A few words from a hero

In the debate tonight, Senator McCain once again brought up remarks made by Representative John Lewis. Here's the full text of those remarks, from Politico:

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate.

George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

McCain's previously stated respect for Representative Lewis is apparently forgotten. Instead of examining these remarks for merit, instead of reading them as what they are—the plea of a man who was there in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama when those little girls died, and who must feel a tremendous obligation to speak out if he sees similar circumstances forming—McCain has used them as an opportunity to further bash Obama!

Say what?!

Consider these earlier words from Rep. Lewis on the occasion of Obama's nomination:
If someone had told me this would be happening now, I would have told them they were crazy, out of their mind, they didn’t know what they were talking about... I just wish the others were around to see this day... To the people who were beaten, put in jail, were asked questions they could never answer to register to vote, it’s amazing.

That is the context of Lewis' remarks. He's not talking about some vague threat; he's talking about the reality that he lived for years—a reality that encompassed not only the deaths of those little girls but the assassinations of Evers, King, Kennedy, Kennedy, and too many others.

I think Barack Obama is in danger every single day, and I think the McCain-Palin campaign is inciting violence with their "terrorist" rhetoric. For someone—especially for an elected official—with John Lewis' background to let that crap slide would be unconscionable.