McCain attacks Obama's 'ambition' after acknowledging his own David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Wednesday August 20, 2008





Print This Email This Senator John McCain recently accused Senator Barack Obama of calling for an end to the war in Iraq because he is motivated by "the ambition to be president."



It has now come out that McCain himself has written of his 2000 presidential campaign, "I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president."



That ambition, McCain added, even led him to "lie" and conceal his true opinion of the Confederate flag.



MSNBC's Keith Olbermann noted this and other McCain self-contradictions on Tuesday's Countdown, asking Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, "Is this a stable man?"



Robinson laughed and replied, "I guess this is supposedly the older, wiser John McCain."



"He said he lied about supporting the Confederate flag," Olbermann noted. "Is this now not just more lying? He knows ambition has been his motive, so he accuses Obama of it?"



"I don't quite get this line of attack," Robinson admitted. "I'm not aware of many, or any, presidential candidates who were not ambitious. ... To try to pretend, really, that he is without ambition ... I don't think anybody's going to buy that."



Olbermann also asked Robinson about McCain's invoking the name of Democratic congressman and former civil rights leader John Lewis as someone he respects and would consult with as president. McCain has mentioned Lewis in similar terms in the past, even though Lewis has said that he and McCain are not confidants and have no personal relationship.



"Is there something unseemly about returning to this well in such a dishonest fashion?" Olbermann asked. "Does it say anything about McCain's approach to the issues of race?"



"It indicates a certain trivialization of the issue," Robinson agreed.





This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast August 19, 2008.









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