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Mud-slinging with a spin
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Feb. 22, 2000 | To shore up his conservative credentials in South Carolina, Texas Gov. George W. Bush cozied up with the racist, anti-Catholic Bob Jones University. Called upon to denounce its policies against interracial dating and their anti-Catholic rhetoric, Bush said he "disagreed" with the bigoted policies. But at a press conference in South Carolina, when I asked how he could condemn prejudice and bigotry and yet tolerate the hatred so endemic to Bob Jones, Bush said, "I don't think it was done out of hatred and bigotry. I didn't ask them the cause of their policy."
Because Bush remained mum, Bob Jones might have done irreparable damage to his reputation among black voters. And it might have given McCain the crucial ammunition he needed against Bush to win in Michigan, which is heavily Catholic. The transcript of a "Catholic Voter Alert" phone message received from the Bush campaign describes Bush as having "campaigned against Sen. John McCain by seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views." The message was sent to Catholic Republicans in Michigan. "Several weeks ago, Governor Bush spoke at Bob Jones University in South Carolina," the phone alert says. "Bob Jones has made strong anti-Catholic statements, including calling the pope the anti-Christ, the Catholic Church a satanic cult! John McCain, a pro-life senator, has strongly criticized this anti-Catholic bigotry, while Governor Bush has stayed silent while seeking the support of Bob Jones University. Because of this, one Catholic pro-life congressman has switched his support from Bush to McCain, and many Michigan Catholics support John McCain for president." Tuesday, Bush retaliated with the statements of nine GOP governors condemning McCain for making the allegations -- Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, Frank Keating of Oklahoma, Jeb Bush of Florida, George Pataki of New York, Mike Leavitt of Utah, Paul Celucci of Massachusetts, Mark Racicot of Montana, John Engler of Michigan and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin. Racicot, a Roman Catholic who praises McCain as "an extraordinary human being," also says that he found his campaign's phone calls to Catholic voters "opportunistic," as well as "unfortunate and disappointing." "Gov. Bush went to Bob Jones University to speak about his beliefs and his agenda," Racicot says. "It's the same rationale that leads Al Gore and Bill Bradley to go to Al Sharpton -- that their visits would somehow indicate that they endorse what Al Sharpton has said in the past is ridiculous. They were trying to persuade him to be constructively engaged in the political process, and the same is true of George Bush. If we employ this mentality that you don't go to wherever it is if everyone there doesn't agree with you, how would we ever be able to try to bridge these gaps that exist in this culture?" Bush "should go everywhere" to "bring his message of hope," Racicot says. When asked if Bush shouldn't have spoken out against anti-Catholicism while in the lion's den, Racicot argued that Bush is long-established as being "passionate in defense of religious tolerance." He argued that slamming Bush "based on whether or not you're arguing with [Bob Jones's views] or calling them to a higher plane of living, that somehow that's endorsing those thoughts, is ridiculous." On Monday morning, Bush complained at a press conference that McCain was "paying for calls that call me an anti-Catholic bigot." But Patrick Scully, director of communications for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, says the phone message didn’t call the front-runner anti-Catholic. "It's saying that he failed to denounce the view of Bob Jones University, which is exactly what our press release says ... I don't see anything factually in error" in the phone message, Scully says. The Catholic League is unaffiliated with the church, and was founded to be a more zealous version of the Anti-Defamation League, except on behalf of Catholics. So Bush's tactic becomes: Denounce McCain for "going negative" by denouncing Bush for tolerating bigotry. It’s an interesting trick. But not everybody buys it. "It’s an absurdity to try to turn this around," says Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s "Hardball" (and also a Catholic). "Reacting to dirty politics is not dirty politics." But turning it around is what Bush has been consistently trying to do. In an attempt to combat the impression that he is the only Republican presidential candidate who has -- in the words of McCain backer Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. -- "aligned himself with some pretty unsavory elements," Bush and his allies have attempted to make former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman an anti-Christian albatross around McCain's neck.
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