John McCain offends with so-called racist remark

Tajikistan News.Net
Thursday 9th October, 2008

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is in hot water for uttering words which have been construed by some as being racist.

The words were used at Tuesday night's presidential debate when Senator McCain, discussing a bill before the Senate in 2005, said: "There was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney."

While it is widely accepted Mr McCain may have been trying to turn the tables on the Obama camp's continuous attempts to link the Republican candidate to the unpopular president and vice president, he then went on to say: "You know who voted for it?”

Pointing to Obama, he said: "That one."

According to Fox News, the GOP candidate's dismissive manner in using the words "that one" generated talk afterward about what McCain meant.

For some, it was nothing more than McCain pointing at his opponent and saying that Obama was the one who voted with Bush.

But for others, the expression represented something sinister: a suggestion that Obama is not like the rest.

That undertone wasn't lost on critics who have watched the McCain campaign attack Obama's associates and relationships, rather than his policies in the last week.

One group, the Center for Social Inclusion, claimed the phrase was racially charged.

The racial undertones were subtle but unmistakable," CSI Director Maya Wiley said in a statement.

University of California-Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff said: "To my knowledge, I have never heard that used as a common phrase before. It's the political equivalent of what Sarah Palin said the other day, which is, 'He's not one of us’.”

Obama campaign aides simply called the phrase "odd" and said it depicted the Arizona senator as being angry.

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