Morning Maddow: RNC and Hategroup AFA Might Not Heart Israel After All

Rachel Maddow closed Wednesday's show with an update to the story that got rightwing religious wacakloon Bryan Fischer fired (or at least demoted) from his job as spokesman for the American Family Association. You see, the AFA was paying for some 60 members of the Republican National Committee, including its chairman, Reince Priebus, to take a free trip to Israel, because fundagelicals just love Israel so much, what with it being an essential component of the End Times.

But after the trip brought publicity to some of the crazier things Fischer had said, embarrassing the AFA, they demoted him to mere radio show host -- which is where he had been making the most noise anyway. In the meantime, the RNC was still committed to going to Israel with another AFA honcho, David Lane, who had his own bucket of religious nuttery, like his insistence that the RNC's own candidate in 2012, Mitt Romney, worships "a false god," for starters.

The 9-day AFA/RNC trip to Israel was supposed to leave Saturday, with Reince Priebus aboard. Funny, then, that Reince Priebus attended the Senate Republican lunch Tuesday. And nobody at the RNC or the AFA is willing to go on the record about whether that $400,000 Israel trip went forward or not.

Watch and enjoy. There are uncomfortable questions and painful PR squirming.