John McCain spoke this morning about recent comments made by RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick:
Republican presidential nominee John McCain responded this morning to the comments Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick made over the weekend comparing Democratic nominee Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden.
Speaking on Richmond’s WRVA radio this morning, McCain said it’s not fair to compare Frederick’s remarks to those made recently by U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).
Lewis said over the weekend that GOP ticket was “sowing the seeds of hatred and division” at its rallies. Lewis compared McCain to the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, and through Wallace to the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls.
Frederick told a group of GOP volunteers in Prince William County on Saturday that Obama can be compared to bin Laden because “they both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” a reference to Obama’s past association with Bill Ayers.
In his interview with host Jimmy Barrett, McCain said he’s already denounced Frederick’s statements but said Obama has yet to speak out against Lewis’s.
“John Lewis is a person I admire, I have written about him in my books, but that is far different from some, frankly, individual in the Republican Party of the state of Virginia,” McCain said. “It’s outrageous, harmful, divisive and Senator Obama ought to personally repudiate Congress’s Lewis’s statement. It is not only connected to George Wallace but also the deaths of innocent young children in church bombings.”
McCain added, “I am proud of our campaign. I am proud of the campaign I have done, so Jimmy, you’re off base when you compare the two statements. One from a most respected member of Congress and civil rights leader and one from somebody no one knows about which we have repudiated continuously.”
Keep in mind that this isn’t just some guy that McCain is talking about, it’s the Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.
Wow.
