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Conyers slams McCain for 1983 vote against MLK Day.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) apologized for voting against a 1983 bill creating a holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, McCain also supported former Arizona governor Evan Mecham in 1987 when Mecham rescinded the holiday in the state. On MSNBC today, Conyers took McCain to task for apologizing decades later — the midst of his presidential run:

Well look. I’m happy. That was in 1983, he didn’t make any apology, he didn’t make any apologies in 1987, so I guess I’m thrilled and forgiving that finally when he’s running for President he remembers to apologize. No, that’s great.

C&L has the video.



32 Responses to “Conyers slams McCain for 1983 vote against MLK Day.”

  1. robbez_92107 says:

    Better cool it, John, or you’ll piss the old coot off.


  2. Zooey says:

    How about slamming Bush & Cheney with some impeachment hearings?


  3. Merlin says:

    Has anyone wondered how McBush can lift that shovel he has been digging himelf into a hole with? Damn! that’s the biggest shovel I’ve ever seen!


  4. Fred says:

    check out the link to progressmans username…..


  5. Zooey says:

    progressman Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

    I understand. You haven’t read the Constitution.


  6. Fred says:

    wow zooey, he’s gone….I like that.


  7. Merlin says:

    progressman Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

    Its gone already! I never saw it.


  8. Badmoodman says:

    Well look. I’m happy. That was in 1983, he didn’t make any apology, he didn’t make any apologies in 1987, so I guess I’m thrilled and forgiving that finally when he’s running for President he remembers to apologize. No, that’s great.

    – - I love the thick stench of sarcasm.


  9. Merlin says:

    Badmoodman Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

    - – I love the thick stench of sarcasm.

    Blended with the acrid smell of desperation that is sure to come in the ensuing months from the McBush campaign.


  10. Fred says:

    He was back again and now he is gone again….maybe they got rid of him this time.


  11. Merlin says:

    McBush a racist??? Bite your tongue. Next you will be telling me he agrees that torture is OK.


  12. Jackie says:

    Well Bush/Cheney lied and got in office twice, McCain might get a few Black votes for his so called apology. Now if there was no boycott of events in Arizona McCain will still not have a MLK Holiday in Arizona. Nothing like being a 71 year old racist and have to lie for a vote. If elected McCain would recalled the King Holiday quick. McCain and Obama are like snake oil salesmen and Americans are drinking that snake oil up. Yes we’re in a recession soon depression but we really don’t want a President that can resolve the current problems. Senior Law Makers are afraid when the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Washington DC Monument is introduced by President Bill Clinton who signed it to law. Yes the Blacks will see the Clintons actions not just words as Obama is using who he can to get a vote. One would wonder with all this so called Black Pride Mr. and Mrs. Obama have where were they during the Katrina Storm as Blacks begged for help and then the Jenna Six. Yes the Obama’s and Oprah were no shows to the Civil Rights of those events yet as Mrs. Obama said black should vote for her husband because he’s black. I say his blackness if from his Father who was not from the US but Kenya. He should go over to Kenya and get the black vote.


  13. Fred says:

    It’s like the way they try to magically turn homosexuality into what people are talking about when you hear that 80% of Americans think we are going in the wrong direction……instead of facing the real reasons people feel that way…..deflection….

    mccain is good at it as long as he has control of the situation and his script handy…..most republicans will think what he has said today is a sign of him changing to meet the changes of the world when in reality it is just a lie…..


  14. woodguy says:

  15. Zooey says:

    Jackie Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    I guess you don’t mind that Hillary Clinton lies constantly and blatantly?

    Where was Hillary during Katrina?


  16. Merlin says:

    Guido the Loving OBGYN Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
    I’m guessing about 6 black people will vote for McCain. And all of them are in the Bush “administration” and just as crooked as Bush.

    You gotta look on the positive side here! McBush has the KKK vote locked up.


  17. Merlin says:

    Jackie Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    Feel better now??


  18. woodguy says:

    20 years too late.


  19. Merlin says:

    woodguy Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
    20 years too late.

    Not for the neocons. As long as you finally agree with them its never too late.


  20. Maverick Watch says:

    i started a new blog dedicated to keeping track of mccain’s doublespeak:

    http://maverickwatch.wordpress.com/

    some of it is directly from this site, but i wanted to just put everything in one place.

    lemme know what you guys think of it.


  21. had enough says:

    McCain is old news and no one cares as he is toast. But where is the impeachment Conyers?


  22. AngryOne says:

    Unfortunately, with each new stop on his “Service to America” biographical tour, John McCain only raises disturbing new questions about his past.

    For the details, see:
    “John McCain’s Bio Waste.”


  23. wijg says:

    Via the CarpetBagger:

    “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.


  24. Shayne says:

    Jackie Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    Interesting that “progressives” you a thread on McCain’s fabrications to slam Obama. I guess that’s why Hillary’s supporters seem so much like Republicans.


  25. Alecto says:

    McFlipflop wa against it before he was for it.


  26. JosephW says:

    Well, Shayne, what’s the problem? There’ve been plenty of other threads which have turned into “Hillary bashing” despite the thread’s having NOTHING to do with Hillary.
    I’d say this is just “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”. (I don’t say it’s right, but then again, you decided to throw a slam against Hillary in your criticism of the slam against Obama. So much for taking the high road, Shayne.)


  27. turnerj41 says:

    Jackie Says:

    “One would wonder with all this so called Black Pride Mr. and Mrs. Obama have where were they during the Katrina Storm as Blacks begged for help and then the Jenna Six.”

    Barrack Obama already embodies what it is too be black. Whether or not he is privileged and understands the lack of opportunity or direction offered to black youth first hand, is barely the question. The fact that he knows that race and racism is an issue that should be dealt is a common trait with Hillary, but that is a far back burner issue for both of them anyway (they will be up to their neck in deficit spending to continue the American Nightmare. Point blank Obama would be a fool to play the race card, he would turn off the hundred million (or more) closet racists in this country. And in turn he would reveal that his understanding of the race issue is shortsighted and wild. If he piped off tomorrow about how he is going to revamp affirmative action and public housing, fox news would probably run a story on the possibility of reparations.

    John Mccain is a bigot, this is a strong piece to destroy his credibility, more evidence to me that he will self-destruct by November 5. Hope many more Republicans lose then too.


  28. Zee says:

    Obama, Clinton and Oprah all visited Katrina and all helped in various ways. OK? Can we move on? Zooey, I assume this blog of your has allllll the ways Hillary “lies constantly?” Uh-huh. As if the MSM wouldn’t be camped out in a 24/7 frenzy if they had anything more than her conflated memory of a trip to a war zone.

    And if McCain is to be pilloried for not supporting MLK Day in the past, I wonder how many progressives know that Kucinich got his start by race-baiting and telling his white voters that his opponent (horrors!) “supports a national holiday for MLK.”


  29. Fred says:

    Maverick Watch Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
    i started a new blog dedicated to keeping track of mccain’s doublespeak:

    http://maverickwatch.wordpress.com/

    some of it is directly from this site, but i wanted to just put everything in one place.

    lemme know what you guys think of it.

    I like it……good work.


  30. Zooey says:

    Zee Says:
    April 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Zooey, I assume this blog of your has allllll the ways Hillary “lies constantly?”

    Yeah, we do. Stop by.


  31. Mad Cox says:

    I watched for ANY of the News Networks to press him on his vote …….& NOTHING. They could broadcast 2 weeks str8 about Rev. Write, but one reporter had the BALLS to ask McCan’t why he voted the way he did not only in 1983(P.E.’s “…By the Time I Get to Arizona” was for McCain & wasn’t made in ‘83), but until the 1990’s on getting the MLK day honored. I see people on here blasting Obama, but not anyone asking why the press let McCain get a free walk on this. He voted against it, not his Pastor(who lets be honest, was vilified the way MLK was in his day. FOX would lead of the News of his death like it was a great day of relief for the U.S.) Life wasn’t like the Huxtable’s when I lived though the 80’s & to think that this guy who thought he was standing up for something then & being a real American; I want to know why he thought that way then & why the press acts so scared to piss off the dude. THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE PEOPLE HECKLING ……BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WILL ASK WHAT THE PRESS WON’T


  32. Mad Cox says:

    “…. 2 weeks str8 about Rev. Write, but NOT one reporter had the BALLS”



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