McCain: "I hate the gooks."
hogginthefogg
6,098 Posts
How did I miss this?
More here:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/02/18/MN32194.DTLArizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war."I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."[/b]McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, was questioned about the language because of a story last month in the Nation magazine reporting his continued use of the slur.Since then, reports of McCain's language have been circulating on Internet chat sites and e-mails among Asian Americans, many of whom find the the term offensive and inappropriate for an elected official.McCain's appeal to voters has been as a wartime hero and a feisty politician who speaks his mind and damns the consequences. But his comments on the eve of the key South Carolina primary show the candidate's vaunted "straight talk" in another light."The use of a racist slur can't be acceptable for any national leader, regardless of his background," said Diane Chin, executive director of the San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action. "For someone running for president not to recognize the power of words is a problem."While McCain's words may have little effect in conservative South Carolina, where few Asian Americans live, they could come back to haunt him in other states."Historically, straight talkers who say things off the top of their heads eventually hang themselves with those sorts of remarks," said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley."While it might not hurt him now, Democrats are not going to have any hesitation about using this stuff to string him up later."TERM FOR HIS CAPTORSMcCain made no apologies yesterday."I was referring to my prison guards," McCain said, "and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends."McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam.Campaign officials do not expect the controversy to hurt McCain, either in tomorrow's South Carolina primary or later in the campaign."If people understood the context, they wouldn't be upset," Mike Murphy, a senior adviser to the campaign, said last night.
Comments
anyway he said that back when he was "CARZY JOHN MCCAIN!!!" and no it's not so funny since he could be pres....
this will get some play in the general; no doubt.
Anyone who thinks that McCain is not a racist, imperialist, warmonger will be very disappointed when he becomes president.
*Actual John McCain quote.
Plaese to post the proof that McCain's people started the Wright fiasco.
I'd like to show it to some folks.
besides, it directly contradicts obama's stated desire to make the race about issues rather than 'smears' - and while i think john mccain using racial slurs is hard to consider a 'smear,' to the broader electorate (aka whitey) it is comparable to obama saying his gramma is a 'typical white person'
I kinda hate that Obama has painted himself into a corner in this respect and that any kind of dirt he throws back toward those who try to smear him gets played like he's not keeping his promise.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_obama_video
This was today, they did the same thing last week. Try google.
No, and it'll probably be another century before we get one.
When hell freezes over.
Oh wait...
yeah he tried to place it in context, as in he specifically meant it in reference to his viet cong tormentors.
I mean the truth is a lot of whacky McCain-related things have never mattered...until now. the mind boggles, actually, that this guy is now the GOP nominee and has a far-better-than-a-long-shot chance at being leader of the free world.
Yeah, I know. I really thought this was old news - he went through this years ago I remember and it was the same shit: "I'm not going to apologize for calling my torturers gooks." And it's hard a hard position to critique but I wonder how it'd play out different if his torturers had been, say, African.
Patty Hearst.....
Mussolini, Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, Mao.
so then why did you say it?
I said it because some people seem to think that having an atheist leader will be inherently better.
Yeah, I don't think it'd be inherently better. Would be an interesting contrast.
And personally, in the current state, I think a Muslim candidate would fare worse than an atheist.
No one gets paranoid about "radical atheism."
Not yet at least.
You are right. The vids existed long before McCain's campaign started distributing them and sending them to the press and supportors. I didn't mean to suggest that they invented started... started what I'm not sure, people watching and talking about the videos? They were a big part. It's all a feedback loop. The vids were their, Obama was there, youtube was there, but when a campaign sends the press, and millions (does he have millions?) of supportors the vids and accusations, well their hands aint exactly clean.