senator john mccain's black gaffe

when the GOP began to take senator john mccain seriously as a presidential candidate, i began to do my homework on the black hand side -- because God knows the media wouldn't. and besides, i love a good fact check. as it turns out, what i found was more than unsavory: the man is nothing short of a privileged, spoiled rich kid, a womanizer and a heel. he's old. he's sickly. he's reckless. sure, he's no ivy league elitist -- but thanks to his wife's $100 million dollar beer fortune, he's loaded, with 7 homes. or 8. or is it 11? no one seems to know for sure, least of all senator mccain. (how many homes does barack and michelle obama have? one.) he and his wife cindy have 13 cars. if you want to see them, click here. (how many cars does barack and michelle obama have? one. and yes, it's a ford.)

think of it: if senator mccain becomes president, he won't need air force one. he already has his own jet!

nevermind that carefully handcrafted homespun myth about him being a war hero or a rebel maverick in congress. or a faithful husband. his record -- with a special emphasis on the way he has become the presidential candidate that he rallied against so self-righteously in his initial bid for the white house -- speaks for itself. here's a case in point that i found especially bizarre: take a look at which side he stood on concerning a national holiday for the iconic, internationally recognized civil rights leader dr. martin luther king jr.

sure, we're all human, we all make mistakes. sure, i forgive him. but this one was kind of a whopper. and the gist of it all is, it reads volumes into his character -- the man he really is, not the one he or the media pretends that he is.

in the video clip below circa 1983, someone queries senator mccain as to what he intends to do to make dr. king's birthday a state and national holiday. in spite of his vow to rectify the situation, he spent the next 11 years opposing it.

that's right -- senator mccain opposed a national holiday for dr. king as recently as 1994. and arizona republican governor evan mecham deserves some special neoconservative award for simply being who he is. to their credit, the congresspeople of arizona did impeach him eventually -- but that was only after they realized his racist idiocy cost their state over $500 million dollars. once they felt the financial heat, a national holiday for a black man became a great idea.

how can he explain away this voting record? here's the real question: how can he think that thinking black folk will vote for him in spite of it?

don't get me wrong. senator mccain certainly wasn't the only congressperson that opposed the bill initially in 1983. a holiday honoring dr. king was ratified state by state throughout the 90s and was officially a national holiday in 2000. only 17 states participated initially. but supporting and aligning yourself with a republican state governor that openly used the word pickaninny amongst other racist remarks (and defending this), and that went on record as saying that although he thought dr. king did a lot for "the coloreds," he didn't think he did much for anyone else, didn't help then. and it definitely doesn't help now.

so why did mccain vote against a national holiday for martin luther king, jr?

in the following video clip, he attempts to explain himself by saying that he "wasn't familiar with the issue." a remark like that is usually vague enough to give any politician a free pass but this guy is running for president, so we deserve a real answer on this one. i mean, seriously -- doesn't everyone in the world know who dr. king is and what he did? what didn't senator mccain know about dr. king and the civil rights movement, exactly? in his rosier moments while waxing poetic about his time as a POW in vietnam, doesn't he go on about how his tormentors told all of the captives about the assassinations of both dr. king and robert kennedy, to somehow break their morale?

ew.

i especially enjoy the way senator mccain justifies his stance on this issue by referring to his career in the navy. the military isn't racist, so neither is he -- is that it? the truth is, the military is one of the most racist and sexist places there is. frankly, if he doesn't know something that basic, he's way more out of touch than i thought.

maybe he should ask a black man in the military about what it's like to be in the service. or a woman. or a black woman. does senator mccain even know any black women?

hm. watching the following video clip might be helpful -- it's a CNN expose about the neo-nazi invasion in the military and how officials have turned a blind eye to their activities for years.