The Maverick's History

by dday

Just to add on to Digby's post about the true history of the conservative movement with respect to MLK, it should be noted that one of the two candidates most likely to get their Presidential nomination, John McCain, voted against making today a national holiday in 1983, and is spending today among some interesting company:

Nearly 24 years after voting against creating a holiday honoring Martin Luther King, John McCain is spending today at the inauguration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley who is a member of an organization that has been criticized for excluding African Americans. The "Grand Master" of the Grand Lodge of Alabama admits he knows of no African American members among the groups 30,000 plus membership. [AP, 9/30/2006] [...]

In past efforts to pander to a far right base that doesn’t trust him, McCain campaigned in Alabama for George Wallace Jr., a popular speaker at a white supremacist hate group, continues to employ a strategist who denounced the creation of a Federal holiday honoring Dr. King as "vicious" and "profane," and even hired the man responsible for the racist ads against Harold Ford in the Senate race in Tennessee in 2006. [New York Times, 4/20/00, San Diego Union Tribune, 1/18/00; Associated Press, 11/17/05, Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2005; AP, 6/6/05; New York Times, 10/27/06; New York Times, 10/26/06; Union Leader, 12/8/06]


Here's a little more about Bob Riley and this secretive Masonic organization known as the Grand Lodge of Alabama, which has quite a ring to it, no?

"This is not rocket science: Bob Riley is the Governor of Alabama and is running for re-election. The President of the United States came to Birmingham, yesterday, September 28th, to help raise more money for Riley's re-election campaign.

However, that which the mainstream media fails to address or conveniently chooses to ignore is that Bob Riley is a Mason; a member of the Grand Lodge of Alabama. So far so good. No big deal. Lots of well-known people are Masons. But, when we learned and then exposed on our former morning drive radio talk show that Governor Bob Riley's Grand Masonic Lodge discriminates against African Americans, by formal resolution that they will not allow a black man to become a member we knew that his affiliation ­ because he is the governor and wants to be the governor for four more years ­ was and is 100% wrong."


(Incidentally, Russ and Dee Fine, two conservatives who have a radio show in Birmingham, publicized this heavily in the fall of 2006, and were then fired in the middle of their show shortly thereafter.)

So that's who Mr. Straight Talk is consorting with today. Is it a Reagan-style dogwhistle? You be the judge.

UPDATE: I am completely sorry. This happened a year ago on Martin Luther King day. I was sent the link today and mistakenly assumed it was current. The fact that there's a primary in Alabama on Feb. 5 added to it. McCain's in Florida today.

Mr. Straight Talk's history remains accurate, however.


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