If you're a republican, you're in the WRONG party to start casting blame for being stereotypical. Remember? Osama , wanted, Dead or Alive? The song "America, F*** yeah!", "We'll put a boot up your ass.."
I mean, honestly. That type of talk works in the Republican party, and has been accepted in the republican party. I've been a democrat for most my life and been called a pussy by people in the "republican party" base. You don't like that kind of talk from McCain, well, heck, neither do I. But guess what? You're in the party of the racist. The party of the bigot. The party of the Nascar loving (okay, not fair, I love Nascar too
) wrasslin lovin (Okay.. like that too
) beer-swillin god fearin jesus lovin redneck.
This stuff SELLS in the Republican party. Let it go. You'll only make him a bigger war hero by chasing it down.
WTF? I back the ideas of a smaller government, defending civil liberties and the constitution, sound dollar and responsible spending.. I don't want a welfare state... now where does it say Republicans stand for racism and bigots.
and Looks like McCain steped back from those statements and apologized...
http://www.asianam.org/mccain.htm
McCain apologizes for using slur: GOP candidate renounces `bigoted' language
Feb 24, 2000 San Jose Mercury News
Retreating from his adamant defense of his use of an ethnic slur, Sen. John McCain has apologized and issued a statement renouncing ``all language that is bigoted.''
The GOP presidential candidate and former prisoner of war said he regretted any pain caused by describing his Vietnam War captors as ``gooks.''
The apology was apparently released Monday, a federal holiday, but came to light only Wednesday as the Arizona senator arrived in California, a state where one in four residents is foreign-born. He landed in Sacramento on Wednesday night and planned to attend a rally this morning as the presidential race heads into the ``Super Tuesday'' primaries.
On March 7, voting in California, New York and nine other states will determine the allocation of about 60 percent of the delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination.
McCain said his original use of the slur stemmed from the intense feelings he still harbors as a result of being imprisoned, held in solitary confinement and tortured so severely that he attempted suicide. Even now, he cannot raise his arms above his head because of the injuries he received.
``For 5 1/2 years, I was mistreated by Ho Chi Minh's henchmen. My fellow prisoners were treated even worse,'' McCain said in his statement. ``Although I will never forgive my prison guards for the atrocities they committed against my cellmates, I have always held the people of Vietnam in the highest regard and have worked in support of the Vietnamese-American community in this country at every opportunity.
``I will continue to condemn those who unfairly mistreated us. But out of respect to a great number of people whom I hold in very high regard, I will no longer use the term that has caused such discomfort.
I deeply regret any pain I may have caused by my choice of words. I apologize and renounce all language that is bigoted and offensive, which is contrary to all that I represent and believe,'' McCain said.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, however, McCain suggested he did not view the matter as a misstep.
``You can view that as a misstep if you want to,'' he told the paper. ``I'll call sadists and murderers a lot worse than that.''
Blunt response
The issue hit the front pages last week after McCain was asked by the Mercury News about his use of the slur in October. McCain's response aboard his campaign bus, ``The Straight Talk Express,'' was blunt.
``I'll call, right now, my interrogator that tortured me and my friends a `gook,' OK, and you can quote me,'' McCain said last week. Adding that all his fellow prisoners of war used the same term, McCain said his tormentors ``were cruel, mean, vicious, sometimes sadistic people. And `gook' is the kindest description I can give them, the most printable.''
Then, after taking a two-minute phone call, McCain returned to the subject unprompted: ``I hated the gooks,'' he said. ``And I will hate them for as long as I live.''
Those words caused pain in a community where many support McCain for his understanding of Vietnam and his work helping Vietnamese families immigrate to the United States. He also helped President Clinton win congressional support for normalizing relations with Vietnam.
Apology welcomed
Community leaders welcomed McCain's apology Wednesday and some discussed the issue in a Vietnamese-language community forum on Saigon Radio, a San Jose talk show.
``I'm glad and immensely pleased. He's a better man for that,'' said Minh Dovan, a San Jose attorney. Dovan said hearing McCain's use of the term to discuss his captors was ``disgusting and reprehensible'' and his apology ``is better than being stubborn and holding a bigoted view.''
``If in fact he genuinely felt remorse, then I think that took a lot of courage,'' Dovan said. ``If he did it in order to appeal to a certain segment of the voting public, it could be a shallow apology.''
McCain press officer Dan Schnur said, ``Anybody who's familiar with John McCain's life story and his experience as a prisoner of war would never question his sincerity or honesty when he talks about such a difficult period in his life.''
Thuan Nguyen, president of San Jose's Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, said of the apology: ``It's the right way to handle the situation. We understand his anger, but the word choice is not appropriate. It's a smart decision for him, since he's coming to California, one of the most diverse states in the union.''
Callers to the San Jose radio show were divided, Nguyen said.
``Some people said they understand why he used that word but other people said it was not appropriate. A lot of people called and were sort of emotional. Myself, I think he can use a different word if he hates the people who tortured him. It's not appropriate for somebody at his level. He's a role model,'' Nguyen said.
Asked about McCain's comment Wednesday, Gov. Gray Davis -- also a veteran of the Vietnam War -- criticized the senator but said he could relate to the former prisoner of war.
``I don't sanction or condone the comment,'' Davis said. ``I would not have used it. On the other hand, those who criticize should mentally put themselves in his place for 5 1/2 years, being beaten regularly, in a cell about 5 1/2 feet wide.''
Davis said McCain needed to let go of the hardship and anger. ``You have to get beyond it,'' Davis said. ``We've gotten beyond Pearl Harbor's unprovoked attack. We've gotten beyond Germany after two world wars.''
McCain's main opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, was also asked about McCain's use of the slur at a press conference in Los Angeles. Apparently unaware of McCain's apology, Bush said, ``He's obviously offended people's senses, and he's going to have to explain why he used it.''
The term is a slur against many people from Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and southern Europe. U.S. Marines used it derisively against Haitians, and later applied it to Filipinos and Central Americans. U.S. soldiers also used it in the Korean War and in the Vietnam War.
Response to Sen. Mc Cain's Gook Remark
Feb. 23, 2000 San Francisco Examiner op-ed page
By William Wong
Dear Sen. McCain:
I am a gook, even though I was not one of your North Vietnamese captors who tortured you and other American prisoners of war more than 30 years ago.
I am a gook, even though I was not a Viet Cong sympathizer who helped the North Vietnamese Army battle Americans and South Vietnamese soldiers.
I am a gook, even though I was not allied with the South Vietnamese military who fought alongside American GI's in that unfortunate war in which you and other Navy pilots were shot down.
I am a gook, even though I did not join the North Koreans and Chinese soldiers in fighting South Koreans and Americans a half a century ago.
I am a gook, even though I did not march with Mao Zedong or take up arms with Chiang Kai-Shek during the Chinese civil war in the 1930s and 1940s.
I am a gook, even though I was nowhere near the Japanese Imperial military that cut a violent swath through East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands in the 1940s.
I am a gook, even though I did not do battle alongside Filipino soldiers when the Japanese military invaded the island nation that had been an American colony for the first half of the 20th century.
I am a gook, even though I wasn't among the brave Filipinos who fought valiantly for their independence after they thought the United States would grant them freedom after the Spanish- American War in 1898.
I am a gook, even though I was not around when European imperial powers carved up a weakened China in the mid-19th century.
I am a gook, even though I was not among the desperate men fleeing the Pearl River delta region of southeastern China for the lure of gold in California in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
I am a gook, even though I did not suffer from the virulent bigotry of white Californians who beat and killed Chinese men for working the gold fields, building the transcontinental railroads, toiling in the farm lands and in low-level city jobs like laundries and vegetable peddling and explosives handling during the last half of the 19th century.
I am a gook, even though I was not personally excluded from legal entry into the United States because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was passed by a hateful U.S. Congress, goaded on by hateful white union leaders, politicians, and editors.
I am a gook, even though I did not have to pay extra taxes on my business or bribe politicians and policemen for the right to earn a living from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.
I am a gook, even though I was not Vincent Chin, who was beaten to death in 1982 with a baseball bat by a couple of white Detroit autoworkers who mistook him for being Japanese at a time when the American auto industry scapegoated the Japanese automakers.
I am a gook, even though I was not among the young school children killed or wounded by Patrick Edward Purdy in the 1989 Stockton school yard massacre.
I am a gook, even though I was not Jim Ming Hai Loo who was killed in 1989 by two white North Carolina brothers who thought he and his friends were Vietnamese.
I am a gook, even though I was born in Oakland, California; lost my primary language (a Chinese dialect) because I knew I needed English to survive in this often intolerant society; and was unable to fully communicate with my immigrant parents before they died after devoting their adult lives to rearing seven children to be productive citizens of the United States.
William Wong is an independent journalist and Examiner columnist.
