McCain claims he voted against an MLK holiday because of ignorance about "the issue", as if he needed position papers and highly paid lobbyists to explain to him what Dr. Martin Luther King meant to our nation.
Still, even his claimed ignorance on the topic strains credibility. Perhaps because it just isn't true. Check out what he said about his POW captors in a 1987 interview with USA Today:
"They never gave us any meaningful news," McCain said. "They told us the day that Martin Luther King was shot, they told us the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot, but they never bothered to tell us about the moon shot. So it was certainly selected news."
McCain claims ignorance about MLK because his state didn't have black people, but he knew. His captors told him about it. The issue isn't one of "I didn't know about the issue", but one of "MLK ain't shit". What else could it be?
It's clear as day, especially considering that as late as 1987, McCain didn't consider the assassination of Martin Luther King "meaningful".
A sentiment, I'm sure, shared with his good friends Trent Lott and George Allen.