The anniversary of Dr. King’s death puts McCain in a tough spot

April 4, 2008

Forty years ago today, in Memphis, Tenn., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. John McCain will speak in Memphis today, as part of his “biography tour,” and will reflect on the slain civil rights leader’s legacy.

Unfortunately for McCain, though, the speech and the anniversary offer the political world a fresh opportunity to reconsider the senator’s own history when it comes to King and civil rights. For the Republican presidential candidate, that’s not good news — McCain would no doubt prefer that voters ignore some of his previous positions.

[H]is views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later. Most glaringly, McCain as a young congressman in 1983 voted against a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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.)

In December 1999 McCain told NBC’s Tim Russert, “on the Martin Luther King issue, we all learn, OK? We all learn. I will admit to learning, and I hope that the people that I represent appreciate that, too. I voted in 1983 against the recognition of Martin Luther King…. I regret that vote.”

The vote wasn’t the only problem. In his home state of Arizona, conservatives in the state legislature blocked a measure to create a holiday honoring King, prompting then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt (D) to declare one through executive order.

In 1987, Republican Gov. Evan Mecham’s first act in office was to rescind Babbitt’s order on the King holiday. John McCain endorsed Mecham’s decision.

Complicating matters, McCain, no doubt embarrassed by his previous positions, is being less than truthful about them now.

Yesterday, for example, he was pressed on his record by reporters.

“I voted in my … first year in Congress against it and then I began to learn and I studied and people talked to me. And I not only supported it but I fought very hard in my home state of Arizona for recognition against a governor who was of my own party,” McCain said during a media availability aboard his plane Monday.

If McCain “began to learn” and “studied” after his opposition to the King holiday in ’83, he was a very slow learner. Four years later, he didn’t fight against a governor or his own party; he endorsed the governor’s move to eliminate a King holiday.

Six years after his House vote he began supporting a state holiday, but still opposed a federal King holiday. Eleven years after his vote, he tried to strip federal funding from the MLK Federal Holiday Commission. Seventeen years after his vote, McCain publicly endorsed South Carolina’s right to fly the confederate flag over its statehouse.

Now, in the interest of fairness, it’s worth noting that McCain ended up, years after the fact, in the right place, and reversed himself on practically all of his previous positions. Better late than never, I suppose.

But for a presidential candidate running almost exclusively on his background and personal history, this is one part of McCain’s past that he would just as soon we forget. We won’t.

Sadly the media will largely reinforce the image that McCain wants, rather than reality. This is one reason Reps don’t need to worry about raising a lot of money, and why Dems should use their ad dollars to educate rather than merely give bumpersticker promises.

  • So when he’s 120 yrs old he’ll just be realizing the iraq war is a cluster fuck?

  • There are plenty of reasons not to vote for McCain, but this isn’t one of them. I remember the MLK holiday debate — it was divisive and often (although not always) racist. There were nasty attacks on his personal life, his associates and his speeches. There were also millions of people who thought there were already too many paid holidays. It was a long and sometimes nasty fight, but it was over a long time ago.

    I’m an Obama supporter but I will object any way I can if this issue is swiftboated. Let’s talk about McCains unbridiled militarism instead. He is, after all, a supporter of equal-opportunity WAAAAAR!!!

  • LOL, Too many holidays !.. I remember people making that argument at work. There were even a few that refused to take the day off and showed up anyway. But make no mistake.. this was about race. If the day was called anything but MLK day, and a day off given, not a word would of been said.

  • Like Casey (#3), I remember the brouhaha about that vote. My recollection, though, is somewhat different. Where I lived, the big deal was naming a federal holiday after a single person. We don’t have a Washington’s birthday or Lincoln’s birthday, after all, but a Presidents Day. They had no objection to a Civil Rights Day or something like that, but a lot of people had a problem with an MLK day. “Why does he get his own holiday when other great Americans don’t?”

    That being said, this is just another example of McCain’s hypocrisy. “I was against it before I was for it.”

  • Yeah, come to think of it I do have to many paid holidays. WTF, that’s just nuts.

  • It actually took the threat of losing the Super Bowl before the state of Arizona decided to pass MLK day. It’s always about the money.

  • I am a little too young to remember the debate. But unless McCain said something offensive– and I’ve seen no suggestion that he did– this is the sort of thing that will mostly hurt his standing among people who weren’t going to vote for him anyway. It’s pretty easy to gin up a respectable-sounding reason to oppose a new holiday.

  • Steve wrote: “Better late than never, I suppose.”

    Ask McCain sometime about the people in the Veterans of Foreign Wars who wouldn’t allow Vietnam veterans in because it ‘wasn’t a war’. Is it okay NOW that they changed their minds?

    Martin said: “Here in Alabama it’s called MLK/Robert E Lee Day.”

    Gack!

    Michael W said: “They had no objection to a Civil Rights Day or something like that, but a lot of people had a problem with an MLK day. “Why does he get his own holiday when other great Americans don’t?”

    I suppose based on that criteria Columbus Day doesn’t count. He wasn’t an American after all.

    I have to admit I totally missed the debate on this, and I’m of the age I shouldn’t have. But I believe King deserves a holiday and it ought NOT be conflated with holidays for Confederate ‘heros’.

  • Read this post on “No More Mister Nice Blog.” It’s an enlightening look at the media’s response to MLK Jr.’s rejection of the Vietnam war.

    An interesting excerpt: …national media heard [King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech] loud and clear back in 1967 — and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

    Now, enter McCain, a Vietnam POW, who has heard this “unpatriotic” and “hateful” talk from/about Rev. Wright MLK for years… What do you expect his gut reaction to be?

    I’m not saying that McCain was right to willfully remain (or act) disdainful of the scope and importance of MLK’s deeds, but didn’t Mr. Barry Obama teach us all that it’s not enough to simply denounce, reject, and close our ears? We should at least take a look at where grandpa McCain might be coming from. I’d at least like to hear some of his statements from the 80’s on why he voted against the establishment of a holiday (maybe I’ll go digging later).

    I’m with Casey (3): there are plenty of better subjects on which to trash McCain for being a hypocrite.

  • With so much to remember on this day, I will not squabble about McCain’s positions regarding Dr. King. I will merely see the Arizona senator as the flip flopper he is, and concentrate today on furthering Dr. King’s legacy.

    A vote against McCain in November is a vote for poor people and a vote against war. May Dr. King’s spirit live on for us all in perpetuity! -Kevo

  • NB (11): It’s a safe bet you won’t hear McCain give an explanation of his earlier votes/endorsements today. So you might as well start digging now.

    PS. I love your on-line name (NB). In Italian it is an abbreviation for “PAY ATTENTION!!!”

  • 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.

  • Lance said:…Gack!

    And the fourth Monday in April is the Confederate Memorial Day State Holiday!

  • John McCain has nothing to worry about. All he’ll have to do is make another round of the reporters on the “Straight Talk Express” and hell be given another one of his “Free passes”.

    It works every time, and Senator McCain will ride the “Glad Handing Express” right into the White Hosue, with our “reporters” being handled all the way. Some time around the seventh year of President McCain’s second term we will start to see reporters write the stories leading with “How were we so buffaloed, AGAIN?”

    The answer is, they were too lazy or frightened to do their jobs. H L Menken would be ashamed, and half of our “Journalists” likely do not even know who he was.

  • Puts McCain in a tough spot with who? African American voters that wouldn’t be voting for him anyway? At worst, it’s just another thing he’s flip flopped on.

  • Actually growing up in Virginia it was called Lee/Jackson day and has been celebrated long before Martin Luther King was even born. I even went to Robert E. Lee High. I get some shocked looks here in Miami when I tell them that.

    However, I do not consider this racist. Lee only fought because Virginia was part of the south.

  • For Michael W –

    Actually both Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays used to be separate holidays, so the argument that we don’t commemorate individuals is spurious. They were combined into one “Presidents Day” holiday fairly recently in an effort to save businesses money – the only thing we truly commemorate lately.

  • On April 4th, 2008 at 9:00 am, Michael W said:
    “We don’t have a Washington’s birthday or Lincoln’s birthday, after all, but a Presidents Day.”

    Used to be that Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays were separate holidays, but businesses complained about them being to close to each other (Feb.22 and 12) and their occurance on various days of the week. They were unified as part of the Monday Holidays bill. President’s Day and Independence Day were created there.

    So we used to have those holidays. I’m kind of suprised King’s day hasn’t been incorporated as a Monday holiday.

  • I remember the debate growing up as a teenager. I also remember teh debate indeed having racial overtones. I don’t believe that McCain has some deep-seeded bias about race. I do believe however, that he has a deep-seeded bias towards political expediency. The MLK vote is just a small example in a long line of flip-floppery. It’s funny – if you are a Republican, you “grow”, if you are a Democrat, you “flip-flop”.

  • Regarding Columbus day (someone mentioned it earlier), I don’t think there are too many Native Americans (my wife being one) who think too highly of that little gem.

    ;-P

  • For Kevo (post #12):

    Well said. That’s what real rembrance is all about. Let’s try and further that legacy every day, as I’m sure you do.

  • What Philadelphia Steve said in #16. Every word of it. The press has decided that McCain doesn’t have any problems, and that’s that.

    The press corpse should be ashamed of themselves, but they get paid to avoid that kind of thing.

  • Ed Stephan:

    I am no John McCain supporter, but why did you tell a bald faced evil lie accusing him of starting the U.S.S. Forrester fire? You are as evil as the person that you are accusing, if not more so! THIS is what caused the fire:

    “About 10:50 (local time), a Zuni rocket fired from an F-4 Phantom II by an electrical power surge hit an A-4 Skyhawk getting ready to launch, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. John McCain.”

    http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20070122183950855

  • Chris:

    Actually it does matter a bit. Black talk radio has been buzzing with a “send a message to the Democratic Party by voting for John McCain if Obama finishes first but the superdelegates choose Hillary anyway” movement for months now. Some have gone further and stated that even if Hillary does catch Obama, they will vote for McCain anyway, because Hillary would have been eliminated long ago had she, Bill, and her operatives not started playing the race card in South Carolina to alienate Obama from black and Hispanic voters. The latter point may seem like sour grapes, but the fact is that Hillary Clinton would not have won some of the key victories that have kept her going without the huge shares of the white and Hispanic votes in key states, and please recall that it was because of those tactics that WHITE liberals like Ted Kennedy went from being neutral to backing Obama, because they knew that if Hillary prevailed because of those tactics it would permanently harm relations with black voters. Look, 90% of black voters are not liberal, ok? There are plenty of moderate and conservative blacks, but they vote Democrat because of the belief that the GOPers are either racists or pander to them (and being from Mississippi, being in an elite Naval circle that had precious few blacks before the evil affirmative action, entering Republican politics in the same far west that gave us people like Barry Goldwater and Ed Meese – all of whom denied being racist while opposing every civil rights measure on the books) gave him plenty of pandering those opportunities. and were the Clintons to prevail because of race – baiting tactics, well that would ruin the justification for conservative – leaning blacks to continue their reflex Democratic voting (which many blacks are beginning to say has reached the point of diminishing returns anyway).

    But stuff like this coming out would make it really hard for blacks to vote for McCain. Even in their anger against the Clintons, it would be impossible for them to pull the lever for a guy that was part of the Jesse Helms wing of the GOP on race until he stuck his finger in the air and realized that it was no longer a politically viable position. Please note: Republicans pretty much stopped their overt race baiting only after “proposition Pete Wilson” permanently cost the GOP California in the 1990s (famous actors that are to the left of most Democrats and married to a Kennedy in Arnold Schwarzeneggar do not count). When McCain saw how Bill Clinton bested the GOP at every turn in the 1990s, he saw the writing on the wall and moved to the left on every issue except race, where he has for years been conspicuously silent. The word on the conservative street was that he wanted Clinton as a nominee because he was uncomfortable attacking Obama. Why? Because he knows that if he gets too negative and heated, racial overtones will develop, and his history as a Mississippi – Arizona Confederate flag waving GOPer will come back to haunt him. The Confederacy enthusiasts in South Carolina (and in other places) are still angry at McCain, because up until the 2000 race McCain used to proudly state that he had come from a good southern family that owned slaves, fought for the Confederacy, etc. and that the Confederate flag represented his heritage and his ancestors. He only changed his tune when the Bob Jones University scandal over George W. Bush gave him yet another chance to court the national media. And yes, a lot of black voters are considering McCain because they remember him as the guy who DID NOT speak at Bob Jones University in 2000. But what they don’t know is that the only reason why John McCain didn’t speak at Bob Jones University WAS BECAUSE BJU REFUSED TO ACQUIESCE TO HIS DEMAND THAT THEY ALLOW HIM TO SPEAK FIRST BEFORE BUSH DID (allowing McCain to do so would have served as an implied endorsement)! Even after BJU enraged McCain by refusing to let him speak first (yes, McCain did take it personally), his aides urged him to get over it and speak there anyway. McCain was in the process of doing just that and even agreeing on the date and time of the speech when the media firestorm over Bush speaking there blew up. That was when McCain came out and claimed “oh, I would NEVER speak at such a place, I never even considered it, THEY WANTED ME TO SPEAK THERE AND I TOLD HIM NO!”

    Yet another example of why so many GOPers cannot stand McCain and will never vote for him, even if Hillary Clinton is the nominee: the guy is totally unprincipled, completely dishonest, only cares about himself, and will sell you down the river in a heartbeat. Get this: before the Jeremiah Wright scandal, a lot of GOPers were actually thinking that Obama beating McCain would be rather fun to watch!

  • “So we used to have those holidays. I’m kind of suprised King’s day hasn’t been incorporated as a Monday holiday.”, from CharlieA@22

    “MLJ, Jr. Day is celebrated as a Monday holiday — the third Monday in January:”,
    from Denver Lawyer@28

    Yeah, and it pisses me off that it’s handled that way. Why? Because MY birthday is January 15th and I’d like the ACTUAL day to be the holiday! It was in 2007, but that’s rare.

    By the way, I would love to see MLK Day be “celebrated” by keeping students IN school, learning about the Civil Rights Movement. Also, Veterans’ Day learning about War, Columbus Day learning about Immigration, etc.

    These “holidays” are basically meaningless. Too bad.

  • Manny in Miami, @19

    In my part of VA, everything is named either after Lee or after Jackson. Schools, churches, highways… You name it, and it’s either one or the other. Of course, I do live in “Lextropolis”, the home of both Washington and Lee University (started by Lee) and the Virginia Military Institute (where Jackson had been a big honcho for a while)…

  • [H]is views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later. Most glaringly, McCain as a young congressman in 1983 voted against a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Someone is surprised that the great-gtrandson of a Jim Crow enforcing Mississippi Sheriff – great-great-grandson of slaveowners – would have been different?

    As long as we’re looking back, look back to this:

    Amid the tragedy of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1968, an extraordinary moment in U.S. political history occurred as Robert F. Kennedy, younger brother of slain President John F. Kennedy, broke the news of King’s death to a large gathering of African Americans in Indianapolis, Indiana.

    The gathering was actually a planned campaign rally for Robert Kennedy in his bid to get the 1968 Democratic nomination for President. Just after he arrived by plane at Indianapolis, Kennedy was told of King’s death. He was advised by police against making the campaign stop which was in a part of the city considered to be a dangerous ghetto. But Kennedy insisted on going.

    He arrived to find the people in an upbeat mood, anticipating the excitement of a Kennedy appearance. He climbed onto the platform, and realizing they did not know, broke the news.

    Ladies and Gentlemen – I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because…

    I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

    Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

    For those of you who are black – considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible – you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

    We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization – black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

    For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

    But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

    My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

    What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

    (Interrupted by applause)

    So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it’s not the end of disorder.

    But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

    (Interrupted by applause)

    Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

    Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

    If you want to hear the speech, go here:

    http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/rfk.htm

    As I listened, I realized that 40 years later we have the chance to finally redeem what Kennedy was speaking of here – with the election of Barack Obama.

  • 27. On April 4th, 2008 at 11:14 am, Gerald said:
    Ed Stephan:

    I am no John McCain supporter, but why did you tell a bald faced evil lie accusing him of starting the U.S.S. Forrester fire? You are as evil as the person that you are accusing, if not more so! THIS is what caused the fire:

    “About 10:50 (local time), a Zuni rocket fired from an F-4 Phantom II by an electrical power surge hit an A-4 Skyhawk getting ready to launch, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. John McCain.”

    Hey, moron: John McCain STARTED THE FIRE with the “wet start” – the fire then cooked off the Zuni which SPREAD THE FIRE.

    You really are an idiot – you ignoramus.

    The fact you still can’t “get it” about Jeremiah Wright in your other post demonstrates why White American Male Republicans really are lower on the evolutionary scale than lemurs – no wonder you don’t like evolution.

  • Oh, and by the way, Moron Gerald, it’s the USS Forrestal, not the USS Forrester.

    But then given your IQ is below ambient room temperature, why would anyone be surprised by your stupidity?

  • Reading this astonishing collections of non-sequiturs, rationalizations and outright zanies, I must confess that I hadn’t realized the 40th Anniversary of MLK’s assassination would be such a big drinking holiday.

    Topic? What topic?

  • In the words of the great American poet, Chuck D, “By the Time I Get to Arizona”

  • We wanted to make sure that today when Senator McCain speaks, you and your friends and family know who’s talking.

    McCain will bring his “Service to America” tour to Memphis on Friday, but many people don’t know the service he touts includes voting against the federal holiday honoring Dr. King. In August 1983 he fought the holiday, voting to block a piece of bipartisan legislation honoring him that was supported by even conservative Republicans–including Dick Cheney–and signed into law by President Reagan.

    McCain went on to resist recognizing a King holiday in his home state of Arizona. When Arizona’s state legislature failed to pass a bill recognizing a holiday honoring Dr. King, the governor at the time, Bruce Babbit, created the holiday by executive order. Babbit’s successor, Gov. Evan Mecham rescinded the order as his first act in office, doing away with the holiday. John McCain’s response? He defended the governor, not Dr. King. (After undoing the holiday, the same governor went on to publicly support referring to Black people as “pickaninnies”).

    In 1990, seven years after his initial vote, McCain went along with establishing a King holiday. On the campaign trail in 2000, facing questions about his history on this issue, McCain declared he had “evolved.”

    Looking at the rest of McCain’s public record, even recently, it’s hard to see much evidence of an “evolution”. In fact, McCain has consistently opposed a civil rights agenda:

    He voted an amazing FOUR times against the Civil Rights Act of 1990–a bill designed to make it easier for employees to prove job discrimination and imposing harsher penalties on bosses who discriminated.
    In 2004 he opposed affirmative action in college admissions–a key component of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that is among King’s key legislative victories.
    He has voted at least 8 times against raising the minimum wage.
    And as recently as last month, he argued against federal intervention to help Americans, disproportionately Black Americans, who have faced foreclosure during the housing crisis.
    If John McCain has evolved, he hasn’t evolved much. Instead, we see a consistent and troubling pattern. From campaigning against Dr. King’s holiday to undermining important civil rights laws, John McCain has not stood side by side with King’s vision, he has stood in its way.

    Today, we hope that everyone will take a moment to pause and remember Dr. King’s legacy, recognizing his contributions of words, deeds and ultimately his life. And we hope that all can see past political posturing (regardless of who it comes from) and embrace the bold, challenging vision that King actually projected. We believe that in doing so, we honor both his legacy and his sacrifice.

    — James, Van, Gabriel, Clarissa, Mervyn, Andre, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
    April 4th, 2008

  • Pingback: McCain on Martin Luther King, Jr. | David Ortez

  • Nice to watch the White Moron Boy quotient go up every time there’s a McCain thread. NB – are you even old enough to have served? Did you? Or are you just the standard-issue rightie warhero-wannabe who’s actually the standard issue white trash coward? Got your computer hotwired into the light pole from the double-wide there, boy???

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