McCain defends robocalls
On Fox News Sunday, whose transcript the Obama campaign just sent reporters, McCain was forced to defend himself from the charge of hypocrisy for waves of negative robocalls. It's a mark of how the public fascination with this race has made issues of process -- robocalls are a tactic meant to go under the radar -- instantly front and center.
WALLACE: But Senator back, if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said--
MCCAIN: They were.
WALLACE: And you said the following: "I promise you I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic." Now you've hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to, reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?
MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000.
WALLACE: No, I saw them.
MCCAIN: Or you don't know the difference between that and what is a legitimate issue, and that is Senator Obama being truthful with the American people. But let me tell you what else I think you should be talking about and the American people should be talking about. In the debate the other night, I asked Senator Obama to repudiate a statement made by John Lewis, a man I admire and respect and have written about that connected me and Sarah Palin --
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