Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Lieberman Talks to Hagee’s Group

By Austin Bogues
July 22, 2008, 10:45 pm

Ignoring critics, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman addressed a meeting of the group Christians United for Israel on Tuesday night in Washington.

The group is run by the Rev. John C. Hagee, a pastor who was repudiated by Senator John McCain in May after earlier incendiary remarks surfaced. Mr. Lieberman is a prominent surrogate for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Mr. Lieberman was greeted by a boisterous standing ovation in a room decked out with United States and Israeli flags. “I am your brother Joseph,” he said.

Asserting that Mr. Hagee had worked hard to fight anti-Semitism, Mr. Lieberman said: “I don’t agree with everything Pastor Hagee has said, and I can safely say that the pastor doesn’t agree with everything that I’ve said. But there’s so much more than that that we agree on.”

Mr. Lieberman added, “I will tell you tonight the bond that I feel with Pastor Hagee and each and every one of you is much stronger than that and I am proud to stand with you tonight.”

Mr. Hagee’s support for Mr. McCain had been seen as a boon to Mr. McCain’s outreach to evangelical voters until the disclosure of earlier remarks in which Mr. Hagee said, “Hitler and the Nazis were sent by God, to chase Jews back to the land of Israel.”

Over 40,000 signatures were delivered to Mr. Lieberman’s office encouraging him not to speak at the event.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, which started the “Don’t Go Joe” campaign, said, “The purportedly ‘pro-Israel’ views of Hagee and his supporters bear little to no resemblance to the consensus of the vast majority of American Jews, who strongly support a negotiated, two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and active engagement by the United States to facilitate it.” The group describes itself as the “political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.”

In his remarks to the group, Mr. Hagee made known his intention to make no more presidential endorsements. “What will I say when I’m asked to endorse another presidential candidate? ‘Never Again!’,” he said to applause.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/lieberman-hagee/