John McCain is making the claim that Barack Obama seems unwilling to personally condemn the controversial remarks of supporters and prominent Democrats after Sen. Obama relied Tuesday on a campaign spokeswoman to criticize Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller for a slight against Sen. McCain.

Rockefeller, an Obama supporter from West Virginia, personally apologized to McCain on the Senate floor for suggesting to a West Virginia newspaper that the Arizona senator does not care about "the lives of people" caught in the wars he champions, dating back to his Navy service in Vietnam.

That apology came after Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "Senator Obama has a deep respect for Senator McCain's service to this country and doesn't agree with what Senator Rockefeller said."

But McCain advisers told FOX News Tuesday that they see a trend in Obama not personally addressing these comments, and that it conflicts with his message of bringing a new kind of politics to Washington.

"Why does Sen. Obama refuse to personally condemn this type of despicable attack? Sen. Obama has run for president on the basis that he represents a new kind of politics, yet every day there is another smear that Obama refuses to repudiate," McCain spokesman Tucker Bonds said in a written statement.

The campaign made a similar case Saturday when Obama relied on a spokesperson to object to liberal radio talk show host Ed Schultz's description of McCain as a "warmonger" while introducing the Illinois senator at a North Dakota campaign stop on Friday. McCain later called Obama's campaign response "satisfactory."

As for Rockefeller's comments, McCain told FOX News Tuesday he was "unfamiliar with that kind of rhetoric from a (U.S. senator)" and wanted Obama to reject it.

"I do believe that if Senator Obama is going to maintain the type of campaign that he says that he is -- a respectful campaign -- and this is one of his closest and strongest supporters, then I think he should repudiate Senator Rockefeller immediately."

The campaign also sent around an excerpt via e-mail of an interview Sen. Lindsey Graham gave to FOX News where he said Obama should personally condemn the Rockefeller comments.

The original remarks were drawn from an interview Rockefeller had Monday with The Charleston Gazette, where he said McCain is too far removed from the repercussions of war to deal with them.

"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit," Rockefeller told the newspaper, which published the article on the interview Tuesday.

"What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues," he is quoted saying.

On Tuesday, Rockefeller issued a statement, saying, "I have deep respect for John McCain's honorable and noble service to our country. I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy and I have extended my sincere apology to him.

"While we differ a great deal on policy issues, I profoundly respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words," he said.

McCain spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and last week highlighted his military service to the country in a cross-country biographical campaign tour.

Rockefeller's apology came on the same day Obama, McCain and Hillary Clinton were grilling Gen. David Petraeus on Capitol Hill over military and political progress in Iraq. An advocate of the Iraq war and proponent of last year's troop surge, McCain has fought any efforts to characterize him as a candidate obsessed with the glory of war.

Graham, a prominent McCain supporter, told FOX News shortly after the Rockefeller apology that McCain actually dropped bombs very close to the enemy before he was shot down and taken as a prisoner.

"John didn't drop bombs at 35,000 feet in Vietnam. The bombs were not laser-guided," he said. "I'm glad Senator Rockefeller apologized, but at the end of the day behavior like this basically comes from wanting to win too badly. We don't need to manufacture issues in this race."

Click here to read Rockefeller’s controversial comments in The Charleston Gazette.

FOX News' Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.