| McCain reignites Obama ’socialist’ claim over 2001 interview |  |
 |
|
| Oct 27 03:16 PM US/Eastern | |
|
|
| John McCain renewed his bid to paint Barack Obama as a “socialist” Monday, saying remarks made by his rival in a 2001 interview proved he was hellbent on large-scale redistribution of wealth.In the interview, which surfaced on the Internet over the weekend, Obama discussed the failure of the civil rights movement to achieve “redistributive change” — comments seized upon by McCain.
“In a radio interview revealed today, he said that one of the quote — ‘tragedies’ of the civil rights movement is that it didn’t bring about a redistribution of wealth in our society,” McCain said. “That is what change means for Barack the Redistributor: It means taking your money and giving it to someone else,” he told a crowd of around 2,000 at a sports hall in this key battleground state. “He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs. He is more interested in controlling wealth than in creating it, in redistributing money instead of spreading opportunity.” Obama’s campaign dismissed McCain’s attack as a “fake controversy” by a desperate man, accusing the Republican nominee of twisting Obama’s words. “This is a fake news controversy drummed up by the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months,” a statement said. “In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.” In the interview, Obama, a former law professor, talked about the role of the US Supreme Court and its rulings in relation to wealth redistribution. “… The Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society,” Obama said in the interview on Chicago Public Radio. “… I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that,” Obama said. |
