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It's not just John McCain's rhetoric that raises ire | Hugh Hewitt

Laurels from Beltway media, darts from Republican primary voters: That was the response to Sen. John McCain's recent obstruction of the Bush administration's carefully drafted bill to establish military tribunals to try terrorists now imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

When McCain attacked faith-based voters after his loss to George W. Bush in the South Carolina primary in 2000, he singled out Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and said, "The politics of division and slander are not our values. They are corrupting influences on religion and politics and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party, and our country."

Even those who disagree with the two high-profile pastors on many issues understood McCain's attack to be aimed at most Christians who were active in politics, and to be a powerful assist to the radical left's attempt to diminish the legitimacy of faith-based political activism.