McCain's mea culpa

In some ways, John McCain's admission that he voted against the Martin Luther King holiday is more explosive than the Reverend Jeremiah Wright confessing his mistrust of white leadership in America.

But John McCain's admission, in Memphis, at the hotel where MLK was shot, and in front of a highly partisan audience that he had made the vote, and that he was wrong, was nothing, if not courageous.

I don't like McCain. I think he's ill-suited for the job of running this country. I hate his politics.

But we've got to admit that there are few politicians who would have stood where he stood, and said what he said.

What he is saying about race is important. He is saying that we can discover that we are very wrong on an issue, but the first step in correcting it is to admit how wrong we were. Then, it's incumbent of those on the other side of the issue to accept the admission graciously and move the discussion forward from there.

This was not a politically expedient action. There's no way he's going to get large numbers of black voters to cast ballots for him. Try to imagine George Bush doing the same thing, or Hillary Clinton. Impossible to imagine, right.

So, I hope the old man loses desperately in a presidential race against Barack Obama, but I'm willing to pat him on the back for this.