McCain's denouncement was even stronger than Jonathan suggests. I heard it on XM, and I was kind of blown away by how categorical McCain was.

But just because you can't say a thing in the same room as John McCain, it doesn't follow that Republicans won't say it all the time for the next eight months whenever McCain happens to be in some other room. I remember the Bush campaign issuing statements "distancing" itself from the Swiftboat attacks.

Honorable is honorable.  Good for McCain.

I've always had a lot of respect for McCain and I'm encouraged to see this. His response was immediate and unambiguous, not dragged out of him after several painful news cycles. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but if the race is Obama vs. McCain, I think there's a decent chance that this year the rhetoric could be a lot less inflammatory than in recent elections.

This isn't exactly an act of political courage.  McCain now will get lauded for this repudiation, and conservative talk show hosts will ignore him - since when do they listen to McCain, or care about what decent people consider "out-of-bounds"?  McCain gets all the benefits of doing the right thing *and* all the benefits of dirty politics.

Expect this pattern to continue throughout the campaign.

Of course it's courageous. McCain is deliberately renouncing a small windfall of votes which he could easily have, with complete deniable plausibility. Hussein is his opponent's _actual middle name_, and it's a no-brainer for any normal political operative worth his salary to let surrogates like this Cunningham moron to shift many thousands of votes among working-class whites in battleground states like OH, PA, MO.

Good for McCain, and good for Chait for saluting him on this. More like this, pls

One of the reasons I finally sucked it up and bought a TNR subscription was so I could participate in political comment boards that aren't dominated by depraved morons.

For some reason, I can't keep myself from reading the comments attached to articles like the MSNBC piece linked above. It isn't the unapologetic racism of the comments, but the stupidity, that always sends me into a panic. "What's the big deal with people using Obama's middle name? It IS his name, isn't it?" "What's the big deal with rival campaigns circulating photographs of Obama in Somali dress? He DID wear those clothes, didn't he?"

My favorite comment, from Jerry in Corpus Christi: "A message to all you people thinking of running for office.... Before you jump into the abyss.... Better think twice when it comes to your name..... I see nothing wrong with the statements Mr. Cunningham made. "

Mmm -- that's some tasty food for thought. Thanks, Jerry.

Trivia tidbit: McCain's middle name is Sidney.

I agree with FWright.  It's not that courageous.  McCain ends up looking honorable and the net effect is... the same as if he hadn't opened his mouth at all.  I'm not discounting the possibility that he was sincere, but I do question how much credit he should get for doing what any reasonable person would do.

I agree with the general content of the responses that mccain displayed integrity, and furthermore, i'm not surprised that he did so.

McCain deserves kudos for that, as well as for giving the national media almost full access to himself while Team Obama provides relatively little access to their candidate, less even than HRC ("Obama Stiffs, Stifles National Press," Politico.com, Feb 25, 2008).

FWright - why shouldn't we expect more lauding for doing the right thing? Just because the right thing to do "works" doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize it as the right thing to do. And just because others won't do the right thing doesn't mean that he shouldn't.

I really, realy wish Hillary had done this in SC and ever since, up to this "native clothing" business. Dissociated herself with even the appearance of race-baiting, even if it was unintended on the part of the baiter.

Good for John McCain. And if it does "work" for him, all the better: it shows our country recognizes and responds to what is morally right.

Thanks, Jonathan, for pointing this out.

The more this kind of thing is used in the general election, the more reporters will ask John McCain about it, the more he will repudiate it, the more reporters will comment about how McCain's repudiations aren't working and how he needs to repudiate things more forcefully, the more the Obama campaign will use this to fire up Democratic voters, the more McCain will keep telling his supporters to tone down the rhetoric, the more ugly it gets for McCain.  Good for McCain for slapping this down, but there will be no free passes on racism in a McCain/Obama campaign, and guess who will suffer from the introduction of racism into the campaign?  Whatever it does for working class whites in some states, this will make thousands of moderate, white-collar voters all over the country run for the exits.

Hungarian, I've enjoyed both your comments that I've read so far, so glad to have you along for the ride!

He's been much more decent than the Clinton campaign in this regard - I stopped even listening or reading the garbage shoveled from team Clinton post DrudgeSomaliagarbgate. I'd lke to keep my lunch down.  

This is the sort of gesture that strikes you at the gut level as honorable, and the gut is where it counts.  If you have to talk someone into thinking something is honorable, it probably isn't.

McCain is not a paragon of virtue, but he's often BEEN a paragon of virtue when the chips were down.  Not sure how many of us can say that.

Remember when Bush said in 2000 "Well, I'll take any vote I can get" whenever garbage like this floated up?  The contrast is wonderful (plus McCain is going for some of those same independents Obama is. The level of those two trying to out polite each other as we go forward might get interesting, especially in between the jabs).

You have to be kidding, right? He would have been savaged for not repudiating that kind of rhetoric. But it's not like this guy was an unknown; Cunnigham is a well established nut job that never misses an opportunity to call Obama a terrorist.

McCain's people didn't know Anne Coulter's functional equivalent was introducing him? Call me crazy, but that strikes me as implausible.

Hungarian,

Welcome to the group.  And yes, one of the several reasons I subscribe is the generally sane tone and substance of the commenter's here.

Good for McCain. No wonder talk radio hates the guy - he's putting the kibosh on all their best material! Frankly, I'm shocked that McCain was asked about it at all. The "middle name slur," if you can call it that, has been around for months now, and in mainstream outlets like Fox News at that. It's just now becoming out-of-bounds?

mpatrickhendri beat me to it -- it doesn't exactly speak well of McCain that he didn't know this yahoo was going onstage to whip up the crowd and introduce him. Sure, the candidate himself isn't responsible for vetting very opening act on his campaign, but for crying out loud - he never even met the guy? C'mon.

Just wanted to chime in that if the Clinton campaign had behaved in a manner such as this with regard to the behavior of its minions and lackeys, I would probably still be in her camp.  The beginning of the end for me was the Bob Johnson embarrassment, and the insulting, simpering way her campaign responded to utterly unacceptable comments.  

These past few days, what with the Ohio flyers and the "native dress" have just made me tired, and I can't even bring myself to comment, because what's the point of trying to meta-analyze empty foolishness?  Even if the net effect on the campaign is nil, it's nice and a little heartening to see one small moment of simple decency, even if it's from the candidate I won't be voting for.

Woody, Obama featured a virulently homophobic gospel singer at one of his events, and I'm still unsatisfied with his campaign's response to it (which was that he can disagree with supporters on certain issues, which side-steps the problem of giving them a platform from which to air their views).  Not that this excuses the McCain campaign, but the candidate himself showed more class than Obama did, as far as I'm concerned.

Over at the National Review they have a great line for McCain, something to the effect of, "how dare you go to grade school where your mother lived while I was a prisoner of war. On the same continent as me no less!"

campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post

With friends like these...

drdannyu - you are particularly eloquent today...you always are but the last two posts were so so good.

He's no paragon of political virtue, perhaps, but he does have the common decency to try to win on the merits, without this crap about ooh he's a Muslim, ooh, his middle name is Hussein.  Utter and complete nonsense, and I am in no way surprised that Sen. McCain made that clear.

Make what you will of Sidney!

drdan,

You make a good point - as far as I'm concerned that was, by far, Obama's biggest mistake in this campaign so far.

I'd be surprised if we see McClurkin in the fall if Obama wins the nomination. Whereas McCain is going to have to be apologizing constantly for the Hussein stuff - or, more likely, he will say "I made my feelings known on that back in February" and clam up about it. And that will probably embolden people like this guy - and Fox News, and NRO, and the rest of that lot - to shout 'HUSSEIN!' from the rooftops.

Rush didn't get the memo:

"Now Obama dresses up like Bin Laden, and if you mention it, it's a scurrilous attack."

www.rushlimbaugh.com/.../01125115.guest.html

This is just another reason why I am so happy McCain won the Republican nod. Can anyone imagine McCain pulling the grade school crap Hillary has? Has McCain ever done so? Obama Versus McCain will be about as good a campaign as we have had for decades. There will be pointed elbows, but no sleeze from either camp.

Look at how civil McCain and Huckabee were to each other when the nomination was in doubt. Contrary to popular opinion I think Huckabee thought he had a legit chance to win the nod, but the two never ripped each other. If it wasn't for Romney (the republican Hillary) that campaign would have gone down as the most civil I have ever seen.

Hungarian, yeah, let me chime in I always enjoy your posts too, and really love your moniker. why choose that one? are you some kind of film geek/lawyer?

People who call it a "slur" are just validating Cunningham and his ilk.  The touchier you are about, say, a mole, the bigger an issue it is.  Obama's problem is that maybe the thought of a president named Hussein is really something people can't get used to.  For him it's a dilemma.  He either lets it out there or he "hides" it.  Either way it's problematic.

Maybe he should change it.  In a patriotic gesture, the Saxe-Coberg-Gothas changed their name to Windsor during World War I.  Perhaps Obama should do likewise during the war on terror.  To what?  Fitzgerald?

I agree Blackton.

As far as Rush goes, it's very satisfying watching him melt into an anarchronism before my eyes.  I'm not sure how long it will take, but some day sooner rather than later, he'll just be some hack from the 90's.  He'll be the past.

He's so tired, so lame, so 1998.  And McCain is helping that transformation along quite nicely.

No doubt, it was commendable that McCain spoke as clearly and forcefully as he did. But, don't expect the Rovian legions will be thus reformed. Maggie Williams has provided cover for similar if not identical talking points as "well that's very generous and honorable of [McCain], but I don't see that he has anything to apologize for. Why should Obama's people be upset at the mere mention of his middle name, Hussein. I mean, Hillary Clinton's middle name is Rodham; do you remember Richard Milhous Nixon. They didn't want to be treated any different because of their middle names, so what is wrong with saying Obama's middle name, Hussein. Or that Obama is one half Kenyan, are they going to get upset about that?" and so on.

CharlesFosterKane quotes Rush Limbaugh, and I say

"like that, exactly."

What I find interesting about the Hussein thing is I see it all the time on blogs full of Hillary supporters.  I guess if you don't like Obama it is irresistible, even if normally you don't make encourage making judgements based on someone's name.  I think Barack might consider legally changing his name to something less inflammatory, like Adolf Mao McSatan.

Wandrey, why thank you!

And, at the risk of making this into an echo chamber of mutual admiration, I agree with you about Rush.  A lovely side effect of the McCain candidacy is the marginalization of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson.  I don't want him to win, and I'll vote against him.  But if his candidacy can provide solid proof of the waning relevance of these flatworms from the gut of our culture, then it's one hell of a silver lining.

Woody, I agree that McClurkin was a misstep, and not representative of any major portion of Obama's supporters, whereas McCain's base is rife with people all too happy to trumpet every xenophobic impulse they can exploit.

Here's what I heard on CNN: The local McCain campaign in Cincinnati decided to invite Cunningham WITHOUT consulting the national McCain campaign.

If this says anything about the McCain campaign, it's that it can't get the local groups on the same page. Which means that they have their work cut out for them.

"I think Barack might consider legally changing his name to something less inflammatory, like Adolf Mao McSatan."

Actually, it does fit hehehehehe.

If McCain is already having to swat away loons the likes of this Cunningham thing, he is either going to have a very long campaign dealing with all of that over and over and over again, or he will lose any chance of reaching that particularly foaming-rabid part of the Republican base.  Or, and one would hope not, he will eventually start to let it slide, be a little less forceful in his denunciations.  Again, I hope not.  But better men than McCain have been warped in the heat of the presidential campaign blast furnace.

We shall see.

On NPR today, I heard that for a while not (can't remember how long) the Republicans have been doing secret (yes secret) studies on how to deal with not coming off as sexist or racist.  That they even have to pay for this kind of advice is pathetic.  Basically, McCain had no choice but to apologize.  And like some above have said, it only makes him look good.

God I dread the oncoming onslaught.  Obama and McCain may play nice, but the Repug surrogates will stoop way below sea-level.

Granted, Cunningham, Limbaugh, Coulter and their ilk have a right to speak their minds.  They also have the right to prove themselves fools.  So, please, carry on.

Sen.McCain's response reminds me of an exchange from one of the early episodes of _Firefly_.

(paraphrasing) "You will keep a civil tongue in your mouth, Mr. Cunningham, or I willl sew it shut.  Do we have an understanding?"

Well done, sir.

The above comments are for the most part painfully naive.

McCain is a superbly accomplished politician.  The proof is simply how far he came, so fast, without a lot of money behind him, when he was totally counted out only a few months ago.  

Part of being a great politican is letting people of differing views believe that you are on their side.  That's called building a coalition, which is necessary to win on a national level.

McCain needs the nutty right wing.  So he (or his "people" -- what difference does it make, he's responsible) gave one of the nutty right wingers a national platform.  Proof:  all the discussion on this left of center board of what was said.  And then to satisfy the rest of us, he distances himself.

So, we the people of virtue who would never strike a low verbal blow, see McCain as a profile in courage.  And the right wing nut jobs understand the McCain wink and accept his public criticism because they see it as a necessary part of the process.

The right wing has been so successful for the last 40 or so years -- despite the fact that their policies are clearly not in the best interests of the majority of Americans and the fact that they live mentally in a world of total unreality -- essentially because they are better at propaganda than the good guys.

Just a reminder of the class and integrity of John McCain. Here is a clip of a Ohio campaign rally for McCain that began with talk show host Bill Cunningham warming up the crowd. Cunningham is known for his bombastic...

I don't see how McCain gets credit for any part of this -- his campaign chose Cunningham to introduce him.  Cunningham is a known commodity and delivered what one would have expected - how can McCain pretend hours later to distance himself from words and actions he had just sanctioned by putting that man on the stage and handing him a microphone?  All this praise for McCain is completely undeserved.

Neil

McCain is already paying for his repudiation among the twits and zipperheads. Thumbs up is fair.

Wouldn't that be cool...repudiations and denunciations .... both of these lions ( Obama and McCain) holding forth. It gives me hope for our future collective conversations. What can I say? If dreaming is naive then let me be a war torn child.

CharlesFosterKane said: Over at the National Review they have a great line for McCain, something to the effect of, "how dare you go to grade school where your mother lived while I was a prisoner of war. On the same continent as me no less!"

- - -

The context of that quote is related to Obama's oft-repeated calls for a president with experience in the wider world beyond America's shores.  The poster in the Corner was noting that such attacks are unlikely to work against McCain.  Imagine Obama implying in a debate that his own experiences beyond our shores makes him able to be president but McCain's does not.  The contrast between their two experiences - Obama as a toddler in southeast Asia at the same time McCain was a prisoner of war in southeast Asia - would only serve to remind people of McCain's heroism, and it would make Obama seem small by comparison.

Nobody is upset that Obama lived in Indonesia while McCain was a prisoner of war (except total loons, that is.)  What could be upsetting to some is the idea that Obama's experience at the time outweighs McCain's.