McCain's Dishonest Spin on MLK Day in AZ

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 5:13 AM on August 4, 2008.

It’s easy to understand why John McCain is embarrassed by his record on civil rights, but the smart thing to do would be to explain why he’s had a sincere change of heart. McCain, for reasons that I can’t understand, has decided to pursue a far less honest path.



Consider this exchange from a press conference on Friday: [Ed: The version Benen used in his original post has been removed from YouTube, we grabbed this one instead]





McCain had said he’d fought for civil rights throughout his career, and a reporter asked him to be more specific. After a very long, unusually awkward pause, McCain mentioned how “proud” he is of his record “fighting for the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday in my state.”

Again, given McCain’s awful record on civil rights issues, it makes sense that he’d want to mislead people. But brining up his “fight” in support of a day to honor Dr. King is unusually offensive, given his actual record.


This helps explain why McCain prefers voters remain unaware of 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 problem, of course, is that the vote isn’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.



Now, McCain’s traditional defense is that he was initially wrong about this when he got to Congress, but learned over time. But this is also misleading. He voted against the King holiday in ‘83. Four years later, he didn’t fight against a governor of his own party; he endorsed the governor’s move to eliminate a King holiday.

Six years after his House vote he finally began supporting an official holiday in Arizona, 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 I’d feel a whole lot better about his position if he weren’t still trying to deceive people.


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Tagged as: civil rights, mccain, mlk day

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.