair. Now I wonder if those same Huckabee critics will complain about John McCain in a similar way. Where is the "Catholic League" now? Where are the calls by Catholic media sources to abandon support of John McCain? Well, I'm waiting...

News from the Underground writes:

...there's been no press uproar over John McCain's accepting the endorsement of John Hagee, a highly influential crackpot cleric who has long pushed hard for war against Iran. Such a move, he openly exults, will bring on the End Times. Hagee is in tight with AIPAC (whose members quietly laugh off Hagee's apocalyptic view of Israel and history in general) and George W. Bush (who doesn't laugh off that apocalyptic view). The press is therefore duty-bound to ask McCain about it, especially considering Bomb-Bomb's former stance against such theocratic pastors as John Hagee--and also, of course, because of Bomb-Bomb's own overt desire to drop a lot of huge explosives on Teheran.

Kate Stone writes:

According to the Dallas Morning News McCain said “All I can tell you is I’m very proud to have Pastor Hagee’s support.” You bet he is “proud.” He needs the radical right arm of the GOP to support his bid for the Presidency. We won’t see McCain rejecting or denouncing this hater.

Susan G writes at The Daily Kos:

So as of yesterday we have a new slogan for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee: John McCain, the official candidate of the people who believe in governing according to Ezekiel 38-39.

From Catholics for Huckabee:

With the news that Rev. John Hagee is expected to endorse John McCain, many Catholic Huckabee supporters are breathing a huge sigh of relief, only regretful, after thousands of lost Catholic votes, that this had not happened sooner.

A large, bellicose man with a booming voice, sometimes referred to as the Rush Limbaugh of evangelicals, Hagee is not shy about promoting his noxious anti-Catholic views. Among other anti-Catholic diatribes, he is fond of claiming that the early Catholic Church invented anti-Semitism; that the medieval Catholic Church instituted the Crusades and the Inquisition to "punish the Jews"; that the Catholic Church instructed Adolph Hitler with anti-Semitism; and that the Catholic Church never opposed the Nazi Third Reich.

I'm Catholic. According to Hagee, this makes me the closest thing to the anit-Christ. Unlike Obama, John McCain hasn't denounced Hagee or deemed his comments unacceptable and reprehensible. He's proud to have the pastor's support. It makes me sick. And it's just another reason I'm thankful I didn't (and most likely will not) vote for John McCain.