Rep. Lewis Scolds McCain for Recent Rallies

The former civil rights leader and current Democratic Georgia congressman John Lewis (left) accused John McCain and Sarah Palin of stoking hate with their recent personal attacks on Barack Obama.

He likened the atmosphere at Republican campaign events, especially town hall style events, to those events held by George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate in 1968. At recent McCain rallies, when the candidate mentioned Obama's name, the crowd would erupt not only with boos, but with calls of "liar," "Arab" and even "terrorist" as well as some racial slurs that were reminiscent of an angry mob.

"What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis said in a statement to Politico yesterday. "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."

However, Lewis didn't accuse McCain of imitating Wallace, but clearly suggested that there were some similarities.

"George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis added. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama," referring to the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 in which four black girls were killed in the blast during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The incident was later linked to a Ku Klux Klan group.

Usually, these kind of comments wouldn't be that big of a deal. But in this case, it is different because McCain has lavished praise upon Lewis over the years, including admiring him in a book on courage and bravery and repeatedly invoking Lewis's name in various public appearances.

At the Saddleback Church in August alongside Obama, McCain included Lewis as one of "three wise men" he would consult as president. "He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than our self-interest," McCain said of Lewis.

“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all," Lewis said yesterday. "They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.”

Here was McCain's direct and personal response to Lewis' statement:

I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track.

I call on Senator Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America.

The Obama campaign distanced themselves from Lewis' references to Wallace but still took a shot at Palin and the unruly supporters at McCain's rallies in their statement:

Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States ‘pals around with terrorists.

As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead.

This back-and-forth will dominate the Sunday morning panel shows and dominate the news cycle, along with the Troopergate report, for the next few days and will probably distract people a least for a little while of the economic turmoil.

In Obama's primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, whenever the discussion turned to race it did not bode well for Obama. That's why the Obama campaign has been trying to avoid invoking racial themes into the campaign.

But then again, as blogger Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight.com) points out, John Lewis is no Jesse Jackson, and his comments might be taken seriously instead of just dismissed as radical dribble, which is usually the case with Jackson.

I think that the Obama campaign should have completely renounced the comments so they could be seen as mature and above the race discussion so they could move on as planned with the campaign. Now, they are giving the media an opening to discuss race, and even bring up Rev. Wright again. We'll see if this has any effects on Obama's poll numbers in the coming days.

But who knows, maybe McCain and Palin will take Lewis's comments to heart and change their campaign tactics. Anything is possible.