Well, if the truth be told, John Lewis didn’t tell a lie when he attacked John McCain and his sidekick Sarah Palin and yes, her shadow Todd Palin. Lewis issued his statement after several days of anger directed at Democratic nominee Barack Obama by some attendees at McCain campaign rallies.
According to CNN, Lewis said”What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. [Sarah] Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.” John McCain has often praised the civil rights icon John Lewis, but this time he called the statement that compares the recent Republican rallies to the rhetoric of segregationist George Wallace “a brazen and baseless attack” that is “shocking and beyond the pale.” Hello, how else do you explain people screaming “kill him” or yelling “terrorist” or calling for “treason?”
This is the most powerful statement made to-date about the rallies tinged with anger and animosity: “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama,” wrote Lewis.
McCain said during a summer faith forum that Lewis was one of three men he would turn to for counsel as president. Well, I guess he won’t need Lewis for anything whether he wins the election or not. McCain has called on Obama to repudiate them. “Congressman John Lewis’ comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale,” he said in a Saturday afternoon statement released by his campaign.
“The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama’s record and positions could be compared to Governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign. I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.” Legitimate? Palin literally called Barack Obama a terrorist herself, so what else are these lunatics that attend the rallies supposed to think?
“I call on Senator Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America.” If I were Barack Obama, I wouldn’t repudiate shit. McCain only started to tone down the anger when his own Republicans started lashing out at his campaign. As far as Sarah Palin is concerned, she needs to just crawl back to Alaska because she, as one columnist has said, is a “fatal cancer” to the Republican Party. She is, by far, the worst vice presidential pick I can recall in recent times. She is a disgrace to women–blurring the lines between separation of church and state; hanging around a pastor who ran a woman out of town for alleged “witchcraft;” abusing her power as governor to get her brother-in-law fired; for conducting personal business on government time and billing for bogus Per Diem work; for using her personal e-mail account to conduct government business; for giving her husband, former separatist party member, free run of her office, and I could go on and on.
Filed under: Barack Obama, George Wallace, John Lewis, John McCain, Sarah Palin
Black Political Thought 