John Conyers is a man who authored the MLK Day Holiday Act:
Conyers says his biggest achievement has been the Martin Luther King Holiday Act of 1983. “[It’s] by far and away the thing I am most proud of,” he says of the 15-year struggle to make that dream a reality.”
He was down in Memphis at the tribute today and blasted John McCain for voting against his bill in 1983 to make MLK day a National holiday. The MSNBC host as usual had to stick up for McCain by saying that he was there apologizing for that vote so all should be forgiven. That only infuriated Conyers.
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Conyers: When John McCain was my colleague in the House and I introduced the Holiday bill, he voted against it in 1983…Now I believe in forgiveness, but it’s incredible that all he can do is show up on April 4th and think that everything is OK. We’re not just African Americans, but we’re most people.
Host: Rep. Conyers I think in all fairness we should say , perhaps you did not hear it but certainly John McCain did offer an apology for that first vote in 1983 when you did put forward that bill.
You had not heard that? He did make that apology sir so that he regretted voting that way back then.
Conyers: Yea, well look. I’m happy. That was in 1983, he didn’t make any apology, he didn’t make any apologies in 1987, so I guess I’m thrilled and forgiving that finally when he’s running for President he remembers to apologize. No, that’s great. (satirically)
Host: Well, he has done so today and perhaps you’ll take that as some sort of appeasement, but anyway…
Updated: Nice job the host did in trying to praise John McCain’s phony apology today. Yea, just get appeased! I mean this is ridiculous. It’s like her job to make excuses for John McCain’s actions.
Good job by Conyers for calling McSame on it too. Conyers was obviously not buying her line of reasoning. If John McCain thinks he can go down to Memphis and throw out a few words to try and appease his actions, he’s got another thing coming. Of course the media will paint him as a brave man, straight talking away his prior sins, but he was almost 50 years old when he joined the HOUSE of Representatives and voted down MLK Day.
Matt Stoller finds an interesting graphic. Rick Perlstein takes us down the Conservative memory lane with excerpts of Nixonland.
Filed Under: John Conyers, John McCain, Racism/Bigotry
Tags: John McCain
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A fifteen year SNUGGLE…. oh my.
hey conyers, how’s that impeachment coming along?
All this week, Republican presidential nominee John McCain is highlighting his biography during a “Service to America” tour designed to reintroduce himself to voters. Unfortunately, with each new stop, McCain only raises disturbing new questions about his past.
For the details, see:
“John McCain’s Bio Waste.”
I understand Conyers anger, but if at some point we are not willing to let people apologize and move on, all hope will be lost.
B.b.b.but…he apologized.
It only took 15 years.
I think I heard part of McC’s speech. Did he really say that MLK worked like a “servant” for civil rights? I know he probably meant something like a servant of god, but after not voting for MLK Day in the 80’s how can he vie for credibility by calling MLK a servant! Wrong man for the wrong era!
So, McCain didn’t vote for MLK Day in 1983? Let’s remember who the president was, then, and where he started his presidential campaign….
Guess McShitstain had more important things to do then ; like being a “foot soldier” in Ronnie Retard’s moronic Cancervative “army”………
McCain’s speech was so phony, and people began to boo while he was talking.
r @ 4:
John McCain should have apologize when he didn’t have something to gain for it, other than respect for MLK.
I think it may be the timing of it is questionable. I think it is something that you do without trading it for votes.
McRacist: “But my friends, I’m not wearing my white hood today”
r @ 4:
You “move on” when an apology is truly sincere ; not when it’s politically expedient and done for some face-time ………
I love how pols like mcCain only show up at ethnic events in order to secure teh ethnic vote. Yeah, John Like we’ll vote for you, you’re one of us now.
All I got to say is… I’m past 50 right now.. And it didn’t take me half a freakin century to figure out Martin Luther King was as deserving of a national holiday as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln for what he did to try and end the strife of black people in this nation and the anamosity that existed between the races back then.. It didn’t take me half a freaking century to figure out that ‘all men are created equal’ thing to mean just that! Seems to me if McCain actually believed that all men credo, it should not have been that much of a stretch to ‘get’ the rest of it… Tells ya something right there about what John McCain is really all about….JD
Liberal AND Proud @ 5:
Ooops…over 20 years. My memory is slipping..guess I’m qualified to be POTUS.
McCain’s Mother Apologizes for Opposing the Emancipation Proclamation
A fake apology from a fake christian republican.
McCain’s”apology reminds me of a story I heard a few years back. In the early 70s a well known businessman here decided to run for Congress. As he was boarding the elevator in his office building where he worked he greeted the elevator operator, saying loudly: “Hi. I’m Bill H….. I hope you’ll vote for me for Congress.”
The elevator operator responded: ” Mr. H…. I’ve taken you up in this elevator every day for the last ten years and you have never spoken a single word to me. I wouldn’t vote for you if you were the last person on earth.” I wish the elevator operator was alive today to have the satisfaction of not voting for Saint John McCain as I will.
Bimbette –with super big big big blonde do– translation (apparently speaking for all “white folk”): “Listen you uppity n*gga, …if I can get a word in edgewise, he apologized. Isn’t that good enough for you?” Sheesh.
What trash. Where do they find these (cough) anchors??? McSame thought long and hard on ths issue, twice. He found, deep inside, he is a racist through and through, and voted against. ‘Nuff said, for me.
Good point by Conyers. Finally John McCain is “apologizing” for his opposition to Martin Luther King Day (and everything King stood for), but only after it has become politically expedient.
McCain’s racist fans will of course recognize the pro-forma nature of his apologies. Will McCain’s sudden racial sensitivity include condemning Confederate flags still waving around government buildings in southern states? Will McCain’s describe his own family’s history of slave ownership as something other than “unfortunate?”
White racists have tried this tactic before, the hollow apology. Meanwhile, their votes in government tell the real tale of their attitudes on race. Your votes define you, John McCain. You were 49 years old when you voted against MLK day. All you’ve learned since then is that your voting record lives forever as a disgrace to this country and the citizens of Arizona.
John McCain said this? “I had not been involved in the issue. I had come from being in the military to running for Congress in a state that did not have a very large African American population and it had not been in issue. It just simply had not been.”
Isn’t Arizona one of the state that seceded from the union in 1861? Hmm…….yeah I wonder why there isn’t a very large population of African-American? Maybe because it is an issue?
What John should have said that he was actively non-involve in the race issue of his state.
Anytime there’s a debate or ANY opportunity for people from the audience to submit questions, he MUST be asked “Why did you vote against the MLK holiday, what has changed your mind, and when did your mind change?”
Edwin Hussein (a boo$h booer) @ 19:
I agree. That Goldilocks almost made me want to gag. We should be seeing her on Faux News shortly.
It’s par for the course.
It’s like most white people and the civil rights act.
They worked hard against it, but it passed…somehow making everything right.
Never mind the segregation that happened before and AFTER
Never mind the humiliation, murder and torture that happened before and after.
Sad!
You can’t teach a 50+ year old McShit new tricks. McCain can take his lead painted republican apology and stick it back where he pulled it from.
Conyers’ greatest accomplishment is giving America a day off? That’s weak.
Did that bimbo actually say “APPEASEMENT”?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Disgusting.
Anytime a so-called independent journalist falls on their backside to apologize for McCain like this, they need to be asked “when did you join McCain’s campaign?”
Keith should highlight this shitty apology in his worst person. Alex Witt must be auditioning for CNN or Faux. Her excuses were sickening. I know Keith can’t go after the dummies on MSNBC but I bet he would sure like to.
Okay, so why didn’t McCain apologize last year, or the year before, or the one before that? Did he just this year decide MLK was a great man this year?
His apology can be defined in one word, “politics”.
One more phony moment in his campaign.
wtf is up with the TINY video?
Brendan @ 26:
Granted compared to the Republican “accomplishments” of soaring national debt, a depleted military, torture, alienating our allies, emboldening our enemies, trampling on civil liberties and a recession…Conyers accomplishment isn’t near as sweeping and far reaching as the Republicans.
Jeff @ 31:
The QT file is standard size.
Just go full-screen with the WMV file. It’s easier to view that way.
Grampa thinks if he apologizes and calls black people “My friends”, they’ll vote for him.
MLK would probably be more upset that McCain voted for and supports the iraq war, which has killed anywhere up to 1 million Iraqis, rather than not voting for a national holiday in his name.
“Host: Well, he has done so today and perhaps you’ll take that as some sort of appeasement, but anyway…”
Appease: to pacify, quiet, or satisfy esp. by giving in to the demands of
So is she saying that Conyers should be pacified, quietened and satified because McCain now says, while he’s running for president, he is sorry for his vote?
How was McCain feeling about his vote when he war running for president in 2000?
.
25 years later…
Johnny McTORTURE appeals to the crowd…
“I really am sorry for being the bigot I was then. Please vote for me.”
.
Ruthless People @ 32:
Oooh, BURN! HAH!
Man, I hit submit instead of spell check. My mistake and please forgive the bizarre spelling. That’s what happens when I get angry, I become sloppy.
pissed off patricia @ 39:
Umm pissed…
I do think Johnny McTORTURE IS WAR RUNNING for President.
“Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb, Iran”
“Al-CIA-DUH is in Iran”
“Iran is killing our troops”
.
Brendan @ 26:
What have you done for me? Or for civil rights?
what a condescending bitch of a host.
fuck her and her douche bag statements.
Conyers looked like one of those crazy, radical angry black nationalists preachers didn’t he, my friend. Oooh, scary.
When McCain supported the governor of Arizona in 1987 in rescinding the national holiday, only three states didn’t recognize it - he was not in the mainstream. Arizona was the last state to recognize MLK Day, and it only did that to get the Superbowl. (PE in full effect, by the way.)
McCracker is a worthless political toady. (By the way, to those white folks who may be offended by the term “cracker,” I’ll give you a McCain apology in 25 years.)
Another example of our mythical ‘liberal media’ at work.
pissed off patricia @ 39:
Warning, OT:
This week I had to write up a list of scholarship winners for our music school, and the person supervising me on it is the wife of a former big wig of our town. Heart of gold, but someone who expects you to drop everything and get it done on time and immaculate. Took two days out of my life.
I agree totally with what you said in the comment before, and your spelling is good enough for me. :)
pissed off patricia @ 36:
Big Blond was trying to one up Conyers to shut him up. He was ruining the mainstream media storyline on McBush she was peddling- “HE CAN DO NO WRONG, so vote for this guy that we have chosen for you dumbell voters.”
MS media includes MSNBC except for Olbermann, no mistaking it…
paranoia @ 10:
aaand… I think this will be an issue that Obama (or others) will use to mobilize votes against mccain.
BTW, I agree we are all a work in progress, BUT apologies need to be sincere before they can be accepted.
CNN was worse. After McCain was finished with his speech, CNN reminded us that McCain was in a POW camp when King was assassinated. Complete with the famous film of him lying in the bed with his broken arm etc.
And, as Conyers pointed out, he’s had twenty-five years since he made that vote to apologize, and hasn’t done it. Now that he’s running for President, though…
Brendan @ 26:
Strawman lessons coming along nicely, I see
paranoia @ 21:
Arizona did not secede from the Union in 1861. It did not become a state (our 48th) until February 14, 1912.