http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/02/18/MN32194.DTL
Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.
``I hate the gooks,'' McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. ``I will hate them as long as I live.''
McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, was questioned about the language because of a story last month in the Nation magazine reporting his continued use of the slur.
Since then, reports of McCain's language have been circulating on Internet chat sites and e-mails among Asian Americans, many of whom find the the term offensive and inappropriate for an elected official.
McCain's appeal to voters has been as a wartime hero and a feisty politician who speaks his mind and damns the consequences. But his comments on the eve of the key South Carolina primary show the candidate's vaunted `'straight talk'' in another light.
``The use of a racist slur can't be acceptable for any national leader, regardless of his background,'' said Diane Chin, executive director of the San Francisco-based Chinese for Affirmative Action. ``For someone running for president not to recognize the power of words is a problem.''
While McCain's words may have little effect in conservative South Carolina, where few Asian Americans live, they could come back to haunt him in other states.
``Historically, straight talkers who say things off the top of their heads eventually hang themselves with those sorts of remarks,'' said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley.
``While it might not hurt him now, Democrats are not going to have any hesitation about using this stuff to string him up later.''
Can you really blame him?
