Conservative Politicians Tragically Pander To Racists

In 2000, George Bush and John McCain, battling out for the Republican nomination in South Carolina, both pandered to the racists and secessionists by encouraging the flying of the Confederate flag on the State Capitol dome. After McCain's real feelings about the flag slipped out a month before the primary-- he called it a ''symbol of racism and slavery"-- his handlers grabbed him and talked some reality into his head. The very next day he "corrected" himself by referring to it with the wease words that racists use: "a symbol of heritage." McCain lost anyway-- to a Bush who didn't have to alter his opinion.

After Bush beat him, McCain was ashamed of himself for the pandering, and he admitted it aloud. He apologized for it. "I feared," he said, "that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth." So what would his answer have been had he chosen to answer honestly?

McCain said his own Confederate forefathers ''fought on the wrong side of American history... I don't believe their service, however distinguished, needs to be commemorated in a way that offends, that deeply hurts, people whose ancestors were once denied their freedom by my ancestors."

McCain, speaking before the right-wing South Carolina Policy Council, said, "'I do not intend for this apology to help me evade criticism for my failure. I will be criticized by all sides for my late act of contrition. I accept it, all of it. I deserve it. Honesty is easy after the fact when my own interests are no longer involved. I don't seek absolution."

Suppose McCain-- and other cowardly, self-serving politicians-- had spoken out forthrightly about the flag and had led in South Carolina and other Confederate bastions. Would a pathetic little zombie like Dylann Roof have thought to develop a worldview founded on racist hatred? People like Roof need their visions confirmed for them, the way the flag confirmed the "white man's cause." Do you think he was more a Drudge fan, a Limbaugh fan or a Fox News fan? All of the above? 

Bill Maher: "We can never know why someone snaps, but I betcha I know where he got his news."

UPDATE: DYLANN LEFT A RACIST MANIFESTO
TARGETING BLACKS, JEWS AND HISPANICS

So report the Washington Post's Lenny Bernstein, Sari Horwitz and Peter Holley, according to authorities based on a website identified as being Dylann Roof's, "a white supremacist broadside that also appears to offer a rationale for the shootings."

The lengthy declaration, loaded with offensive racial characterizations of blacks and others, includes the conclusion that “someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

“I have no choice,” states part of that final section, titled “An Explanation.” “I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is [the] most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country.”

Law enforcement officials said that the site belonged to Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old accused of gunning down nine people at a Bible study in Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night, and that it reflected his views. The site also included 60 photos, most of which showed Roof.

The Web site domain was registered on Feb. 9 to Roof, according to a law enforcement official. Another official said the material on it was last modified late Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Roof allegedly attacked the Bible study group at the church. In its penultimate paragraph, the manifesto states: “Unfortunately at the time of writing I am in a great hurry and some of my best thoughts, actually many of them, have been . . . left out and lost forever.” The last line apologizes for typos. . . .

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