I see that Matt Lewis has also blogged on my question to McCain today. It is a question I wrote down to ask about three months ago, and never got the chance to. When I wrote it, I actually took time to check references; in addition, I still believe I remember McCain using the Jim Crow analogy explicitly. But fair is fair, and now I cannot find it in a quick Google search, but instead find multiple references to the same video in which McCain used what multiple observers compared to Jim Crow imagery without McCain himself actually using the phrase. McCain is an honorable man and he denies having used those words; unless I discover otherwise, I must assume that I transposed those interpretations of his words with his actual words (although the comparison he did use was still unfair almost to the point of being odious), and thus I apologize for the mistaken quotation.
The other quotes I used in the question were accurate (I just re-checked them). And the question is, I still believe, valid. It is, I believe, a key question for him to answer if he is to get conservatives fully on board with him. I say this judging from copious reader mail, by the way. For the record, here is the question as written to myself for note purposes several months back:
Examples: immigration opponents as “nativists” and like supporters of “Jim Crow.” Romney needing to “apologize to the troops.” “patriotism, not profit.” “pharma as ‘bad guys’.”
I think it a legitimate question. Finally, also for the record, I continue to stand by my most recent, considerably more complimentary, column on McCain, here.
