Slow Learner

Oh dear, I fear I may wear out this graphic header very soon.

Today McCain spoke at the spot where Dr. King was killed, and he admitted that he was wrong about opposing a holiday in King's honor. Kudos for that admission. However....

McCain: I voted in my first year in congress against it. 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 own state of Arizona for recognition against a governor who was of my own party. ...

As Markos Moulitsas notes:

McCain was 32 when King died. He was 47 when he voted against the holiday. He claims he didn't know about MLK that entire time? That it was merely "an issue"? The reporter is right, this wasn't an issue, it was basic knowledge of American history.

And Steve Benen comments:

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.

Jake Tapper of ABC News:

In Arizona, a bill to recognize a holiday honoring MLK failed in the legislature, so then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, declared one through executive order.

In January 1987, the first act of Arizona's new governor, Republican Evan Mecham, was to rescind the executive order by his predecessor to create an MLK holiday. Arizona's stance became a national controversy.

McCain backed the decision at the time.

The story does not add up well. If McCain came to the right place in the end, that's a good thing. But his story of how he got there is, shall we say, questionable. Let's go back to this bit: "McCain was 32 when King died. He was 47 when he voted against the holiday. " Where the hell was he all those years? What on earth did he not know about issues of civil rights in 1983?

How out of it was he then? How out of it is he now? Or is it all a tissue of lies?

This man should not be president.
--the BB