Had John McCain's advance team taken a few minutes to Google Bill Cunningham, the Cincinnati right wing talk show host chosen to introduce him at a rally today, he would have discovered that Cunningham has a habit of referring to Barack Obama with an emphasis on his middle name ... and he's even been known to throw in a stray Mohammed into Obama's name, where it most decidedly doesn't belong.
In 2001, shortly after race-related riots over the police killing of an African-American teenager who was fleeing their pursuit, Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Nathaniel Jones blasted Cunningham in a speech at a local YMCA, calling the show “trash, and filth and profanity.” (Jones is a former civil rights lawyer who worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Cunningham has been a frequent critic of the organization and civil rights activists in general, particularly Rev. Jesse Jackson, who Cunningham nicknames the "Rhyming Reverend.")
In December 2003, Cunningham drew more fire for making fun of Nathaniel Jones (no relation to the federal judge), an African-American resident of Cincinnati who died after violently resisting police outside a White Castle restaurant; video of the incident again inflamed the local African-American community. Jones, who weighed more than 350 lb. (159 kg), was found to have died of an enlarged heart, and various narcotics were found to be present in his body while violently resisting arrest at the time of his death, which may have contributed to his reaction to police efforts to subdue him. Cunningham made fun of Jones' obesity and apparent drug use in a skit on his show, which prompted various local civil rights groups to call for his resignation or firing.
They would have known that Cunningham's station, WLW, puts straight-up racists like this guy on the air, and that at the least, Cunningham would not be a man in keeping with the image John McCain claims he wants to portray on the campaign trail.
And had the advance team done this simple bit of homework, their candidate wouldn't now have to denounce Cunningham's remarks, and reassert how respectful his campaign will be toward his Democratic "friends" -- probably alienating Cunningham's cohort of right wing radio wackjob fellow travelers in the process, just when they had begun to get used to defending McCain against the evil New York Times.
Related: What's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? According to Cunningham, it's R-E-S-P-E-C-T ... no, seriously...
Care to email Bill, and ask him what HIS middle name is? Here ya go: willie@700wlw.com Update: Here's the video of Cunningham's rant. The part AFTER he riffs on Barack's middle name is even worth, with the Cincinnati nitwit projecting Barack as the lunchtime pal of dictators and terrorists. Watch for yourself:
Update 2: Cunningham reacted to McCain's denunciation of his remarks by carping that the Senator "threw me under the bus" and whining that now he's going to endorse Hillary.
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
