No one knew this better than Barack Obama, whose campaign nearly collapsed under the weight of Wright's controversial sermons and God-awful JFK impersonation. The Illinois Senator felt forced to drop out of Wright's church and bounce between a number of other ones between late April and Election Day.

But now that he won, he can finally drop that whole act…

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend church services since winning the White House earlier this month, a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors.

On the three Sundays since his election, Obama has instead used his free time to get in workouts at a Chicago gym.

Indeed, there are few place you're more likely to find Obama than not in church. Recall, if you will, the controversy surrounding Wright's "God damn America" sermon. Obama claims to have never heard Wright utter those words. Why?

Because he didn't attend church that day.

And where was Obama when Hagee declared that Hitler was sent by God to herd the Jews to Israel? Hypocritically playing basketball perhaps.

Come to think of it, Obama has also been neglecting his obligations to secretly attend a mosque and secretly pray toward Mecca five times per day ever since the day he was born!

What a disappointment.  Doesn't Obama realize that religious zealots make by far the most entertaining presidents?  The man hasn't even taken office, and already he's making Dick Cheney look like Jimmy Swaggart at a pentacostal tent revival.

"You know, they say, the difference between a Hockey Mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

Whether you watched the speech from your foreclosed home or from a bunker in Iraq, you know you loved that joke. But, you're thinking, with all the time Palin spends mothering five children and applying for $197 million in federal earmarks, surely she can't have time to write her own jokes!

Right you are. So enter Pastor John Hagee…

Sarah Palin's now famous "lipstick" joke from her acceptance speech Wednesday night is generating lots of buzz in Democratic circles and the liberal blogosphere. Not because of how funny it was, but because of its similarity to another (in)famous one-liner delivered by controversial evangelical pastor John Hagee.

Hagee's joke, found in his book What Every Man Wants in a Woman, goes like this…

"Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick."

Now you might find it strange that Palin would lift a joke from a man who professed both that God sent Hurricane Katrina to stop a gay pride parade and that Hitler was put on Earth to herd the Jews to Israel. But you have to consider the situation.

Surely Palin wasn't going to let Joe Biden have all the plagiarizing fun in this campaign. And her running mate, John McCain, got on the Hagee bandwagon a full year ago, as part of his nationwide spree on right-wing demagogues.

So her humor source was an apt one, yet Palin must understand a simple fact before proceeding much further:

The basest levels of whoring out to Hagee are already reserved for Joe Lieberman.

(via The Washington Post Sleuth)

Join former United States Senate Pages Dylan and Ethan Ris as they bring you the dish on not just the presidential race but all the exciting triumphs and disgraces inside, outside, and below the Beltway!

Although the Rev. John Hagee told us that it only happened to heathens who engaged in premarital backrubs, it appears that disaster has fallen upon none other than Texas Governor Rick Perry!

Yes indeed, the official Governor's Mansion in Austin caught fire and burned on Sunday, leaving Perry (R) homeless. And while the hobos at the Fort Worth freight depot quickly mobilized to secure a discarded refrigerator carton for the Governor, a better bet is that Perry will crash with fellow Governor Jim Gibbons (R-NV) at his swinging Reno bachelor pad!

Now, in case you were making plans to visit the Governor in the Austin hospital's burn unit, you can breathe a sigh of relief since Perry was in France at the time of the blaze. Apparently he was there to convince the French to import more Texas-made products, such as brake pads and mechanically-separated chicken — the same excuse Benjamin Franklin used for his many visits to the land of snails!

Back in Texas, state fire officials suspect arson caused the blaze, and the list of suspects is long, including:

* Congressman and Presidential Candidate Ron Paul (R-TX), who is angry at Perry for traveling to Turkey and breaking something called the "Logan Act."

* Angry Texas parents, who take offense to Perry’s campaign to vaccinate sixth graders against genital warts.

* God, in spite of Perry's agreement with the Rev. Hagee that non-Christians are "going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket."

* The same faulty television set that committed an almost-identical crime in 1983 and was recently released on parole by a liberal activist judge.

One name we can cross off the list of suspects is hard rocker Ted Nugent, a personal friend of Perry's. "The Motor City Madman" was the featured performer at Perry's 2007 inaugural ball, during which he wore a confederate flag t-shirt, swung an AK-47 over his head, and instructed non-English speakers to "get the fuck out of America."

Given this personal history, insiders say the Governor views Nugent as a shoulder to cry on. In fact, when Perry collapses in tears at the sight of his charred mansion, we expect the only antidote will be the Nuge's gentle refrain of Perry's favorite love song, "Wang Dang, Sweet Poontang."

Join former United States Senate Pages Dylan and Ethan Ris as they bring you the dish on not just the presidential race but all the exciting triumphs and disgraces inside, outside, and below the Beltway!

Item! The Pages have exciting news for all our readers attending the Reverend John Hagee's "Christians United for Israel Conference" next month! There will be a special guest speaker in attendance, and no, it's not hunky faith-rocker Scott Stapp. It's the Senate's gift to facial droop, Joe Lieberman (I-CT)!

Now if Pastor Hagee knows three things about God, it's that the Man Upstairs sent Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans to stop a gay pride parade, Hitler to Europe to herd the Jews toward Israel, and now Joe Lieberman to the D.C. Convention Center to pack Hagee's own conference like The Great Whore on Christmas Eve!

And true to prophecy, Joe has agreed to headline the event, where he's slated to roll up in his Joemobile PT Cruiser, chastise Barack Obama, advocate the bombing of Iran, and lead the audience through a rendition of "Let's Go Joe!", the theme song to his three-way tie for third place in the 2004 New Hampshire Primary!

If there's one person who could benefit from some eleventh hour Joementum right about now, it's Hagee, who was recently given the Jeremiah Wright treatment by Senator John McCain. Enter Lieberman, an acclaimed Wall Street Journal editorialist, a new media pioneer with YouTube, and the author of Amazon.com's 2,787,833rd bestselling book, which is a thorough and passionate discourse on the topic of — you guessed it — himself!

All of which leads the Pages to an appeal. We're asking for one or more of our readers to sponsor us with a scholarship to this conference, so that we can personally cheer Joe on during his keynote address. We had originally intended to get in by winning Pastor Hagee's student film contest, but then lawyers informed us that our movie idea had already been taken by Mel Gibson.

So to make our dream a reality, please send any love offerings to the Senate Page Rapture Fund, courtesy of this website!

And then other people will say, "No. I don't know which election you're talking about. 2008 was the one with all the wacky preachers."

In the face of mounting controversy over headline-grabbing statements from Pastor John Hagee, CNN has learned presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has decided to reject his endorsement…

"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," McCain said in a statement to CNN Thursday.

Repudiate and reject. Check? But does he renounce, deny, disacknowledge, disavow, disclaim and disown them?

Okay, this is actually kind of nice. Now McCain and Barack Obama have some common ground on which they can build a mutually respectful, intelligent and nuanced conversation about valid issues like–

He added that his relationship with Hagee did not compare with Obama's lengthy association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today," said McCain.

What was I saying? Nevermind.

Say, what's that wacky preacher have to say about all this?

In a statement released before McCain rejected his endorsement, Hagee said his words had been taken out of context. "The intentional mischaracterization of my statements by an Internet journalist seeking to use me as a political football in the upcoming presidential race is a gross example of bias at its worst. I will not stand idly by while my character is assassinated and my views on the Holocaust are grossly distorted."

Yes! God damn America! God damn America for doing that to such a fine man.

Update: McCain decided to go ahead and rejects the endorsement of that "Islam is an anti-Christ religion" wacky preacher guy, for good measure.

Maybe this is all a good thing. Maybe this is all helping to finally separate church and state; it's just becoming a hazard for politicians to accept endorsements from religious leaders. And I don't see religious leaders stopping saying idiotic things that offend somebody or other anytime soon. If they did, they wouldn't be religious leaders.

Not like that nice man, Adolf Hitler, who did God's will by forcing those lazy Jewish people into getting off their butts and moving to Jerusalem.

Wait a minute! Why did I just write something so disgustingly horrible, wrong-headed and patently ridiculous?!

Oh, I know why. Because I have to write about American politics, and therefore it's my job to write about the ridiculous things that people like John Hagee — senior pastor of Texas' Cornerstone Church, not to mention good friend and supporter of John McCain — say.

I hate my job…

Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that"…

And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."

So, God sent down the angel Adolphael to give his chosen people a subtle little nudge toward the Promised Land, huh?

Where to start? Oh, how about here: Fuck you!

That said, this guy is clearly an asshole, but that doesn't make John McCain an asshole by extension, just as Jeremiah Wright's asshole-ness doesn't make Barack Obama an asshole.

John McCain and Barack Obama are perfectly capable of being assholes all on their own, thank you very much.

Washington is no different from Hollywood — it's full of famous names, ruthless backstabbers, and gossip bloggers willing to grossly exaggerate any anecdote to boost their readership. As former United States Senate Pages, Dylan and Ethan Ris were privy to backroom dealings, power grabs, and scandals that would make even Eliot Spitzer blush. Join the Pages as they get the dish on not just the presidential race but all the exciting triumphs and disgraces inside, outside, and below the Beltway!

Item! Presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) turned even redder than usual this weekend when it was revealed that his appointed GOP convention chairman Doug Goodyear once lobbied for the firm representing the Myanmar military junta!

And just when we Pages had begun to fear that Monk-beating, cyclone-victim-neglecting dictators no longer had a voice in Washington! Embarrassing as this news may be, it still beats the plan proposed by former candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA), which was to outsource the entire convention to Myanmar. Nonetheless, look for this awkward snafu to be cleared up long before the Rev. John Hagee delivers the convention’s opening prayer on September 1st!

Who's the Boss? Speaking of John McCain, certain Nosey Nellies in Washington have questioned his choice of “No Surrender” as his presidential campaign theme, given that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had used Bruce Springsteen’s song of the same name in his bumbling attempt at the presidency in 2004.

Although McCain is not using the Boss as his personal soundtrack, tempers are rising on both sides of the aisle. Still, we Pages have it on good word that Sen. Kerry will defuse the situation with class by retroactively changing his campaign song to "Surrender" by Cheap Trick!

McCain's synapses sprang into something that resembled action, but then they got kind of stuck…

Q: What is your reaction (to Hagee Katrina comments)?

McCain: It's nonsense.

Q: Would you withdraw accepting his endorsement?

McCain: It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. It's nonsense. I don't have anything additional to say about that. It's nonsense.

Q: Do you regret accepting his endorsement?

McCain: It's nonsense. I don't have anything more to say about that. Of course — I apologize for that. It's nonsense.

To recap: it's nonsense, John McCain doesn't have anything more to say about that, and he desperately needs to be plugged back in to his charger if this campaign is going to continue.