McCain's Apology and Other Ruminations

On April 4, 2008, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain seized the moment. He appeared at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the longitude and latitude of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The motel courtyard was dense with people. The air was thick with rain. They had gathered to remember a moment of tribulation; 40 years to the day. Apropos to the occasion was the weather’s uncertainty.

40 years ago, the tectonic plates of America’s destiny shifted when a 30 caliber slug of hot lead cut into Dr. King’s face. I don’t need to remind you of the immediate results. City after city caught fire as the land mines of legitimate black anger exploded. And for those of you who remember Jackson Avenue, it became a metaphor for abandonment and a city’s decline. Then, later, the name was changed to Martin Luther King Drive. It was supposed to instill a measure of pride. But like most of the other 500 or so streets, boulevards, roads, and drives, named after King, the designation serves more as a red flag than a flag stop on the road map of a people’s history.

And there was John McCain.

His appearance should not have come as a shock. He was running for office of President of the United States. But on this rainy day, McCain, the maverick, wanted to connect with the people and apologize for voting against the federal MLK day legislation in 1983.

Yet, when I looked up at my television set and saw McCain at the King remembrance, my initial reaction was visceral. I said to myself, “Why is he there?” “Why!” It was a rhetorical question, of course. So, I listened to McCain’s comments and said, “hmmm”, and later I read McCain’s words just to make sure I didn’t miss what I thought I missed when I heard him say what he said! Follow me?

In other words, I was curious as to his change of heart. I wanted to know why. It was a fair question, so again, I listened to and read his words, “We can be slow to give greatness its due…I was wrong…I was wrong.” To that end, he was absolutely correct.

Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.

Still, since McCain never explained the why, we are then left to fill-in the blanks. Did the candidate apologize out of political expediency? Or did he have an epiphany? And just what was his mistake? Was it that he voted against the measure, or that he voted against legislation that could later bite him in the leg like one of Bull Connor’s dogs? In other words, was his mistake a strategic one or a moral one? There is a world of difference. Perhaps, McCain had a good reason. Still, some will…and have…resorted to their machinations as they seek to navigate and explain the deep waters of a politically tuned heart.

Erstwhile and present, this has been an interesting presidential race to say the least. It is history in the making and we are seeing it unfold with our own eyes. Thus, we don’t have to wait for the victors to tell us what we can figure out for ourselves. For the first time in American history, a major party is running for the office of President without a white male leading... or at this point... on the ticket. There is Hillary Clinton, who is well liked among Black voters. But now, the colored electorate is being torn along the rugged fault line of appreciation and ancestral ties. Sadly, for her, Sen. Clinton is running a campaign tormented by a thorn in the flesh and that thorn has a name. It is Barack Obama.

His candidacy has not been without its nails-on-the-chalkboard-moments. Most Americans never heard of Rev. Jeremiah Wright until…

But when they saw snippets of the Reverend speaking a “gospel” they weren’t akin to, a lot of people, (conditional friends, and foe alike), turned to the Senator. They demanded that Obama explain, and answer for words that proceeded out of someone else’s mouth. To be sure, what Jeremiah Wright said was over the top, but they were taken out of context. Still, who was shocked? Not black folks. Wright’s fulminations were part of a cultural dynamic that is played out quite often in Black churches across the fruited plain. The naysayer…and there were many…seized Rev. Wright’s video clips as an “A-ha!” moment. So, the candidate did what he had to. He closeted himself into a quiet place and penned a speech that no one else could have written for him. It had to come from the heart.

The conservative media, the purveyors of hate and pushers of delusion are digging deep into the Earth’s core, hoping to tap into some well of Barackian indiscretions. They do so, not because Sen. Obama is unqualified, but precisely because he is qualified.

One radio host often, if not always, uses Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when referring to him. And while, in this case, there is nothing in a name, the idea is to play the populace like a cheap fiddle. Thus, when you hear “Hussein”, you are supposed to think, “Saddam”. When you hear “Hussein”, you are supposed to think, “Muslim”. When you hear “Hussein” you are supposed to think, “terrorists…9/11…” You are supposed to give in to your fears.

The electorate this year really isn’t the brightest. Never has been. A woman told National Public Radio (early on) that she was voting for Mitt Romney, because “he looked and sounded Presidential.” Duh!

Remember Rudy? While the world watched the World Trade Center fall on 9/11, Mayor Giuliani had apparently mistaken the towers falling, for a dove descending from heaven. What did Rudy hear as the towers came down…“This is my son in whom I am well pleased?” In that defining moment, Rudy decided that 9/11 was his anointing.

And after all that talk about leadership and what he did for the world’s greatest city, Rudy’s campaign folded like a cheap suit; and in all places, Florida, a state that exudes as much sunshine as one of Giuliani’s smiles. Rudy talked a lot but he had effectively written off early primary states by ignoring them as if the people who lived there didn’t exist. He was hedging his future on all those “law and order” Republicans and angry Cubans. And, was I the only one who was stunned by Pat Robertson’s endorsement of him? What was that all about? And from a man who has helped foster and nurture the myth that being a good, God-fearing, clean-living Christian is the sole territory of registered Republicans.

McCain is still in the running and gaining the support from his base even as he tries to position himself as more of a right-wing Republican than he feels comfortable with. Yes, he is a maverick, and as a candidate, we can expect him to go where no right winger has gone before (deep into black political territory). And so, as we await the “why” regarding McCain’s MLK vote, it may, in the end, not be that important after all. The nation is gripped in a recession. So as America readies to go to the polls and ponders its future, let us look at the larger picture, as King would have us do, and make sure we don’t have to go before the microphones of the future saying, “I made a mistake…”


Byron Scott Class of 77