John McCain Watch: Booed in Memphis While Admitting MLK Holiday Mistake

Senator and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee John McCain was booed today in Memphis, Tennessee while explaining his opposition to a federal holiday for Martin Luther King was a mistake.

Saying “we are still left with a feeling of loss,” Sen. John McCain paid tribute today to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on the 40th anniversary of King’s death.

Most notably, McCain acknowledged that he was wrong to oppose creating a federal holiday in honor of the slain civil rights leader.

“We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King,” McCain said. “I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans. But he knew as well that in the long term, confidence in the reasonability and good heart of America is always well placed.”

McCain has said that he knew little of King and the civil rights struggle because he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi and received only sporadic news during his five and a half years’ confinement. But his captors told him and his fellow POW’s when King was assassinated.

“In our circumstances at the time, good news from America was hard to come by. But the bad news was a different matter, and each new report of violence, rioting, and other tribulations in America was delivered without delay,” he said. “The enemy had correctly calculated that the news from Memphis would deeply wound morale, and leave us worried and afraid for our country. Doubtless it boosted our captors’ morale, confirming their belief that America was a lost cause, and that the future belonged to them.”

Outreach on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination is one thing but apologizing is quite another. Flap is still not convinced that a federal holiday is necessary but whatever.

It was the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery in this country. And, wasn’t it the Southern Democrats for years that blocked civil rights for blacks in the South?

Today is symbolism over substance and McCain has bought into it – hook line and sinker. And, will it win him any more votes?

Doubtful……….