Hey, John McCain: Have you bothered watching the ad you condemned yet?

Michelle Malkin ^ | 04/26/08 | Michelle Malkin

[coffee260]

Did you know that John McCain lambasted the North Carolina GOP’s anti-Obama/Jeremiah Wright ad without having seen it?

Yes, this noxious little tidbit was tucked into an AP story three days ago when the controversy broke and has been little remarked upon since. When I mentioned this fact at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference dinner last night, much of the audience gasped. Obviously, the word hasn’t gotten out there enough:

The ad opens with a photo of Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright together and a clip of Wright, whose incendiary comments about race have bedeviled Obama.

“He’s just too extreme for North Carolina,” the narrator says in the 30-

second spot. “We asked them not to run it,” McCain told reporters traveling with him in Kentucky. “I’m sending them an e-mail as we speak asking them to take it down.

“I don’t know why they do it. Obviously, I don’t control them, but I’m making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there’s no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don’t want it,” McCain said.

McCain said the ad was described to him: “I didn’t see it, and I hope that I don’t see it.”

Let me repeat that:

“I didn’t see it, and I hope that I don’t see it.”

He didn’t bother to watch the 41-second video before his campaign leaned on the NC GOP to withdraw it.

He doesn’t want to see it, lest he sully his delicate eyes.

Yet, he’s so indignantly sure “that there’s no place for that kind of campaigning.”

And then he has the gall to turn around and knock Obama’s elitism.

Congratulations, Sen. McCain: You’ve out-snobbed Snobama.

Yes, without having seen the ad or talked directly to the NC GOP officials, he’s absolutely convinced that he’s right about his knee-jerk assessment of their supposedly bigoted motives.

McCain Math is the same as MSM Math: Southern + Republican + video featuring radical leftists who happen to be black = RACISTRACISTRACISTRACISTDANGERWILLROBINSON!

Naturally, McCain’s New York Times editorial board endorsers at the NYTimes were happy to oblige and pile on with a Pavlovian editorial this morning calling the ad racist and divisive, “shameful and ugly.” Congratulations for giving them the rope to hang North Carolina Republicans:

The assertion that Mr. Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state…Senator McCain was right when he said, of the new ad, that “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning — and the American people don’t want it, period.”

Now he needs to get his party to listen.

Here’s the vid from yesterday’s Today Show interview with McCain that I blogged about yesterday:

The transcript:

VIEIRA: Okay. I want to switch gears here and talk about the latest controversy. It’s over an ad in North Carolina coming two weeks before the Democratic primary.

VOICE OVER: For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew, listening to his pastor.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: And then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no.

VIEIRA: The ad says, quote, “just too extreme for North Carolina.” Now, you have called this ad degrading and you’ve asked the state party to pull it. But so far, they’ve refused to do that. Why do you think they’re not listening to you, a? And why do you believe they would continue to raise questions about Senator Obama’s patriotism?

McCAIN: They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality in the Republican party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable. I have said that. It will harm the Republicans’ cause. And I’ve done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue. I have engaged in and will continue a respectful campaign of either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton.

VIEIRA: Senator Obama said if you wanted to, you could get that ad pulled because you are, after all, the nominee and the standard bearer. So if you can’t get the ad pulled, does it raise any questions about your leadership?

McCAIN: I don’t know exactly how to respond to that, except that I would hope that Senator Obama would repudiate and apologize for his remarks concerning the heartland of America where his elitist remarks indicated that people who are hardworking dedicated people, who harbor traditional values and principles and value their religion and the Second Amendment of the Constitution would not be treated in an elitist fashion. I hope he’ll apologize for that.

How about you apologize first, Sen. McCain, for running to the liberal media to once again trash conservatives as racists for exposing hard truths about the hard Left?

“Calm down?”

Not bloody likely.

***

Following the cue of McCain and Howard Dean, there are now two TV stations who refuse to play the ad because it is “offensive.”

Always happy to show it here again (with a reminder that the NCGOP could use your financial support):

Meanwhile, McCain continues to give himself special dispensation to challenge Obama’s relationship with Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers.

Because, you see, raising questions about a Radical of Color is “not appropriate and unhelpful,” but raising questions about a Radical of Pallor is McCain-tested and RNC-approved.

[sportutegrl]

McCain is obviously trying to pick up the black vote for the GOP, hopefully for the long term. Not sure I agree with him, but that is what it looks like to me.

[coffee260]

And what makes you think he’s trying to pick up the black vote? Because he denounced a perfectly legit ad calling into question the two gubernatorial candidates in NC’s judgment? I just don’t see it.

He dislikes conservatives. NC GOP, to him, are a bunch of southern, red neck, racists. He’s not a conservative and he doesn’t like them. Period.

[iopscusa]

Mccain may just be a puppet on a string...I see a Soros string, a Clinton string, a Dean string....

[Vision]

Don't give McCain that much credit. He's a foolish ass.

Senator McCain. Please explain to everyone why the ad is racist.

[don-o]

Juan is obviously on a mission to assure that the G.O.P. maintains its hold on the tag "The Stupid Party"

It is also obvious that conservatives ain't buying into it. What can we call this race other that "Dumb and Dumber?

[coffee260]

I don’t think so. I think he thinks he’s smarter than those right wing Christian conservatives. And to him the NC GOP = right wing Christian conservatives.

[coffee260]

Amen, Bro!

[perez24]

I can understand trying to “court the black vote,” but let’s say it goes from 93% Democrat down to 88% Democrat, will htat offset the conservatives he turns off?

[LibLieSlayer]

Every time I start to support scar-face... he speaks again.

LLS

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

McCan is just a big of a Rat as Hillary or Obama. He won’t attack them but he will attack his own supporters and GOP operatives. Not one dime from me to either him or the lilly-livered National GOP.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Shows on the news cable stations played Rev. Wright’s so-called sermons repeatedly. Now a few words have been added in the ad, and some of those shows are complaining. If they were so offended, why did they play the sermons in the first place?

[Dacula]

I vowed not to send MY money to the GOP, instead I would sent MY money to the NC Republican party. At least their it will be spent on candidates that espouse the same values as me.

BTW, I live in Georgia. We are littered with spineless Republicans.

[uncbob]

That is because the dem candidates are so wacked out that McCain believes the conservative vote is locked up and he is free to pander to the crossovers—blacks—hispanics etc etc

[don-o]

To paraphrase a line from "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Doc, it's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the liberal brain.

[Always Right]

The media told McCain that it was racist, so that was good enough for him...

[Always Right]

This is why many conservatives will not waste their money sending it directly to McCain. If conservatives donate, it will be to 527 groups.

[Malesherbes]

Krauthammer said last night that it was McCain who is out of touch with reality. He added that McCain must be out of his mind. The only things that will save McCain from himself are (1) I will vote for him by default, and (2) BO will make even worse gaffs.

[counterpunch]

This isn’t surprising, and it explains a lot about his reaction.
Because of this, McCain has an opportunity to correct this unforced error on his part and apologize to North Carolina Republicans, saying he misspoke. He should say he hadn’t seen the ad but was told by the media that it was racist. Then he should say after seeing the ad, he sees nothing wrong with it and that the media lied about its contents, that it was tame in comparison to what Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been saying. Then he should say he won’t let any of these false charges and double standards against Republicans from the Democrats and news media stand.

McCain wanting to generally distance himself from the ad is fine. But he went way, way too far in calling North Carolina Republicans “out of touch with reality.” He has offended the very voters of an entire state who he needs to win the election. This is no different than Obama’s “bitter” gaffe. In fact, the damage is far worse. Obama offended voters who weren’t going to vote for him anyways. McCain offended the REPUBLICANS of an entire state HE MUST WIN. It was as stupid as stupid gets. He must work to undo some of the damage. I believe there is now a good chance that Mike Huckabee will will the North Carolina primary now, despite having dropped out of the race. Perhaps that would send a message to Mr. McCain.

[Man50D]

McCain is obviously trying to pick up the black vote for the GOP, hopefully for the long term.

McCain is a socialist defending fellow socialist Obama.