Whenever Sen. John McCain has gotten into any trouble, his defense team always comes back to the old reliable tactic, play the P.O.W. card. First, lets begin with the comments by civil rights pioneer, Rep. John Lewis. Rep. Lewis said, in a statement released over the weekend, “As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign,” Lewis said in a statement. “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.” Lewis added, “During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.” Now, Sen. McCain is no George Wallace, but he and his campaign are in fact stoking up mob-like mentality among their supporters that have overtones of hate and racism at the foundation. Rep. Lewis is hardly the first person to mention something along these lines in regard to the increasingly-hostile tone of the Republican-backed campaign of Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin. People having been calling Sen. Obama an “Arab” (as if that is some kind of a slur), calling him a “terrorist” and there was even a report where someone yelled “kill him” - possibly in the direction of Sen. Obama. Sen. McCain encouraged this rhetoric and for too long did nothing to try to bring the growing hatred under control into public opinion turned so strongly against him and his campaign. Then, near the end of the weekend, radical McCain campaigner Rick Davis was on Fox News Sunday in full defense mode and trying to shift the focus from the racial campaign being waged against the first black candidate from a major party to make it this close to the presidency. Said Davis, “Look, Chris, I think we have to take this very seriously,” he said to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “And the kind of comments made by Congressman Lewis, a big Obama supporter, are reprehensible. The idea that you’re going to compare John McCain to the kinds of hate spread in the ’60s by somebody like George Wallace is outrageous. Where was John McCain when George Wallace was spreading his hate and segregationist policies at that time? He was in a Vietnam prison camp serving his country with his civil rights also denied.” Once again, Sen. John McCain gets in trouble and his defense is his military service. Interesting how Sen. McCain was touting his relationship with Rep. Lewis until even Rep. Lewis became disgusted by the McCain campaign racial strategy and spoke out. Now, the McCain campaign is now referring to Rep. Lewis as “a big Obama supporter.” So, now McCain is throwing Rep. Lewis under the bus at the first moment he disagrees. Seems as though the straight-talk express has thrown another person over the tracks to be run down. Before Sen. McCain calls for Sen. Barack Obama to apologize for Rep. Lewis’ comments, perhaps Sen. McCain should first apologize for the horrible things being said right in front of him at rallies that he did not condemn on the spot. If Sen. Obama somehow is responsible for Rep. Lewis’ comments, then Sen. McCain surely is responsible for negative comments made in front of him and targeted at Sen. Obama. Why has Sen. McCain not strongly denounced these comments made right in front of his face every time? Why has he not more strongly condemned his campaign’s implication that Sen. Obama is a terrorist, is an outsider, is an Arab, is a black radical and a crook? It seems the McCain campaign wants to play dirty politics … that is until they have to look at the mirror to find themselves frightened by their own reflection.
Huffington Post article on Rep. Lewis comments:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/11/john-lewis-warns-mccain-y_n_133903.html
Huffington Post on McCain campaign response:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/12/mccain-chief-uses-pow-car_n_133959.html
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