Back in April, John McCain tried to explain his opposition to a federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Of course, he lied like a rug about supporting an Arizona state-holiday for Dr. King.
Tell me that that isn’t the lamest excuse you’ve ever heard. And it isn’t even true. Steve Benen explains.
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.
This might all be water under the bridge if John McCain wasn’t referring to his esteemed colleague as ‘that one’ in national debates, refusing to shake his hand, and allowing his supporters to call for his head and call him a terrorist.
