What John Lewis' attack on John McCain was really about, and Obama's response

With the number of preelection days dwindling and tempers rising, we had more of the predictable homestretch toing-and-froing over campaign attacks Saturday.

Someone on Side A says something that Side B can seize upon and criticize to create a fight, which the media much prefers covering with military verbiage because it's bored hearing the standard stump speeches so often.

And that puts Side A momentarily on the defensive while it "admonishes" its overzealous supporter, even though, if anyone told the truth -- which they won't -- they're delighted to have the suggestion out there as long as it can't be traced back to HQ.

If these campaigns had referees, they'd be calling offsetting penalties every day now. And we have 24 more of these to watch.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) likened the politics of Arizona Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to segregationist former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

McCain shot back his longstanding admiration of civil rights pioneer Lewis but said it was ridiculous to equate legitimate criticism of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and his policies with Wallace and constituted "a brazen and baseless attack on ...

... my character and the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events."

McCain called on Obama to repudiate the attack, which the Democratic presidential nominee's campaign didn't really do later in the day.

Even if spontaneous, it's all part of the good-cop-bad-cop PR trench warfare, Washington gridlock politics played out on a larger national stage.

Lewis took the occasion of McCain himself admonishing his supporters Friday night to cool it in their shouted distaste for the Democratic ticket.

Lewis said: "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 only desired to exercise their constitutional right."

He said McCain and Palin are "playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

McCain's side fired back (note the military term) that Lewis' assault (again) was a character attack "shocking and beyond the pale."

Later Saturday, Obama's camp shot up a flare to disassociate itself from the worst of Lewis' statement, while not really rebuking the political ally who had turned his back on the Clintons so helpfully at just the right time during the primary season. But it added a qualifier to allow the odor of Lewis' remarks to linger.

"Sen. Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies," said the campaign statement.  But wait! There's more:

"John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night."

Bottom line: Just like World War I, artillery back and forth. The trenches didn't move any. But unlike that military stalemate, this election race has a predetermined end. Both sides fed their troops some angry propaganda Saturday to keep them outraged and fired up out there on the front lines.

Most of us watched from the sidelines, shaking our heads and wondering over the persistent absence of serious discussion beyond bumper-sticker sound bites.

And McCain has one less day to change the game's momentum.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Office of Rep. John Lewis

Comments

[SFCMAC]

Hey 'plain jane':

Let’s see, Barack Hussein Obama so far, as accumulated Louis Farrakhan, Daniel Ortega, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Hamas, among his admirers, supporters, and associates. He's a human bug light for despots, terrorists, and hate spewers. No wonder the democrats love him.

That's the truth, sweetpea.

[Lea]

Good Lord, have you people been around the last 8 years? The amount of actual death threats that have come out of the left have been staggering.

It sounds like much of the "anger" the media has been talking about has actually been directed at...the media!

Get the F over it, you whiners. Your guy has been hanging out with disgusting people and folks know it. This is going to happen when you nominate a Chicago machine guy.

[Edward Beazley]

John Lewis is an old time race baiter, who's every response to any question has to be answered about being black. His mind thinking is the same every time,blaming white people for his failure as a politician

[hdgreene]

George Wallace was a Democrat. I thought only Republicans compared John McCain to Democrats.

[SGT Ted]

*yawn* Big whoop. Whoever the Republians run as a Presidential candidate ALWAYS gets called a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe by the Democrats. Then, when a Republican criticizes the Democrat candidite using facts, the Dem whine about how "mean and ugly" the race got. The press is now actively in the DNC hierarchy, so thus the full on barrage of articles that simply echo Obama press releases with no scrutiny of the Dem candidate beyond a superficial dismissal of any negative attacks, while affirming the wonderfulness of the Obamessiah. ACORN getting busted all across the nation for voter fraud should be a clue to anyone with common sense, that their tax dollars are going to a leftwing radical outfit who's goal is provide enough fraudulent ballots to tip close elections to their favored candidates. ACORN needs to be shut down and its leaders jailed.

[Steve]

All this does not matter because McCain has Bush to thnak for loosing the election. With this economy there is no way McCain will win and I am a Republian , way to go morons

[SGT Ted]

Actually, the lack of conservatives posting here is evidence only that we don't read the LA TImes. Go ahead and enjoy your lib echo chamber. You might just wake up on Nov 5th and be like that New York lib socialite who was puzzled that Nixon won the election, because no one she knew voted for him.

[Doug]

George Wallace was a Democrat! Lewis would be smart to know the history of his own party, as would the rest of the Democrats in America. Don't be so high and mighty with a past like that.

[An American]

Politics aside, all those lunatics who shout "kill him", off with his head", "terrorist" and other awful words against Obama at the McCain/Palin events should remember ONE thing: Senator Obama is a father of two young kids. Those precious children are fellow Americans who need their father. Uttering those nasty words are unbecoming of those Americans who speak them. Disagree with Obama but don't wish or cause him death. And the same goes for a true American hero Senator McCain.

[Nan Sequitur]

Obama campaign: "Tough luck, McCain, we warned you we'd go after you if you brought up Ayers."

Considering Obama is an Alinsky methodologist from way back, why should it surprise anyone that he would keep his word that he would respond in Alinsky-style fashion (gross distortions, defamation, distraction) if McCain dared to bring up the associations Obama and his pets in the media have been fearing the American public would examine if they did more than gloss over it?

More info is coming forward about Obama's ties to the voter-fraud and subprime pressure outfit ACORN, as well as the ideological ties to Bill Ayers in regards to their pimping of "school reform" to indoctrinate young folks into radicalism rather than teaching them academics or even skills to help them outside the activist plantation Ayers' education plans would keep them on.

I'm not a real fan of McCain/Palin, but Obama's campaign and supporters, and Obama himself, have consistently shown that when the spotlight of exposure is upon their man, they will stop at nothing to smear the other side in retaliation for bringing Americans closer to the truth of what Obama not only thinks, but what he himself has said about himself in the past.

John McCain had better stop worrying about what hardcore leftist agitators and self-interested racialists say about him and present his agenda for the American people.

At the same time, he has every right to point out personal bad policies and connections Obama has utilized to advance himself in politics.

We already know McCain's flaws. Obama's using every trick in the book, including giving winks and nods to outright falsehoods, to make certain the American public is distracted from learning his.

[Black Barack]

Acknowledging any comments by inner city negroes is a completel waste of time. They are all the same.

Obama is going to win this election, no question. It will be very interesting to see how Pelosi and Reid ram laws down his weak throat. I also predict Obama is so left wing he will only serve one term, disgraced like that sack of s- Carter.

[claude]

cong lewis is pitiful to make a statment like that

african american vote is 94% for obama
who is voting race??

Hastings should not be in position to represent the US

[nlcatter]

"campaign didn't really do later in the day."

of course they did - and you dont post it but those who can read (evidently not mccain supporters who think Obama is ARAB) saw it.

[nick]

its the DUMB card not the race card

- Obama is ARAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

how many times do we have to repeat
how dumb his supporters are

[Wade Collins]

Here's what it boils down to: McCain is not allowed to fight fair without getting rebuked by Obama's supporters.

Obama is a Chicago political thug and a liar. He preys on the simple minded who are willing to ignore his alliances with leftists, communists, and yes even terrorists. It's the clearest case of reverse racisim that I've seen yet.

If Mr Colin Powell was running for President on the Republican ticket, left wingers would have played the Uncle Tom card with him. Look at how the Left and especially femininists have projected their hate toward Govenor Palin.

Obama supporters have played the race card from day one, anyone who questions Obama's strange alliances and associations is automatically labeled as racist or dangerous. What I note as a former Democrat is the new left are today's Nazi's, maybe not in action but in their deeds. This country can not afford to elected the annointed one to any position above community organizer.

[G-Man]

I personally saw Howard Dean and his entourage hanging out Friday afternoon/evening less than 1/4-mile from John Lewis campaign building in Downtown Atlanta, He may have been in town just campaigning (though I thought the Obama camp had given up on GA), or possibly preparing the final text of Lewis' press release. I'm just sayin'....

Seems fishy to me as an outsider...could this have been a prepared attack by Dean and Co?

Like I said, I'm just saying....

G-Man

[djcb]

Is this the same John Lewis that heralded during the presidential forum at Rick Warren's California megachurch when John McCain was asked to name the "three wisest people" (Gen. David Petraeus; former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, one of his economic advisers; and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leading figure in the civil rights movement) he would "rely heavily on" if elected president?

[El]

As the McCain campaign ridiculously tries to tie Obama to Ayers, why aren't we hearing about McCain sitting on the board of one the scariest terrorist organizations in the world? Why aren't we hearing about his very real and direct work with the U.S. Council for World Freedom--a group with Nazi ties and which funded guerrilla death squads around the globe?

[RB]

John Lewis stepping up and calling McCain and Palin on their BS and lies is not an "attack". an ATTACK is calling Obama a terrorist. if the neocon commenters and lackies want to argue that McCain and Palin have not made that claim then all of the past weeks news about the angry mobs at the McCain-Palin rallies calling for death to Obama must have passed them by. This was to be expected from 40 or more years of GOP lies and smears aided by the corporate media, particularly the GOP propaganda machine Fox News which has been going strong for a dozen years unchallenged. it is not like John Lewis is the only one pointing out the hypocrisy and lies of the right-wing crazies, but I am happy he had the cojones to stand up for Obama at this juncture.

[sobelle]

only way the messiah will win the election is with the help of ACORN !!!!! CROOKED VOTE BUYING POLITIC'S !!!

[sobelle]

mavis "darling" the time's sure as hell is far to the left ! my post re: the messiah and acorn was not posted "deerie" !!!!!!!

[ConcernedinSan Diego]

What kind of country have we devolved into when campaigns run messages that are so vitriolic and untrue that they cause members of their base to shout out “kill him”…”traitor”. This is supposed to be a democracy where we are tolerant of other opinions. In all the years since I started to vote, I thought I had seen virtually everything. What I have seen in this election just plain scares me. When the Vice Presidential candidate stands up on a podium and ALLOWS members of the crowd to shout such horrific unspeakable comments out and it goes unchallenged…it is truly a sad day. I am glad to see that McCain has tried to tone down the rhetoric and Palin has backed off but I am really concerned they have opened Pandora's box. With all the instability and uncertainty going on in this country and the anger, the last thing we need is to fan the flames even further and that is exactly what the McCain campaign has set out to do. Letting Sarah Palin run rampant and stir up the base to a frenzy where they are not able to control people, is just plain unconscionable.

While I don't know whether I agree with Congressman's analogy to George Wallace, I think the McCain/Palin ticket has pandered to those who are against Obama simply because of his race, because he is "different". In today's global world, we need tolerance not further division. I just read a thought provoking and downright SCARY story on what could happen because of all this hatespeech and God forbid, I pray it never does. Would recommend it highly....it's called "When The Dow Breaks"...and you can find it at www.walkaboutjones.com. I never thought I would even think about what the focus of this story is...but it points to the fact that we have not grown as a country when the politics of division are still alive and thriving in 2008. Enough. This country needs a campaign on the issues. I recommend everyone read the story. It'll make you think what could happen if this politics of hate continues. We need to make our voices known on election day and to show that these politics of lies don't work, that we are a country that wants the best person for the job...no matter whether they are different from us or might hold different opinions from us. Again, what we need to learn again as a country is tolerance. We are a country that ostensibly was built on the concept of tolerance and freedom. Let's get back to that. I agree with previous comments that if this campaign had been about the issues and the challenges that this country faces, I would feel a whole lot better about where things stand. But McCain, who just a couple of months ago, said this would be a campaign of the issues, in the name of wanting victory, turned his campaign over to the political hacks who ran "Swift Boat Veterans" and all the other lies that have plagued our politics of late. Read the story...it'll make you think.
http://www.walkaboutjones.com/washington-jones/when-the-dow-breaks/#more-540

[therockofages]

We don't need nor want someone to 'explain' what this is all about; it is painfully obvious. But thanks anyway for pandering shamelessly to Oprahama and his 'right' to pull the race card from the loaded deck while simultaneously criticizing anyone else for the slightest inference to race. The double standard and hypocrisy is astounding; although liberals have been well known for this failing throughout their overrated history. Wright, Farrakahn, Lewis; what more do we need to know? I am a political centrist and am appalled by the blatant double standards in the Oprahama campaign. He can fool young people, they have no real life experiences; how he is fooling the older generation is beyond comprehension; although I suspect the 'support numbers' are fudged.

[Mike J]

George Wallace, Orval Faubus, and Sheriff Bull Connor were Democrats.

Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

It was the Republicans that ended slavery and it was a larger portion of Republicans than Democrats that passed the Civil Rights Acts.

It is the Democrats that leverage race and class for political power.

Democrats will lie, cheat, and steal for political power.

Democrats meddling in the housing markets caused the financial crisis.

Democrats forced affirmative action subprime mortgages on lenders who knew better.

Democrats and their social engineering distort markets and we all have to pay.

Democrats are either stupid or immoral; choose one.

[Hank]

Lewis is considered to be a "race man" by most knowledgible blacks. The result of the pursuit of "race consciousness, race pride, and race solidarity" was the emergence of particular social types, among which was the "Race Man" according to St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton in their book Black Metropolis. The Obama campaign's most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads. To a large degree, the Obama campaign's strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters--a campaign-within-the-campaign. While promoting Obama as a "post-racial" figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the Presidential contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics. Why should anyone be surprise when Congressman Lewis is chosen to contine the Obama strategy of race-baiting?

The media coverage of Obama has been an endless series of puff pieces, many of which employ the same fork-tongued rhetoric: ‘He transcends race (but support him, because he’s black).’ Such uncritical campaign propaganda from the press should not surprise students of the media - Obama and the people “covering” him are overwhelmingly leftists. Alleged journalists see helping Obama win as a matter of political honor.