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.

[coffee260]

You are exactly right. Every time I start to warm up to him he speaks. This time he has outraged sooo many people I don’t know if he knows how much damage he has done to himself.

[Rocko]

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

McCain explains nothing to the little people.

Before, I'd have to hold my nose to vote for him. How can I do that when I'm vomiting?

[Condor51]

I can't take it anymore. Had to do this...

McPain (midi 3:30)
Key: E
(4 bar intro)

He's an unsuferable lout, a back-stabbin' louse: McPain
So if you wanna go down, vote for that clown: McPain
We don't like, we don't like, we don't like ... McPain

He don't like our views, or conservative news: McPain
When ya think its all done, his mouth is runnin on: McPain
We don't like, we don't like, we don't like ... McPain

(instrumental/guitar solo)

Our hope is all gone, he's got the RNC crown: McPain
Don't forget this fact, he'll stab ya in the back: McPain
We don't like, we don't like, we don't like ... McPain

We don't like, we don't like, we don't like ... McPain

(instrumental fade to end)

Original © Eric Clapton

Gotta go now for a few. Have to shred, no burn, that McCain 'carp' that came yesterday begging for money.

[oldbill]

The only positive result from the Democrats settling on a nominee is that instead of three candidates in self-destructive spirals into ruin is that there will only be two candidates in self-destructive spirals into ruin.

Two hundred years of democracy and a talent pool of 300 million and this is what we have evolved to?

[Miss Didi]

Dr. K. was great last night. Then Fred added that in the same day, McCain comes out with the “Hamas supports Obama” remark. Just who are his advisers???

[coffee260]

Send McCain a message! Click Here and/or Here

[Kenny Bunk]

One should explain to typical well-meaning white folk that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric is far from unusual in Black Church circles.

In fact Rev. Jeremiah's rant is more moderate than some others. Go the end of your AM dial next Sunday and check it out. The real reason the Republicans should not have run this ad is that it will energize the Black vote in NC to back Obama even more enthusiastically.

But heck, NC is just one state, and the test data should be helpful, assuming the Republicans are smart enough to use it correctly and not create and run the dumb ads they ran for Bush.

[LS]

This is the third time that, having convinced myself that possibly I could vote for McCain, he has come out and said something repulsive. Policy-wise, is he better than Obama/Clinton? Perhaps a little. But seriously, how long do we keep letting a politician abuse us? He gives us the finger at EVERY opportunity. The man truly hates conservatives and conservative principles.

For the first time in my life, I'm looking at Libertarian in the Fall for the presidential vote.

[coffee260]

The dimocrats have used this tactic for decades of moving to center to garner republican’s...

Yes, but they move to the center from the left, an understandable maneuver. McCain is moving from the center to the left.

There is no difference in what McCain did to the NC GOP than what the left does to the republicans all the time.

So if that's moving to the center I'd hate to see him move to the left.

[Will88]

“McCain has a right to tell them what to run if it affects his campaign, and this most certainly does.”

I just don’t buy the notion that there’s anything wrong with the ad. It 100% based on truth and reality. Obama voluntarily associated himself with a screaming hatemonger for twenty years, and that should be known. Some people are so petrified concerning race that they’re afraid to point out the blatant and undeniable racism that exists with many members of minorities.

And, no, a presidential candidate does not have the right to tell a state party organization what it can and cannot do in their state races.

What most everyone should really be angry about is how Obama has been shielded and protected by the MSM since his set-up speech at the DNC in 2004. He’s looks more and more like a sixties black radical with ideas that would be unacceptable to a large percentage of Americans. He needs to be known for who he is, as do all candidates.

[LibLieSlayer]

No... he does not know... mcinsane is dumber that a box of rocks.

LLS

[AuntB]

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

That is the kind of logic McCain applies to all his policies....Do not confuse him with facts!

Here’s some of his ‘reasoning’.....

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: “ My friends, I’ll offer anybody here $50 an hour if you’ll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for whole season. So — OK? Sign up. OK. When you sign up — you sign up, and you’ll be there for the whole season. The whole season, OK? Not just one day. Because you can’t do it, my friend. Sign up.”

(END VIDEO CLIP) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2006856/posts?page=176#176

[coffee260]

North Carolina Republican Party ad: "Extreme

[Will88]

“Dole made a virtue out of necessity. The Democrats were pulling parliamentary stunts designed to tie him up in Washington and hinder his campaign.”

That could have been covered by other members of the Republican leadership at that time, and it would have shown that Republicans had actually learned how to stand up to the Dems., something that isn’t always evident.

There was no necessity for Dole to resign his seat, anymore than the two who win their nominations this years should have to resign.

The Republicans caved to MSM and other pressure. Not the only time by a million miles.

[AD from SpringBay]

It will be sad when either Hillary or Obama are nominated and we are all reminded on a regular basis about what a dickweek McCain is.

[coffee260]

I think you are being too counter intuitive by half. Here’s the problem with what McCain did.

By denouncing the NC GOP’s ad and demanding them not to run it and then calling them “out of touch with reality.” He not only looks weak to his own party. But he looks weak to the opposition as well for seemingly not having the authority or the influence over his party one would expect a nominee to have.

So now he not only has pissed off his own party. He has given the opposition the green light to call any criticisms of Obama racial or racist. And with McCain’s blessing that’s exactly what they’ll do.

[murron]

Most all of what you say is true, but why not keep our powder dry until after he secures the nomination, is all I’m saying.

[Vision]

McCain has a chronic, advanced, and terminal case of “Potomac fever”.

[unlearner]

Maybe I’m missing something, but I never saw where McCain called the ad racists. It appears to me Michele Malkin inferred this. Correct me if I’m wrong.

[Twinkie]

That’s about where I find myself, too. . .