Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa of The Daily Background
Recently, John McCain gave an interview to a religious website called Beliefnet. The only topic of conversation was religion. At right is a short mashup of the most egregious moments from the interview.
As you can imagine, it's created, um, a bit of a hubbub. And rightfully so- the New York Times ran the headline McCain Casts Muslims as Less Fit to Lead; Carpetbagger went with McCain sees Constitution establishing a ‘Christian nation.’
In brief statement issued by his campaign, McCain is hoping to clear up any confusion. "I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values," the Senator is quoted as now saying.
And yet, as can clearly be seen in the above video, McCain states the following about what he thinks the number one prerequisite for being president should be:
And yet now he claims that he'd be okay with voting for a Muslim candidate?
As Steven Benen says today at TPM, apparently the Senator "was for discrimination before he was against it."