Well, it took balls to mention it. I wonder if he was anticipating the press or some other candidate's surrogate bringing up that little factoid, and decided to nip that story in the bud.

At least he had the guts to go there and admit he was wrong.

Blogging with the Obama supporters and they are very divisive with their hatred.

I guess the dream is still a dream and Obama's unity is a dream too.

Nice work on MLK Day.

Shame on you.

>At least he went there.

Was there any particular reason for those words, Greg?

I lived in Arizona, they were a**holes about this and I was ashamed. McCain says he was wrong, he was 47 YEARS OLD!! People don't just make a mistake about something like this: it goes to moral character, right there with all his affairs and FEC questionable violations, his wife's federal drug violations, the stadium built in Arizona that he earmarked, which only sells Cindy McCain's company's beer investments, on and on.

Interesting. How long will we have to wait for him to realize his mistake in supporting the Iraq war?

A gutsy move by McCain. Can you imagine George Bush admitting he was wrong in front of a not-too-friendly crowd?

My friends, I'm a pathetic hack that will pander to whatever group I'm talking to at the time whenever it's politically expedient.

Everytime I see him speak, I am struck by what a horrible public speaker he is. If I wasn't already not voting for him because of his policies, I probably wouldn't vote for him for this reason alone. I don't think I could bear to listen to him for 4 or worse 8 years.

On top of it, this is a stupid thing for him to do - brave, but stupid. Which for me pretty much sums up McCain's public persona. He did a bit better at the end but his public appearances always have a way of just being wrong some how. (like the fact that you can barely see him over the umbrella's, getting heckled...)

Given that I am a Dem, I am glad for it because Obama will be a great contrast, his speeches and rallys always seem to have all the details covered and an understanding of the mood of the audience. A good metaphor for his presidency I hope. I am sure it isn't always that way but you never see this stuff coming out of camp Obama.

Yep, the dream is still a dream because you have to hate.

Can you stop the hate for one day in honor of King?

I doubt it but when McCain went to Memphis to admit he was wrong one man said, "We all make mistakes."

Good for him.

That is honoring King's dream and unity .

Can you imagine George Bush admitting he was wrong in front of a not-too-friendly crowd?

Cut that question off immediately after the word "wrong" and you're on to something.

McCain's apologizing for voting in 1983 against making MLK day a holiday will not attract black voters. However, it will not sit well with the racist sentiments that still exist in today's Republican Party. Apologizing is not what racists do. And anyone who doesn't believe that racists still exist in rural and or southern segregated white communities, has either never lived in one or has been fortunate enough to live in a community where integration is the norm. Apoligizing was the right thing to do, but why now? Why not last year or last decade or twenty years ago? Mr. flip flooper is a little too obvious for his own good. His convenient remorse is blatant pandering hypocrisy that no one will confuse for genuine sincerity.

Before we light our celebratory cigars or sip our champagne, let's consider how this will play on the other side.

How's this:

McCain went there to apologize and ask for forgiveness and got shit on. What does that say about his audience?

And since Obama is one of "them", draw your own conclusion.

I'm no McCain fan, and I sympathize with those inclined not heed his apology. But in the cold hard light of election numbers, he may have helped himself.

He recovers well.

Ties it in with his POW exp, and then Fox cuts away.... ???

Another Arizona Senator, Barry Goldwater, voted against the civil rights legislation. He wanted to let each state decide for themselves if they should keep segregation in place. Hillary was a Goldwater girl, and she has endorsed John McCain for Commander in Chief.

You can take the Goldwater Girl out of the Republican party, but you can never take the Republican out of the Goldwater Girl.

Hillary is the New Lieberman.

Uhhhh, a "little" late?

I half expected him to start singing: WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!! WHO? WHO??!

McCain is forgetting his Rovian tutelage.

"Ignore 'em. They're not voting for you anyway."

I just watched the entire speech again. It is disgraceful. Dr. King preached non violence and and was against what America was doing in Vietnam. Today, John McCain tried to hijack the memory of Dr. King and turn it into a weapon to use against the people of Vietnam who captured him while he was raining death and destruction down on them.

America was trying to prevent the Vietnamese from winning their Independence from Colonial masters, and John McCain is still calling them "The Enemy". Just like Iraq never attacked America, neither did Vietnam. In both cases it was the other way around. America waged immoral wars on the people of Vietnam, killed millions, and now has done the same thing again in Iraq. McCain is too much of a War Monger for my taste, and he dishonored the memory of Dr. King by today in Memphis, with his disgusting use of the murder of Dr. King as being something that made the Vietnamese the bad guys.

Does this fool know that we have full diplomatic and trade relations now with Vietnam, as he stands there in Memphis and misuses the memory of Dr. King to once again make the Victims of Colonial aggression "The Enemy".

Do you really want this tone deaf buffoon on the world stage for the next eight years.

Credit for going there? Give me a very enormous break please.

He's doing it for political reasons - obviously. If he meant it he would have done something about it before now.

Good effing God!

"Darkness can not drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Only light can do that." Many in his audience will think he's talking about darkness and light. Many others will know better what he is actually saying. Whoever wrote that speech, it was crafted brilliantly to speak different things to different audiences.

And standing on the balcony where a black leader was assassinated is a very painful reminder to many of what they never want to see America have to go through again.

"It strikes us as a bit absurd, but hey, in the spirit of this holiday, let's forgive McCain for this one. At least he went there."

Really? McCain fought MLK day when it was politically convenient to do so. He changed his mind very very late when it wasn't. I see him as a shameless fraud.

How about a compare and contrast?

Maybe up at the top of the page with Senator McCain?

Obama's speech about this anniversary:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gGBtMy

"But among other issues critics raise are McCain’s vote against the 1990 Civil Rights Act, which sought to curb discrimination in the workplace (and eventually passed as the 1991 act), as well as his short-lived support for South Carolina’s right to fly the confederate flag over the statehouse during the 2000 primary."

I see. So he was against MLK and civil rights before he was for them.

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/04/03/mccain-reversal-on-mlk-holiday-an-issue-as-he-visits-memphis/

He has guts to come out and say he was wrong, that too in a very difficult setting. you have to admire the guts. I just hope sometimes these left-wing blogs will be bit less partisan and bit more objective. Otherwise, blogging world would turn out to be as irrelevant as talk-radio on the right.

This really pisses me off. At least he went there? Are you kidding me?

He voted against the King holiday repeatedly and now when he knows it'll be used against him, he shamelessly goes there to apologize, knowing the spineless media will forgive him.

Meanwhile, you have to throw in little asides about how the Wright controversy may hurt Obama in the future.

How many African-Americans work at TPM again?

John McCain ran for President in 2000. He voted against the Dr. King Holiday in 1983. Why did he wait until he had won the nomination of his party before saying that he was wrong to vote against the holiday. You know the answer to that, and it is not that he just woke up this morning and suddenly realized that he was wrong in 1983.

Dr. King was a great man. But there have been many great men in American history. It seems perfectly reasonable to me for someone (such as Sen. McCain) to question whether Dr. King is truly the single greatest figure in our history, such that Dr. King ALONE is honored with a special day for his birthday and remembrance on the anniversary of his death. No special consideration is given to honoring Abraham Lincoln's birthday or the day of his death, or anyone else in our history.

If anyone does raise these kinds of questions, they are greeted with screaming accusations of racism. I think that when this can be discussed without the hysterical hateful accusations of racism that we will be much closer to what Dr. King envisioned. And when people can point out the objective fact that Sen. Obama had a long and close relationship with Rev. Wright without being met by these dictatorial attempts at censorship of the truth, then we will be closer to the dreams of our Founding Fathers.

It's exactly the kind of logical inversion that'll play well with Republican voters and closet racist "Independents": Cast OBAMA as the candidate of division, and McCain as the candidate of unity, when in reality the places are reversed.

That's called the Southern Strategy and it's been losing us election after election and the way to finally breach that wall is to nominate someone who brings in new voters in Red and purple states.

I'm half to the point where I think some of this resistance has to do with keeping the south out of power in the Democratic party and I wish I didn't think that, but I've been too soundly abused by my fellow liberals from the coasts over the years simply for being from the south to not have some sort of inkling along those lines. I'm quite sorry to say.

It's the only way - the other way loses. Over and over.

yup

and re: "By the Time I Get to Arizona"

I always make sure to have that in my car stereo every time I pass thru the state.

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

SF Chronicle, February 18, 2000

I am a little surprised that McCain didn't pitch one of his temper tantrums when people started heckling him.

{{smile}}

are you looking forward to debates as much I am? I have read here and there that his temper is growing ever shorter as he ages.

this could get to be a lot of fun.

Hey - since we have speculated so much on "electability" - then who is the tallest candidate? They have a significant statistical advantage.

{{smile}}

Where's the Lords of Context now?

If I had a clue what you were trying to ask...

McCain tried to suggest that his opposition to a holiday honoring Dr. King was limited to his 1983 vote against a federal holiday. In reality, McCain maintained his opposition to it until at least 1989, and voted against funding for the commission working to promote the King Holiday as recently as 1994. McCain even supported Republican efforts to repeal the holiday in his home state in 1987.

http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/04/john_mccains_re.php

Shameless pandering. That is what we have come to expect from John McCain.

The man has no morals and no bottom (which is an old expression which basically means he has no core character.)

You know how I know that? Because, he was POW for 5 years. He was tortured and he knew his comrades in the prison were tortured.

And he stood there and voted in favor of torturing other people just because George and Dick wanted him to.

Fuck John McCain. He is scum.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Rev MLK, Jr.

Maybe McCain should apologize for his continual efforts to hasten the spiritual death of America. McCain cannot pretend to now be a supporter of Rev. King or the movement when he still opposes almost everything that King stood for - racial reconciliation, social uplift, workers' rights, corporate responsibility, and the defeat of militarism.

John McCain’s “background and personal history” reveals a spoiled brat who, though a son and grandson of four-star admirals, managed to finish fifth from the bottom of his U.S. Naval Academy class of eight hundred ninety-nine. Whose oft-praised military heroism consisted, not of throwing himself on a grenade a la Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, but rather of wrecking five military aircraft, starting a fire on the USS Forrestal which killed 167 men, getting shot down and captured. Whose political career has included the Keating Five Savings & Loan highway robbery, personal infidelity, hugging the man who brutally slandered him, a long-term affair with a lobbyist having business with the committe he chaired.

His long history of racist behavior won’t be wiped out by yet another chameleon-like response to changed circumstance, in this case being the GOP nominee. They’re most welcome to him.