Both presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain have found it necessary to disavow support they've received from pastors they've described as "spiritual mentors."

While Barack Obama has to continually answer for things that have been said at Trinity United, SteveAudio finds that John McCain not only has escaped the same kind of scrutiny, but has actually not hurt himself at all with the religious conservatives to whom he tried to appeal by disconnecting himself from Hagee and Parsley.

No one on the right, NO ONE, cares about Hagee, with the possible exception of a few moderate genuine conservatives, that is. All 3 of them. But the far-right Evangelical end-times Christians, for whom Hagee is a dog whistle the size of a Marshall stack, will still support McCain, even more now than before. Not only is he a "true believer" by courting and wedding Hagee, but now he's been bloodied by the secular humanists that threaten the Christian way of life. His rejection of Hagee's support isn't a betrayal of Hagee's prophecy, but a tactical retreat in the face of the abortionists, school desegregationists. and gay-marriage supporters whose defeat his administration will hopefully bring about. And thus is a stronger hero born.

It's a no-lose situation for McCain. Stay beside Hagee and he appears committed to the religious right that he derided in 2000. Disavow Hagee and the religious right sees it as proof of their persecution at the hands of the evil secularists, and rally around their perceived martyr.