John McCain Is A Racist!
“John McCain is a racist: Always has been, always will be. Those who served with him in the Navy say he treated black sailors with disrespect and scorn. His collection of off-color jokes is riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.”
Bill Press: John McCain Plays the Race Card
Jul 31, 2008 ... If so, McCain has a funny way of showing it. All we've seen and heard from him for the last month is a string of personal attacks, ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-press/john-mccain-plays-the-rac_b_116042.html - 65k -
"I have great admiration and respect for Senator Obama."
If so, McCain has a funny way of showing it. All we've seen and heard from him for the last month is a string of personal attacks, culminating in yesterday's ad smearing Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world." He's just another famous, pretty face, in other words, and not ready for the presidency.
True? No. Childish? Yes. But that's not all. This ad is also deliberately and deceptively racist.
Of all the famous celebrities they could have compared Obama to, why not Tom Cruise? Or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Donald Trump, or Oprah Winfrey? Why Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Why two white blond bimbos?
Only one reason. It's a somewhat tamer version of the white bimbo ad used so successfully against Harold Ford in Tennessee. In juxtaposing Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the McCain campaign is simply trying to plant the old racist seed of black man hitting on young white woman. Not directly, but subliminally and disgracefully.
One thing for sure. This isn't the John McCain we first saw in 2000, running a campaign on the issues. And this isn't the positive McCain campaign he himself promised us for 2008. This is a campaign that, from the beginning, is nothing but negative, personal, dirty and, yes, racist.
McCain Camp: Obama Playing The Race Card
Jul 31, 2008 ... McCain is a twit - he's taking a page out of Hillary Clinton's primaries play book by insinuating that Obama played the race card when Obama ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080731/obama/
After months of contending that their campaigns would eschew personal attacks as part of a new kind of politics, the presumptive presidential nominees of the major parties turned nasty over what Obama meant when he said McCain and other Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that the Democratic candidate "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
McCain took on the role of aggrieved victim, his campaign waiting almost a day after Obama's remarks to charge that he had injected race into the presidential campaign. "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. Its divisive, negative, shameful and wrong," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said.
"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'"
But by flatly accusing Obama of having "played the race card," McCain ensures that the issue, already looming over the historic campaign, will now take a front-and-center position in a contest that is increasingly being fought more over character than issues.
After countless failed attempts to define Barack Obama in some kind -- any kind -- of negative light, the McCain campaign has come up with a new one. After Obama's triumphant "grand tour" of the middle and his obvious popularity in Europe, McCain's handlers have decided that Obama is acting inappropriately presidential. We wouldn't what a president candidate to act presidential, would we?
So the McCain campaign has not very subtly decided to push this meme by calling Obama presumptuous. McCain's campaign is, of course, being aided and abetted by the always cooperative (so called liberal) media. This time the "liberal" Washing Post columnist Dana Milbank is leading the charge. Here's the first paragraph of his July 30 column:
Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.
That's a good one, Dana. Really clever.
And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
liberal constructionist's diary :: ::
The Obama is presumptious theme is so good that McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis sent out an e-mail to all "interested parties" with the subject line Barack Obama's Celebrity. It quotes Milbank's "presumptuous" statement and pumps it up a notch by referring to "Barack Obama's presumptuous arrogance".
I predict we'll be hearing the word presumptuous a lot in the next few days -- and much longer if the McCain campaign, with the help of its media enablers, can get it to stick. In fact, it's pretty much a perfect Republican campaign theme because it not only accuses Barack Obama of being something presumably bad that no one can prove or, more importantly, disprove; it blows the kind of racist dog whistle that Republican love to use against African American Democrats.
Dog whistle politics is a key component of the infamous Republican Southern Strategy that has been responsible for the election of all Republican presidents since Nixon. So it's inevitable that the McCain campaign has rolled it out again against the biggest target ever, Barack Obama. The temptation is just irresistible.
In this case the dog whistle is that Obama is being presumptuous. To most Americans presumptuous means, well, presumptuous. But if you check your thesaurus you'll find that a synonym for presumptuous is uppity. You know, uppity as in uppity n*****. This connection will not be lost on the racists among us. They will chuckle to themselves about the clever way the McCain campaign and their media enablers are calling Obama uppity without actually using the word.
And of course to them it's so obvious that Obama is being uppity. After all, what could be more uppity than a African American candidate acting presidential even before he's elected president? Maybe an African American actually being president?
John McCain is a racist | Capitol Hill Blue
Aug 1, 2008 ... John McCain is a racist: Always has been, always will be. Those who served with him in the Navy say he treated black sailors with disrespect ...
www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/10086
John McCain's Racist Remark Very Troubling
On his campaign bus recently, Sen. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." Although McCain said he was referring only to his prison guards, there are many reasons why his use of the word "gook" is offensive and alarming.
It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.
It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.
Contrary to McCain's attempt to narrowly define "gook" to mean only his "sadistic" captors, this term has historically been used to describe all Asians. McCain said that "gook" was the most "polite" term he could find to describe his captors, but because it is simply a pejorative term for Asians, he insulted his captors simply by calling them "Asians" -- a clearly disturbing message.
To the Asian American community, the term is akin to the racist word "nigger." A friend of mine, a white male Vietnam veteran, pointed out that veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, know how spiteful the term "gook" is. It has everything to do with labeling someone as "other," the enemy and yellow. McCain sent the message that all Asians are foreigners and remain forever the "other" and the enemy.
The perception of Asians as "foreigners" or "the other" isn't new. This sentiment is what led to passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Japanese American internment during World War II. The internment of Japanese Americans is now recognized as one of the worst civil rights violations in our country's history and a powerful lesson in what can happen when race alone is used as a test for loyalty or who is defined as an American.
We've made tremendous progress as a nation in overcoming racism. That is why it is so disturbing that a major candidate for the U.S. president can perpetuate the stereotype of Asians as permanent foreigners, hurtling us backward to a time and a place where such racial epithets were an acceptable part of mainstream discourse.
What makes this incident even more disturbing is how neither the media nor the other presidential candidates have highlighted that his use of a racist term is unacceptable.
Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority populations in the United States. And the media's choice to ignore or excuse McCain's behavior is a painful reminder that Asians remain outsiders on the back steps of national American politics.
McCain's main campaign message is inclusion. What his actions have told me, however, is that his inclusion does not include people who look like me.
I love this country just as much as McCain does, and I am committed to serving my community and my country. That is the reason I have entered a career in public service and why I am committed to making America a great country where equal opportunity and justice for everyone is a reality and not just a vision.
This is also why I am so hurt by McCain's comment: He has reminded me that despite my commitment to serving my country, there are still some people in this country who would first perceive me as the enemy.
Katie Hong is a Korean American woman who lives in Seattle and works for Washington state government.
Do you really want a president who is stuck in the 50s way of thinking?
He was against MLK? I dont want to go back to the racist days of the 50s & 60s... What do u guys think about McCain's old school mentality & racism ?
August 1, 2008 - 7:14am.
By DOUG THOMPSON
John McCain, a member of the House of Representatives in the mid-1980s, often held court at a table near the bar at Bullfeathers, a popular Capitol Hill watering hole, telling jokes and matching hangers-on drink by drink.
As a Capitol Hill chief of staff, I often drank at Bullfeathers and was invited to join the throng at McCain's table one evening. A few minutes listening to the racism, bigotry and homophobia of the Arizona Congressman told me all I needed to know.
McCain loved to tell jokes about lesbians, blacks, Hispanics and the Vietnamese community that occupied a large section of Arlington County, Virginia, just south of the District of Columbia.
Of course, McCain didn't use polite language in the jokes: He used names like "fags" or "queers" or "dykes" or "niggers" or "spics" or "wetbacks" or "gooks."
A typical McCain joke:
Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: "God, I've love to eat her out."
Two men are standing nearby and one turns to the other and says: "I'd like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke."
Or another:
Question: Why does Mexican beer have two "X's" on the label?
Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.
When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:
I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I'll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won't give it a second thought.
This is the man the Republican Party thinks should be the next President of the United States. What else should we expect from a party that promotes racism, homophobia and discrimination against anyone with a different skin color, sexual orientation or ethnic origin?
So we shouldn't be surprised that McCain's campaign strategy seeks to raise racial fear about Barack Obama, the first African-American with a serious shot at the Presidency of the United States.
John McCain is a racist: Always has been, always will be. Those who served with him in the Navy say he treated black sailors with disrespect and scorn. His collection of off-color jokes is riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.
McCain opposed making the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King a national holiday. During his 2000 campaign for President, he told reporters on his "Straight Talk Express: "I hated the gooks (North Vietnamese). I will hate them as long as I live."
Katie Hong of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who reported the remark, wrote:
It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.
It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.
For his 2000 campaign for President, McCain hired Richard Quinn, founder and editor in chief of Southern Heritage Magazine, to serve as his spokesman in South Carolina.
Notes Salon.Com:
Quinn's articles have called Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" and King a man "whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul." In another piece, Quinn said of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, "What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?" though he did condemn Duke's bigotry.
Irwin A. Tank, author of Gook: John McCain's Racism, notes a long and sordid history of racism from the presumptive GOP nominee, including:
- McCain's use of the anti-Asian slur "gook" publicly for 27 years before dropping the use for his current Presidential run;
- McCain's endorsement of George Wallace Jr., a frequent speaker at white supremacist events;
- His vote against establishing a holiday for Martin Luther King's birthday and then another vote to rescind the holiday.
- In answering a question about divorced fathers and child support, McCain called the children "tar babies."
The list goes on and on. What else do you expect from a racist?
Analysis: Race remains the political wild card
The Associated Press -
One is 71, white and a veteran of Washington who has spent years developing an independent political persona in a party that usually rewards down-the-line ...See all stories on this topic
First thoughts: When race is an issue
MSNBC - USA
Both Clinton and Edwards had more initial labor support in the primaries than Obama. *** Talk about an October surprise: So is the embattled Ted Stevens ...See all stories on this topic
“John McCain is a racist: Always has been, always will be. Those who served with him in the Navy say he treated black sailors with disrespect and scorn. His collection of off-color jokes is riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.”
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