Posted on 02/26/2008 11:37:45 AM PST by indcons
CINCINNATI (AP) — Republican John McCain quickly denounced the comments of a radio talk show host who while warming up a campaign crowd referred repeatedly to Barack Hussein Obama and called the Democrat a "hack, Chicago-style" politician.
Hussein is Obama's middle name, but talk show host Bill Cunningham used it three times as he addressed the crowd before the likely Republican nominee's appearance.
"Now we have a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who is picturing himself as change. When he gets done with you, all you're going to have in your pocket is change," Cunningham said as the audience roared.
The time will come, Cunningham added, when the media will "peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama" and tell the truth about his relationship with indicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko and how Obama got "sweetheart deals" in Chicago.
McCain wasn't on stage nor in the building when Cunningham made the comments, but he quickly distanced himself from them and the talk show host after finishing his speech. McCain spoke to a couple hundred people at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati.
"I apologize for it," McCain told reporters, addressing the issue before they had a chance to ask the Arizona senator about Cunningham's comments.
"I did not know about these remarks but I take responsibility for them. I repudiate them," he said. "My entire campaign I have treated Senator Obama and Senator (Hillary Rodham) Clinton with respect. I will continue to do that throughout this campaign.
McCain called both Democrats "honorable Americans" and said "I want to dissociate myself with any disparaging remarks that may have been said about them."
Asked whether the use of Obama's middle name — the same as former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — is proper, McCain said: "No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate."
McCain said he didn't know who decided to allow Cunningham to speak but said he was sure it was in coordination with his campaign. He said he didn't hear the comments and has never met Cunningham, but "I will certainly make sure that nothing like that happens again.
Bill Cunningham will be on tonight’s Hannity & Colmes - 9pm EST. Bill is also pretty ticked that the Rezko trial is being silenced by the lamestream press.
I knew good and well that it was only a matter of time, well before the actual election that McCain would tear the lid off of that stinking mass of rotting garbage that lies just beneath the surface of his “Conservative” exterior.
Like we have no brain and can’t remember things from the past? Well, forget the past, there will be countless examples to come in this most useless and pointless RINO who calls himself a conservative candidate. Vote McCain? NOT A CHANCE!
Yeah I can see the scene now. "Et tu, Teddy? Then fall, McCaesar."
I'd cry if it wasn't so freakin stupidly pathetic.
Cunningham is not running, your McLame is. This latest attempt to reach across the aisle by taking the so-called high road does nothing to endear himself to the conservatives who truly do hate him but are forced to vote for him for fear of Hillary or Hussein getting the presidency.
Tell your homie to keep it up and eventually he WILL chickenshit himself out of a potential presidency...........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton#Early_life
with attributions.
When Obama was 20, there was nothing particularly odd about the name Hussein. What 20 year old had even heard of Saddam Hussein in 1982? He's just a few years older than me, and I certainly had not.
Should all of people named Adolph have changed their names when Hitler came on the scene? Were they Nazi sympathizers if they didn't?
Are all people named Karl-with-a-K Marxists? Some one should tell Karl Rove if that is the case.
At the end of the day, though, if this is all anyone can come up with, instead of talking about real issues, we are absolutely, 100% ceding the election to Obama.
We'll just be giving up...
But no matter what McCain does, he’s not going to win without the support of the Conservatives who, up to now, have been the backbone of the Republican Party.The formula for winning the presidency changes every once in awhile. Reagan won with a right of center coalition and Republican candidates have used that formula ever since. McCain is banking on winning with a centrist coalition that either won't need conservatives or assumes they will support whoever the pub nominee is.
If McCain wins the new formula for a Republican candidate will be changed for a generation or more. If he loses then it will strengthen the old formula.
A McCain win could be a lot worse for conservatives than a McCain defeat.
“So let me understand this...McCain acts like a Gentleman...and you add a “barf alert”....nice........”
McCain only reserves his rath and name calling for his constituents and those who have to work with him. But he plays nice with the oppostion when nothing but the truth was told about them. McCain is a hypocrite, among other things.
Capitol Hill staffers rate their bosses.
McCain got no glory from those who work with him.
“Every election year we survey top aides on both sides of the aisle—administrative assistants, press secretaries, legislative directors, and chiefs of committee staffs—to get their up-close and personal, and anonymous, views. While there may be lots of partisan backbiting among congress members, their staffers seem far more capable of putting politics aside and making honest judgments. It wasn’t unusual for aides in both parties to name one of their own as “spineless” or give the “workhorse” nod to someone across the aisle. “
Worst Follower 2. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Show Horse 2. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Hottest Temper 2. John McCain (R-Ariz.) known to snap at staff when the cameras are off
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/mediapolitics/1666.html
...Worth repeating. McCain is assuming he will get the support of conservatives no matter what. Just like the Democrats assume they will always get the support of blacks.He knows that many of the conservatives moaning today will in the end never sit out the election and let Obama become president. He has to woo those who are politically moderate but doubt Obama's image as a uniter or realize that his inexperience makes him too dangerous to be President.
...
It appears to me that McCain is all we've got...So are you a Conservative or are you a Republican? Is having an R by the name enough?Your thoughts?
Obama’s father never really raised him. He left at 2. Obama had no reason to keep the name.
Actually the name Adolph dropped off as a popular name after the rise of Hitler. In America, it was very popular among German immigrants. As for the name Hitler, in 1938, there were like 10 Hitlers in the Manhattan phone book. In 1939, with the bombing of Poland, the phone directory had no more Hitlers in the phone book.
Seriously, having a name like that in elective politics is just a bad idea. I have read that people have a hard time voting for people with very un European sounding names. Just some thoughts I am bringing out.
McCain had a similar strategy for keeping the House and Senate in republican hands. Deride Republicans for the Abramoff scandal, and pump up Democrats. It almost worked.
Not surprising. This is all planned AFAIC. Cunningham lays down the talking points, McCain apologizes, more publicity on Hannity and Colmes to get more anti-Obama points out. Pure politics.
McCain played this perfectly.
The Battle for this election will be the moderates. We won them in 2000 and 2004. Lost them in 2006.
The vast majority of non-Freepers see the Hussein middle name thing as outright childish. By telling conservatives to grow up, he’s just had his Sister Soldjah moment.
The MSM will love him for this and totally forget about the NYT’s story.
That is true for a lot of people. I'm just saying that there was no real reason to change it when he was a young man. I'm also saying that if someone's middle name is an issue conservatives hammer on over and over, we are giving the election away. There are issues we can win on. This is not one of them.
Actually the name Adolph dropped off as a popular name after the rise of Hitler. In America, it was very popular among German immigrants. As for the name Hitler, in 1938, there were like 10 Hitlers in the Manhattan phone book. In 1939, with the bombing of Poland, the phone directory had no more Hitlers in the phone book.
But were those who kept it Nazi-sympathizers? I would say the answer is "no", not necessarily. No more than Karl Rove is a Marxist.
Seriously, having a name like that in elective politics is just a bad idea. I have read that people have a hard time voting for people with very un European sounding names. Just some thoughts I am bringing out.
I think that bringing it up over and over isn't helpful. People have no trouble discerning when they are being fed insubstantial fluff arguments. If what you say is true, that people have trouble with non-European names (and I have no doubt that you are correct) it is Obama's problem.
But hammering him on it makes it sound like conservatives have no other concerns. It makes it sound like his middle name is somehow really important to us. And we do have many other issues that we can win on. And this (the middle name thing) cannot be important to us. It isn't a defense issue. It isn't a banking or housing issue. It has nothing to do with health care or with the things that people want to know about.
Inconsequential arguments are what people who don't have substantial arguments are forced to resort to. And conservatives can always win on substance. We will never win on silly things like arguments about middle names.
I agree with your points, but giving you some information why yes, names are important to a small segment of people. The point is, after the invasion of Poland, nobody in America named Hitler kept the last name. They changed it legally within a year. It was obviously an important name with meaning that upset people, even if the person was not related to Hitler at all.
I do not like Obama based on the fact he is in favor of giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses, his favoring of NAFTA, his voting record as senator (which is abominable), and his ties to a “christian” church whose main pastor is a friend of Louis Farrakhan.
As for his name, I am for you, we should not hammer him on it, but remember when that photo of Obama surfaced with him in Islamic gear? There is a locked in segment of the population that will not vote for any president who dresses in that manner, whether it was out of respect or not. After 9-11 these are facts, Keith Ellison excluded.
“Is Obama’s middle name Osama or not?”
I agree that an apology wasn’t called for in this instance of someone calling Obama by his true middle name (but it’s not Osama, assuming you meant Hussein instead).
Is evoking a middle name of Hussien kinda like uptight muslims being offended by images of Mohammad?
This was McCain making it clear that he doesn’t give a rat’s patooey about conservatives. He was bound to backtrack on his phony-baloney CPAC song and dance in due course, so better now than later.
The McCain people probably just set Cunningham up, telling him to rile up the crowd with some offerings of red meat so that McCain could come in later on and play the house vegan. The guy will devote all his time to wooing disaffected Hillary voters. Everything with him is about reaching across the aisle. He’s a disaster and will get drubbed by Obama. Afterwards, he’ll blame Rush or Bush or anyone other than himself.
This is great. There’s an out-an-out pro-al Qaeda Marxist running for president and we are stuck with a candidate who can’t challenge him on very many meaningful issues because they are basically on the same side, and he won’t even take a few pot shots for fear of threatening the chance for consensus.
Does McCain even understand that there can only be one winner in an election? Is he gonna go about this as if he’s trying to carve out some bipartisan legislation? We’re staring down the barrel of for-real communism and THIS complete dolt is our candidate. Really freakin’ great.
This is just a sign of things to come. The Republican party is down to this guy and a sleazy con artist.
Looks like the first term for Obama is going to be a very long one.
Isnt this just the epitome of the problem with McCain as our candidate? Notice what he said about Barack Obama, and Hillary for that matter. They are “His colleagues in the Senate” and “Patriotic Americans”.
Will all due respect sir...that’s both BS and your exact problem. First, they should not be your colleagues. A colleague is an associate that one works with. If you are the conservative you are attempting to claim you are, how in the world could you claim to work with people whose goal is to gain political power and use it to impose socialism. You should be regarding them as people you are working against.
Patriotic Americans? Mule Fritters!
You are speaking about a guy who thinks it too much of an imposition to wear a flag on his lapel, or put his hand over his heart and pledge allegence to our flag. A woman who would have us take that pledge to our Government, not our Nation. These people have no concept of Patriotism or any love of Country as is or was, only an egomaniacal enamoration with what they think they might be able to turn it into.
In poker, this would be called a tell. Sadly the tell is that when McCain does stuff like this, he is revealing that he doesnt get who he is dealing with. Like a sucker at a carnival game, if he just pays one more dollar for one more throw, if he just goes along with one more entitlement program, just a little more imposition on our freedom, then he will knock that metaphorical stack of bottles off the pedastal, and the democrats will see their error and we can all work together for progress.
Right after I am crowned King of England.
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