OH MY GOD, HESIOD! Yet another headline designed to grab attention -- but which is only tenagentially true? Nope. Its 100% true! More after the bump....
John McCain's 2008 Presidential campaign has paid over 180,000 dollars to a political consulting firm called "Richard Quinn and Associates."
They are a firm located in South Carolina. The firm is named after Richard Quinn, who in 2000 was all over the news for sunning the racist tinged "Southern Partisan" magazine.Although McCain's 2008 FEC reports only indcate he paid the firm around $52,000, he also disbursed at least $90,000 to Mail Marketing Strategies, a firm run by Quinn's son.
One would think John McCain had figured out that paying this guy a lot of money from his campaign warchest was a bad idea. But, no. He didn't learn the lessons of 2000.
But, who is Richard Quinn anyway? Here's what Ralph Neas said about Quinn back in 2000:
The New York Times, Newsday, and The New Republic have raised serious questions about deeply disturbing views expressed by Mr. Quinn and others in the Southern Partisan, a magazine over which Mr. Quinn has presided as Executive Editor or Editor-in-Chief since 1981.
The material we found in the past 48 hours is, if anything, even more appalling than that reported by the news media. Mr. Quinn used his editorial platform at the Southern Partisan to personally espouse views that place him far outside the political mainstream. He has repeatedly used his column to attack heroes of the struggle for equality including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. At the same time, he has discounted the evils of slavery by suggesting that it was not as bad as it has been portrayed and that slaves were better off in slavery than out of it. (Copies of all articles referenced in this letter and other similar ones are attached.)
As recently as 1996, a Southern Partisan reviewer wrote of a book on slavery, "The greatest contribution of this work is that it exonerates slave owners by stating that they did not have a practice of breaking up slave families. If anything, they encouraged strong slave families to further the slaves' peace and happiness in order to promote efficient work."
In 1983, in a column arguing against the recognition of Martin Luther King Day, Mr. Quinn wrote:
"King Day should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane."
"The black leaders who lobbied so furiously for King Day confirmed another unpleasant reality. By celebrating King as the incarnation of all they admire, they have chosen to glorify the histrionic rather than the heroic and by inference they spurned the brightest and the best among their own race."
"Ignoring the real heroes in our nation's life, the blacks have chosen a man who represents not their emancipation, not their sacrifices and bravery in service to their country; rather, they have chosen a man whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul."
In 1990, the world hailed Nelson Mandela as a hero, but Mr. Quinn went on the attack. He wrote:
"After all, Mr. Mandela was put in jail 27 years ago – not because of his humanitarian philosophy – but because he was a terrorist who openly advocated (and personally committed) violence against the government."
"How many people out there across the face of America are well aware that Mandela is a bad egg, maybe even say so in the comfort and security of their homes, but are afraid to express their real opinions publicly?"
The year before he attacked Mandela in print, Mr. Quinn wrote an article about former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's bid for public office. Although he made a point of claiming that his article should not be construed as a defense of Duke, his own words supporting those who voted for Duke don't square with that disclaimer. He wrote:
"What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke? What better way to tweak the nose of the establishment?"
Even more jarring than Quinn's soft words for David Duke is the harsh attitude conveyed toward another Republican: Abraham Lincoln. The Southern Partisan's merchandising operation, the "Southern Partisan General Store" includes a T-shirt bearing Lincoln's likeness and the legend "Sic Semper Tyrannis," the phrase shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln. Among the materials attached to this letter is a December 1995 form letter on Southern Partisan letterhead, listing Quinn as Editor-in-Chief, apologizing that the "anti-Lincoln T-shirt" has sold out in all but odd sizes. The letter offers, "If the enclosed shirt will not suffice, we will be glad to refund your money or immediately ship you another equally militant shirt from our catalog."
And it gets worse.
This is the man to whom John McCain is paying a large sum of money to provide political consulting services. A man who, in 2000, dressed up a bunch of McCain supporters in confederate uniforms to pass out literature in South Carolina to "reassure" wingnut white voters that McCain supported the Confederate flag. A stance, ironically, disavowed by "straight talking" McCain after the election.
And Quinn's consulting firm has also been investigated for allegedly breaking election laws.
This is all evidence that "straight talking" McCain will do, pay or say anything to achieve his decades long dream of beocming President.