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News Obama Reps Slap McCain on Ireland

By
DEBBIE MCGOLDRICK,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 1:24 AM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 6:00 PM

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While Senator John McCain was in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Monday addressing the Irish Presidential Forum, members of Senator Barack Obama's Irish advisory panel held a press briefing to slam the GOP nominee's prior record on Irish issues, including his opposition to the issuance of a visa to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in 1994.

Participants in the Monday morning conference sought to deliver a strong message to Irish voters - don't let McCain's sweet Irish talk fool you, because his past actions don't measure up to his current words of flattery.

Senator Patrick Leahy, on the call fellow Obama Irish advisory panel members Senator Chris Dodd, Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland, and Congressmen Joe Crowley and Richie Neal, recalled the heated debate over the first Adams visa, and how McCain strongly criticized President Bill Clinton for giving the go-ahead.

"History shows that it was a brilliant thing to bring Adams to America," said Leahy. "I remember how John McCain strongly opposed that. He said it was pandering to the Irish. He had no understanding of the history involved, or how important it was to bring both sides together."

McCain, added O'Malley, was more concerned with appeasing the British at the time.

But now, in the heat of a tight presidential race, McCain's old Straight Talk Express slogan "has now become the Blarney Bus," said O'Malley. "He will tell the people (in Scranton) what they want to hear, instead of the way he sees it. The truth is he's 20 years late on pivotal Irish issues."

Dodd, an early and critical supporter of the Adams visa, recalled the tense times leading up to its approval, and how the Clinton decision represented an historic change in American policy - change McCain attempted to thwart.

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