McCain surrogate: Muslims are ‘going to kill us’

July 18, 2008

When news outlets and Republicans were apoplectic about Wesley Clark questioning John McCain’s presidential qualifications, the McCain campaign sent out Bud Day, who was a prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam and one of the Swiftboat liars from 2004, to talk to the media.

In retrospect, the McCain campaign probably should have asked Day to stop talking to the media.

One of John McCain’s fellow POW’s in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, “The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.”

In a phone call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Colonel Bud Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

Ben Smith added that Day “seems to have cast McCain’s foreign policy in stark, religious terms.” That seems like a bit of an understatement.

Considering this campaign surrogate’s remarks on the merits. According to Bud Day, John McCain should continue with Bush’s war policy in Iraq because we have to fight Muslims. And why do we have to fight Muslims? Because if we can either fight Muslims, “kneel” to Muslims, or “they’re going to kill us.”

It’s tempting to just dismiss all of this as the sad rantings of a strange man, but it’s not that simple.

The McCain campaign brought Day on as a surrogate. Lately, he’s been a leading surrogate, regularly featured on campaign conference calls with the media.

He’s not just some random supporter, or county chairperson that the campaign barely knows. Bud Day has been a top voice of the McCain campaign — and now he believes Americans can vote for McCain, so McCain can wage a war against one of the planet’s largest faith traditions.

If this situation sounds kind of familiar, something similar happened to Rudy Giuliani’s campaign back in December. John Deady, the co-chairman of Veterans for Rudy committee, said voters should back Giuliani because he would “press” Muslims “until we defeat or chase them back to their caves — or in other words get rid of them.” He added that Muslims are “madmen.” Asked if this was a reference to all Muslims, he said, “I am talking about Muslims in general.”

Soon after, the Giuliani campaign forced Deady to resign.

Will McCain disavow Bud Day and remove him from the campaign’s list of surrogates? As of now, the McCain campaign hasn’t said anything about this. Stay tuned.

And the SprinkleMedia says…

(crickets)

  • Will McCain disavow Bud Day and remove him from the campaign’s list of surrogates? As of now, the McCain campaign hasn’t said anything about this. Stay tuned.

    Why should McCain do anything? The corporate-controlled media’s coverage of this latest embarrassment will be the same as the sound of a tree falling in the woods when there’s no one to hear.

    They haven’t finished discussing Hillary’s new haircut yet.

  • Kind of makes me glad I’m an agnostic leaning toward athiest. If there is such a thing as deity, I think the Taoists are closer than any of the others. The “god” of Abraham is a joke.

  • Where does the McCain campaign get these guys? The bar in my parents’ hometown?

  • “I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel”

    That’s good advice. We shouldn’t kneel to terrorists. We shouldn’t kneel to a “unitary executive” either.

  • The Muslims are out to kill us. And the Chinese. And the Japanese. And the Koreans. And the Africans.

    Once had a friend suggest that it would great to have a genetically modified disease that would kill off 95+% of the world’s population that is not White. He still believes that Bush is a great president!

    See – not all the wack-jobs are on McCrap’s staff…

  • Bud Day’s another of those guys whose heroism would be so much more secure if he was just a name on a wall. But he’s been a lifer halfwit for his entire career.

  • It’s pretty clear that the election won’t hinge on anything that McCain or his surrogates say. We know what we’re getting with Republican wingnuts. The only relevant question appears to be “will the American people develop enough trust in Barack Obama to elect him president?”

    The idiocy of the Bud Day’s of the GOP have already been baked in the cake, which is why the media (wrongfully) ignores it.

  • “…Will McCain disavow Bud Day and remove him from the campaign’s list of surrogates? As of now, the McCain campaign hasn’t said anything about this. Stay tuned….”

    Only after he energizes the base to enthusiastically support McCain. Just like Hagee fanatics now throw behind McCain in spite of disowning this mad man.

    Steve, I need some hope, please post some optimism from dem surrogates. McCain talk sickens me beyond repair….Don’t stop…truth is good medicine for that but …tell me a nice dem bedtime story of hope and change.

  • The grammar police just arrested me. Best not to call someone an idiot in a grammatically incorrect fashion.

  • Where does the McCain campaign get these guys?

    McCain and Bud Day go WAY back (Vietnam). And when Bud was busy smearing John Kerry, McCain tut-tutted the Swiftboat Liars, but as we can see that didn’t get in the way of a strong friendship between two lying scumbags.

    Get a load of this:

    38 percent of [Obama’s] supporters say the election is exciting compared to 9 percent of McCain’s. Sixty-five percent of Obama’s backers say they are hopeful about the campaign, double McCain’s, and the Democrat’s supporters are three times likelier to express pride.

    http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-excited-voters

    Got that? Only 1/3 of McCain’s supporters are “hopeful”. And they’re not very proud of their candidate, I guess we’ll see them with bags over their heads on November 4th.

  • Racer X: “Got that? Only 1/3 of McCain’s supporters are “hopeful”. And they’re not very proud of their candidate, I guess we’ll see them with bags over their heads on November 4th.”

    Have you seen the state by state poll numbers when Bob Barr is included in the question? He is losing JSMcC*nt a few important states.

    If we take some independents away who don’t want a war with 1,200,000,000 people and drive some wingnuts into Barr’s clammy hands, Obama might win.

  • Why, here comes a couple of Muslims now, walking up my door to tell me I need to get right with Mohammad. I hope they leave me with some of that neat literature showing the colored paintings of the lambs laying down with the lions.

  • Personally,
    I hope you take out this 83 year old man, preferably on video.
    It will be a great image. I hope Barack denounces him as a racist and ignorant fool.
    Preferably, on video.

  • Sadly, Bud Day’s position on Muslims isn’t inconsistent with most who sit around watching Fox News each day (including my parents).

  • Right when the President announces a withdraw in Iraq.

    Guess old Bud better crack up on the chicken in chief!

  • “Steve, I need some hope, please post some optimism from dem surrogates. McCain talk sickens me beyond repair….Don’t stop…truth is good medicine for that but …tell me a nice dem bedtime story of hope and change.”

    Sure thing.

    Texas voted 61% Republican in 2004 with both the President and VP having very close ties to the state. Bush himself was practically unique in his party in that he was genuinely held in high regard by his state’s largest ethnic group (Hispanics). McCain was in a similar position because he supported the Bush amnesty bill, but has backtracked. Despite the fact that the Democrats apparently picked their worst candidate (for Hispanics) and the Republicans picked their best one, the polls show that the Tancredo primary has caused Hispanics across the country to line up behind Obama.

    Texas polls have shown that Obama has considerably narrowed the gap between him and McCain, in spite of the fact that Bush is still propping up the Republicans in the polls there. The Democratic side of the state is mobilized this year because of the Delay redistricting and a bunch of other things. The state as a whole is trending blue fairly rapidly (and probably has been for quite awhile now) and I think that only the Favourite Son syndrome is keeping it from being as obvious as Colorado. You can probably book it for the Democrats in 2012 right now, even if the Republicans eke out a win there this fall. But I think Obama has a very good chance of stealing it. Even if he loses it by a couple of points, even the dumber pundits will have to admit that demographics have made it a swing state.

    The point of this is: if Texas moves into the blue column after the conventions, or if it even looks like it might move into the blue column, McCain is finished. You can’t find 270 electoral votes for the Republicans without Texas no matter how hard you try. Worse, their whole coalition is finished. The only way they can counter the loss is to reel in one of the other big states, and there isn’t one they can readily go after. They already have Florida and the only other two which would fill the bill are New York and California. The Republicans can’t win either one without blowing up their whole platform.

    This makes things look very good for Obama this year. Either McCain pulls resources out of North Carolina and Virginia to defend Texas, which will practically mean conceding the election, or the Republicans risk losing the biggest prize they have and becoming irrelevant for the next twenty years. The irony is that this probably wouldn’t be happening if the Republicans hadn’t let their “tough guys” go amok at the microphone in the debates earlier this year and if they hadn’t chosen the one issue of immigration to break from the Deciderer, who has been infallible to them in all other things.

    Sleep well.

  • Better watch out or the married gay muslims are gonna destroy our way of life! *snark*

  • Bud Day is fighting the demons that live in his brain over here so he doesn’t have to fight the demons that live in his brain over there.

  • The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.”

    Technically, you want to say that they’ll demand we “prostrate ouselves” before they kill us. It’s the Catholics that kneel, but maybe they’re next on the list? This holy war stuff can get SO addicting! It’s tough to stop once ya start, I know.

    And before you ask, that’s prosTATE you’re thinking of.
    Feel free to plug “prostrate” into “a Google”. John’s staff can do it for you, from what I hear.

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