Posted on 10/11/2008 12:10:11 PM PDT by hole_n_one
Civil rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis is accusing John McCain and Sarah Palin of stoking hate, likening the atmosphere at Republican campaign events to those featuring George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate.
"What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis said in a statement issued today. "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."
Lewis didn't accuse McCain of imitating Wallace, but suggested there were similarities.
"George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis noted. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."
Lewis's sharp words may be dismissed as those of a partisan Democrat in a campaign season. But the former head of SNCC and hero of Selma is somebody who McCain has lavished praise upon over the years, including admiring him in a book on courage and bravery and repeatedly invoking Lewis's name in public appearances.
Appearing with Barack Obama at a forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in August, McCain included Lewis as one of "three wise men" he would consult as president.
"He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than our self-interest," McCain said of Lewis.
Now, Lewis is castigating McCain in the harshest of terms.
As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all," Lewis said today. "They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.
It was Major Owens with the shark quote? Oh yeah it was him! Sorry Lewis.
I called and spoke with Darren also; suggesting the congressman remove Sen. McCain’s glowing endorsement from his (Lewis’) website (Lewis can’t have it both ways, IMO) Also mentioned the Saddleback forum and Sen. McCain’s reference to Lewis as a civil rights resource. He listened and asked for my name and state, saying he’d see that it was passed on.
BTW.....any updates on Dem. ‘dirty astroturfers’ showing up at rallies and being disruptive?
False accusations of racism is RACIST.
It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the politically correct victim mentality dynamic is nothing but a mechanism for controlling speech and influencing political power.
The word racist, given its awful meaning by hundreds of years of slavery, murder, and genocide, has been reduced to nothing but a shibboleth intended to stifle speech and obscure the truth.
My empathy for poor downtrodden supposed victims is gone.
My tolerance for participating in a charade based on pretense has passed.
There is no recovery from the damage this election has wrought. No way that I will ever again give concern or consideration to those who would manipulate and control based on meaningless words and empty sympathies.
George Wallace was also a Democrat...
I proudly cast my first Presidential vote for George Wallace! And I’ve only gotten More Conservative since.
I shook his hand one day as he was coming out of a hotel in DC near the WH on15th street. I think it was the old Mayflower Hotel. Heck it may still be there for all I know.
Somebody give McCain some vitamins. Three weeks to go, we haven’t got time to pussy foot around with this scum. The future of the country is at stake, there’s no other way to describe it; and if McCain thinks we’ll survive an Obama Presidency, he’s nuts.
But Obama's friends did.
Lewis is a charlatan that sold his soul to the slave party. The one courageous thing he did in his life was nearly a half-century ago, but that does not give him carte blanche to spend most of the time since engaged in race-baiting every inch as ugly, evil and destructive as Wallace’s schtick. IIRC, when Lewis was here in Nashville, he took some blows to the head when he was protesting with the sit-ins. Nobody can take blows to the head without incurring some sort of brain trauma. That might explain a lot.
I guess it’s okay for Obama to make fun of McCain’s war injuries at his rallies. And lie through his teeth over and over again about anything and everything. To demonize anyone who questions his record, refusal to release records of any sort, his thuggish Nazi type followers marching in fatigues. The list of Obama offenses is endless. But that’s okay. It’s evidently wrong for anyone to express even the slightest doubt about his ability/honesty/integrity/companions/past, etc..
I covered the Wallace election, Rep. Lewis, and you’re more of a racist than Wallace (D).
"They're coming for our families!, They're coming for our children!"
Yessir, right on the floor of the House during proposed budget cuts in the Bush administration.
If you havent guessed it Lewis is senile. I suppose that's why McCain said you could go to him for advice and counsel.
Really, as soon as this election is over we are going to have to redouble our efforts to purge the RINOs, and that's whether or not McCain wins or loses.
“But the former head of SNCC and hero of Selma is somebody who McCain has lavished praise upon over the years, including admiring him in a book on courage and bravery and repeatedly invoking Lewis’s name in public appearances.”
NEVER praise a liberal. They will stab you in the back for it.
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