McCain Gives Mea Culpa in Memphis Over Vote Against King Holiday
John McCain walks past a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn., Friday. (AP Photo)
Forty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, John McCain sought to make amends Friday for originally opposing the creation of a national holiday in honor of the civil rights leader.
In a driving rain, the presumptive Republican nominee stood on the Memphis balcony of Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, and told the gathered crowd he had made a “mistake.”
“We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I myself made long ago … when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong, I was wrong,” McCain said.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee withstood jeers — and later criticism from the Democratic Party — for trying to take back his 25-year-old position on the holiday. He also received encouragement from someone in the crowd who said, “We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes.”
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by King, invited all the presidential candidates to attend its ceremonies Friday. Hillary Clinton didn’t attend but visited the Lorraine Motel later in the day. Barack Obama marked the anniversary at a campaign stop in Indiana.
McCain’s evolution from an opponent of the King holiday to a supporter took years.
“I’d remind you that … we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans,” McCain said Friday.
In his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, McCain sided with the minority and opposed the 1983 law creating the national holiday, arguing there were enough federal holidays and that it would be too costly. In 1987 when the governor of Arizona rescinded the state’s King holiday, McCain called it the correct move. But then he reversed himself in 1989, as Arizona faced tourism boycotts.
A May 1989 edition of the Phoenix Gazette quoted him as saying: “I’m still opposed to another federal holiday … but I support the Arizona Martin Luther King holiday because of the enormous proportions this issue has taken on as far as the image of our state and our treatment towards not only blacks but all minorities.”
Arizona voters eventually approved a measure in 1992, making it the second to last state to recognize the holiday (before New Hampshire in 1999).
McCain said Monday he reversed his stance on the Arizona holiday because he “learned (King) was a transcendent figure in American history.”
He said he was “not proud” that Arizona was one of the last states to recognize the holiday.
But as late as 1994, McCain voted against federal funds for the MLK Federal Holiday Commission.
“It’s frankly disingenuous for John McCain to try and reinvent himself for the general election by distorting his record of opposing a holiday honoring Dr. King,” Democratic National spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement Friday. “John McCain should be honest about his full record of opposing the federal holiday, opposing a state holiday four years later, using divisive language to defend himself and voting to cut off funding for the commission working to promote the King holiday as recently as 1994.”
McCain also took heat for his short-lived support of South Carolina’s right to fly the confederate flag over the state house during the 2000 primary. Not until he was defeated for the nomination did he say that was not his true feeling but an act of political cowardice.
The Democratic candidates also honored King Friday.
Speaking in Memphis, Clinton appeared to get emotional when she talked about King’s death.
“I will never forget where I was when I heard Dr. King had been killed. I was a junior in college. And I remember hearing about it and feeling such despair,” she said, her voice dropping and quivering a bit. “I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room. It felt like everything had been shattered. Like we would never be able to put the pieces together again.”
FOX News’ Carl Cameron, Mosheh Oinounou and Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.
Always respect everybody you meet, you will never know someday you might need that somebody’s help…. It’s too late to amend with Dr. Kings people you are just ignorant and racist as you are.
McCain is a liar who will say anything for votes.
He is another Bush, and we have had enough of that.
McCain is a complete idiot.
Oh heck, I’ll stick my neck out. I have as much respect for MLK as would the next average Joe. He was a great man. Too bad he couldn’t run for President now. His death was an extraordinary waste and I was very upset with everything when it happened. Having said that, and thinking about Federal holidays, yes they are very, very expensive. It’s bad enough that our so-called public servants have the best of benefits and hourly compensation and not necessarily deservedly either. I’m not refering to police or firefighters or other hands-on protective agencies. I’m talking about the people that work in bureaucracies like the Interior dept. or the Forest Service for 80+ grand a year and do little but scramble around to justify their jobs. I don’t blame them particularly either. If I were handed a sack job in the government with all the benefits to go with it I would be hard pressed to blow a whistle on myself. I’m only human. But I wouldn’t seek a job like that in the first place. What bothers me about Fed holidays is the cost. Not only paying all the “help” for the day but paying double time for those that still have to work and also paying to “shut down” a bureaucracy for a day. That also means people leave early on Friday and start late on Tuesday or rather come in to work on time on Tuesday and spend the morning bs’ing with coworkers all morning about their three day weekend. Giving McCain the benefit of the doubt is to say that he is pragmatic. We could use some more of that in our government, actually a lot more! Stop Government WASTE! It’s just more nails for the coffin.
This gives me an opportunity to segway this into one of my biggest peaves about our system. Now that the American work force has such a huge percentage working for the government or working for a private business that is a vendor doing most, if not all, of their business with the government at all levels it is past time to bring up “conflict of interest voting”. There are many laws to protect us from “conflict of interest” situations. There is no law though that states if you work for the government you are not allowed to vote for anybody that holds sway over your job. In other words if a candidate professes keeping an agency funded even when that agency is not in the best interest of our people and the opposing candidate wants to get rid of that agency. Who would those people that would benefit keeping the agency funded vote for? So what about the huge voter sympathy on the part of the government employees support for the candidate that will continue to support their worthless bureaucracy. Wouldn’t that be a “conflict of interest”? In any other situation at least in the private sector that would be illegal. I think that the vast majority of government employees would vote for whichever candidate supports large government no matter which side of the aisle the candidate hails from even if the voter isn’t necessarily directly affected. Another thing…why do government employees pay taxes? Makes no sense. Pay back to the government that just paid you? Makes less sense the more I think about it.
Plus….
What are some of the causes of inflation? The dollar vs. any other currency and the dollar losing value. What causes the dollar to lose value?….Dollars that are gained by people without any real value added. “Interest” is one thing (it is frowned upon in the bible). Or for instance the feds need to add more dollars to pay government employees’ wages (somehow they work the math). Where is the value? There is no product that is sellable nor even an asset with value added when paying the billions in wages to non-essential work performed by the government.
I’m sure that many people will amend or argue everything I say here to agree with their particular stance but the truth is the truth.
As a private person with a one man business I don’t get paid for any holidays. So I guess you would say I have the least to gain by Federal holidays but I usually take the day off anyway. I do support the ones we have. Except I always work on labor day…lol
Chuck
To Apologize for votes is the worst type of a bigget there is.
Obama is criticized to no end about comments his pastor made, but O’Reiley supports McCain even though he opposed making Martin Luther King Day a holiday Seven years in a row?!!! Fair and Balanced?
it is amazing to see that McCain keep apologizing to the right and to the left. When will he apologize for starting this war? I do not have time to wait for his apology 20 years from now, not even 4 years.
Why does everyone think they should apologize for not wanting to name roads after, make federal holidays after, and proclaim a one month proclamation of black history month? Why don’t we have white history month? Why don’t we see a George Washington street in every city in America like we do a MLK street?
I don’t buy it, many of you can, but I won’t. I don’t find it surprising that he has apologized during the his presidential run, and since it is during this election process that he deems it imprortant to do so, it comes of to me as being self serving. So on a scale from 1 to 10. ten being the higest worse. I give him a 9 1/2 for atempting to garnish supports from blacks on the anniversiary of Dr. King’s death. How low can you go.
Why now?
It’s political stupid!
Mac is Back!
John McCain has had many years opportunity to apologize for not supporting a bill that would help further a holiday for King. While his apologies may be acepted by some, I find it untimely to do so at this juncture. Why? because he is running for president people. If he had taken steps to apologizes years ago, then I as well as many others would see some level of sincerity. To take the 40th year since the assasination of the late Dr. King to me is self serving. While the media play games with teh viewers, by saying “McCain apologizes for voting against a King holiday.” Some of the self seving media has the audacity to say, McCain’s apology was genuine. You people can’t handle the truth. The truth is when McCain was just one of the good ole boys, he enjoyed standing on his good old principles. Well just like Hillary made the mistake and voting for the war. McCain has made the costly mistake of not voting for a king holiday, and blacks are not going to forget that during the elections.