He said he was "amazed" that anyone would suspect he harbored prejudice. Jennifer Dunn, co-chairman of Bush's campaign here, said tonight her office had received reports of calls from McCain supporters similar to those that flooded Michigan.īush's appearance at Bob Jones on the opening day of his successful campaign in the South Carolina primary has boomeranged against him, as the McCain campaign, Democratic contenders Al Gore and Bill Bradley and numerous editorials have assailed his standing with school officials, who bar interracial dating by students and who have called the Roman Catholic church a "Satanic cult."įor weeks, Bush has defended his appearance by saying he quickly repudiated any such views for himself and by pointing out that many other officials in both parties had spoken on the same campus.īut with primaries in Virginia and Washington on Tuesday, a caucus in North Dakota that night, and contests a week later in New York, Massachusetts, California, Maryland and Ohio, all states with large Catholic populations, the political risk of leaving the issue on the table was obvious.īush did not dispute the political concerns that prompted his letter to the cardinal but said he was "offended" by any suggestion of bias on his part. it's difficult to see what he finds so objectionable about the calls." McCain spokesman Dan Schnur said, "Now that Governor Bush has apologized. "This is a man who said, 'I'm going to tell the truth and run a positive campaign.' If the facts are what they are, it sounds like he might have violated both." "That's not plain talk that's parsed talk," Bush said. In a Seattle news conference, Bush accused McCain of hypocrisy in first denying any knowledge of the calls and then telling the New York Times that he had read and approved the script. John McCain, in phone calls targeted to Catholic voters in Michigan-calls that Bush said today had "slandered" him with the "suggestion that I tolerate anti-Catholic bigotry." 2 appearance at the Greenville, S.C., school "was a missed opportunity, causing needless offense, which I deeply regret."īush's visit to Bob Jones was strongly criticized by his rival, Arizona Sen. In a letter to Cardinal John O'Connor of New York that also went to Catholic officials in other major states whose primaries loom immediately ahead, the Republican presidential hopeful said his silence on these controversial matters in his Feb. Bush apologized today for having spoken at Bob Jones University without "disassociating myself from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice" of the fundamentalist college and its leaders. Seeking to end weeks of controversy, Texas Gov.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |