Intellectual Property Law

Sen. John McCain on Thursday renounced the endorsement of televangelist and megachurch pastor John Hagee a week after an audio recording of Hagee's incendiary comment about Hitler and Jews surfaced on a blog.

Hagee's comment was part of a 2006 sermon in which he said that God had had meant Jews to live in Israel, and the Holocaust was some sort of punishment for those who didn't move there.

McCain rejected Hagee's endorsement on Thursday as he held a rally in Stockton, California.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well," he said in a statement issued to reporters Thursday.

The incident underscores the pivotal role that online media and bloggers-as-freelance-opposition researchers have come to play in political campaigns.

While liberal groups such as MoveOn.org and others have been pounding on Hagee's endorsement of McCain for weeks, it was a blogger who had unearthed a damning audio recording that seemed to have finally caused lasting damage to the McCain campaign.

The audio recording didn't make waves until The Huffington Post's political reporter Sam Stein wrote a piece on Wednesday about it. Blogger Bruce Wilson, who appears to also write at The DailyKos, in addition urged his fellow Kossacks to boost the profile of his research by Digging it up.

For now, the brouhaha doesn't seem to have garnered as much interest of voters (online at least) as Sen. Barack Obama's association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.   

See Also:

• Redstate Net Neutrality Flap Jumps To Rush Limbaugh Show
• Democrats Launch McCainpedia, an Attack Site Masquerading as a Wiki
• MoveOn.org Asks McCain To Drop Pastor Who Blamed Victims For Katrina