Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Zachary Roth writes at the Columbia Journalism Review:

Rod Parsley’s Free Pass
^{Jeremiah Wright gets torched, while McCain’s "spiritual adviser" offends with impunity}

The LA Times, the Baltimore Sun, CBS News.com, and, unsurprisingly, Fox News, also got into the act, drawing attention to [the Rev. Jeremiah] Wright’s controversial remarks, and in some cases to his history of similarly inflammatory rhetoric.

Meanwhile, John McCain has a Christian ally of his own. At a rally in late February, McCain appeared with Rod Parsley, the pastor of an Ohio mega-church, and called him a "spiritual guide."

Parsley has his own history of controversial statements. As David Corn reported this week for Mother Jones, Parsley has called for Christians to wage war against the "false religion" of Islam, in order to destroy it. He does not distinguish between Islamic extremists and ordinary Muslims. "What some call ‘extremists’ are instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam," he has written.

And it’s not just Muslims he’s got it in for. Last year, Parsley’s organization called for people who commit adultery to be prosecuted, and in January he compared Planned Parenthood to the Nazis.

But the press has largely shrugged off the Parsley story. I couldn’t find one mainstream American news outlet that has so much as mentioned Parsley’s extremist views since McCain appeared publicly with him in late February.

Days since Mission Accomplished: 1781

Average number of Americans in uniform who have lost their lives each day in Iraq since Mission Accomplished: 2.

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.