'Bigotry To Go' John McCain is trying another apology recipe on Black America

Angry John McCain is trying to run away from his past, while also trying a new apology recipe, hoping that black folks will eat his born-again approach to civil rights. McCain is also hoping just a few white liberals or white moderates will believe him as well. He wants people to believe he is a supporter of civil rights. just like he wants people to believe his wifes recipes. The problem is McCain is Guilty of Plagiarism. He is guilty of being on the wrong side of developing recipes. not just food recipes, but progressive recipes for American social change.

Like I've said, black folks are not stupid, and we know when someone is is not telling the truth. We know when we are being laughed at. We know when we are being insulted. We know what tar baby means. You see John McCain hated Martin Luther King and voted against every piece of legislation that would make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. Now McCain is scheduled to make remarks at the foot of Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, beginning at 9 a.m. and maybe take a quick tour of some of the Selma churches where civil rights workers staged their marches.



As an example (source DNC), in 1983 McCain did something not even Dick Cheney did: he voted in Congress against a federal holiday in honor of Dr. King, which President Reagan later signed into law. In 1987, McCain supported Arizona Governor Evan Mecham's action to rescind an executive order establishing a state holiday in Martin Luther King's honor.

Even in 1989, when McCain finally came around and supported a state holiday, he said he was "still opposed to another federal holiday." As recently as 2000, McCain reportedly said he "resented it when people outside of Arizona got involved" in the issue. [FOXNews.com, 4/3/08; ABC News, 4/3/08; Huffington Post, 4/1/08; Wall Street Journal, 4/3/08; AP, 2/29/00]

McCain apparently thinks a stop in Memphis can gloss over that part of his bio, but -- as one reporter noted -- McCain's "views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later." [ABC News, 4/3/08]

1983: McCain Votes Against Federal MLK Day. In 1983 McCain voted against establishing a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. "Most Republicans in the House voted for the holiday (89 voted for the holiday, 77 opposed), though all three Arizona House Republicans were opposed. Reps. Dick Cheney, R-Wyoming, and Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, voted for the holiday. (Cheney had voted against it in 1978.)" [ABC News, 4/3/08]

1987: McCain Opposes Arizona MLK Holiday. In Arizona, Democratic governor Bruce Babbitt issued an executive order to establish an MLK holiday. Yet "[i]n January 1987, the first act of Arizona's new governor, Republican Evan Mecham, was to rescind the executive order by his predecessor to create an MLK holiday. Arizona's stance became a national controversy. McCain backed the decision at the time." [ABC News, 4/3/08]

1989: McCain Still Opposes Federal Holiday. Even though he now supported establishing a state holiday for Martin Luther King, he said he "said he was 'still opposed to another federal holiday.'" [Huffington Post, 4/1/08]

2000: McCain Said He Had Opposed Instituting MLK Day On A National Level. In 2000, it was reported that "McCain has said he supported implementing the holiday on a state level but resented it when people outside of Arizona got involved." [Associated Press, 2/29/2000]




David Jackson, of USA Today reports — John McCain begins today's tour of the Alabama "Black Belt" at a mecca of the 1960s voting rights movement that realigned Southern politics.

The 1965 assault on marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., helped produce the federal Voting Rights Act. Four decades later, the South is predominantly Republican, and African-Americans are the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency.

McCain's remarks at the Pettus Bridge will begin what he calls the "It's Time for Action Tour," spotlighting "forgotten Americans," who include steelworkers in Youngstown, Ohio, the rural poor in the Appalachia region of Kentucky, and Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans.

"We will travel to areas of this country that in many ways have been forgotten and left behind," McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt said. More here

AAPP: As David Jackson, of USA Today reported McCain's efforts to attract black voters will face historic hurdles. first off Barack Obama could become the first African-American nominee of a major party. so he might as well forget about getting any significant black votes. Secondly, as stated previously McCain voted in Congress against a federal holiday in honor of Dr. King.

Put a fork in it McCain - your done! no one believes you care about poor people. Black folks are not hearing you. We know were you stand.

As Ted Rall noted, Time after time, McCain weighs a decision. Then, after careful consideration, he chooses evil over good. In the short run, evil gets him what he wants. Later, when the devil comes to collect his due, McCain issues a retraction.

Running for president in 2000, John McCain squared off against George W. Bush in the key South Carolina primary. Asked whether the Confederate battle flag should continue to fly over the state capitol, McCain sided with the rednecks: "Personally, I see the flag as symbol of heritage."

A few months later, he'd lost South Carolina and quit the race. He apologized--not to the African-Americans he'd offended, but to a friendly audience of Republicans. "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary," he admitted. "So I chose to compromise my principles." It wasn't the first time, or the last.

Also in 2000, McCain insulted Asians. "I hate the gooks," John McCain hissed, "and I will hate them for as long as I live...and you can quote me." After a few days of negative press attention, he took it back: "I apologize and renounce all language that is bigoted and offensive, which is contrary to all that I represent and believe."

What does McCain "represent and believe"? In 2000 McCain attacked George W. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University, a freaky institution that smeared Catholics, banned jazz and interracial dating. Six years later, however, it was McCain's turn to suck up to the Christianist right. He appeared at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's extremist Liberty University, which--like BJU--bans gays and denies pregnant students the right to seek an abortion.

No apology for that one.

In 1983, John McCain was a freshman congressman from Arizona, then one of the most right-wing states in the country. In order to appease his Republican Party's base--racist whites--he voted against the bill that established Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. "I thought that it was not necessary to have another federal holiday, that it cost too much money, that other presidents were not recognized," he explained in 2000. Do Chester Arthur or Gerry Ford deserve holidays? Anyway, MLK Day didn't cost employers a cent; Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday were replaced by the generic President's Day.

He also floated the "states rights" excuse (with its own racist signifiers) that referenced his support for Confederate "heritage" in South Carolina. "I believe it's an issue that the people of South Carolina can settle, just as we in Arizona settled the very divisive issue over the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King as a holiday. I resented it a great deal when people from Washington and pundits and politicians and others came to my state to tell us how we should work out a very difficult problem."

Healthcare is "a very difficult problem." Iraq is "a very difficult problem." MLK Day, like the Confederate flag "issue," was a simple question of right and wrong.

True to his pattern, McCain understood that the racist pandering he used to launch his political career could come back to haunt him in the more enlightened--the John Birchers who contributed to his early campaigns might say "politically correct"--election year of 2008. Time for another apology: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona," he concedes. "We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans." MORE here

AAPP: Now Mccain is trying another recipe on black folk and America. A trip to Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, maybe take a quick tour of some of the Selma churches where civil rights workers staged their marches, and another apology. Will it work?