In an interview this week, Senator John McCain's campaign indicated that they would "have to get a little tougher" on Senator Barack Obama in response to Obama's recent gains in several state polls. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here." "The subject" being the sh*tty economy and how to fix it, energy policy and foreign policy, or anything else that voters actually care about. So here we have McCain's people admitting that their policy ideas are out of the mainstream, so they're just going to have to rely on pure distraction to win at this point. Right.
So in the coming weeks, get ready to hear a lot about someone named William Ayers, who founded the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground back when our parents were still in middle school. Yes, I called them terrorists. As much as I agree with WU's founding position that American strategies in Vietnam were wrong, there's no arguing with the fact that they killed people. I don't care how noble your cause, the moment you rig a bomb or shoot a cop, you're dead to me. Okay, do we have that clear now? Good.
Okay, so Ayers gets off on procedural technicalities in 1970-something, gets his Ph.D. and starts teaching college in Chicago. Twenty-odd years later, he's brought in to consult with a group that's reforming Chicago's public schools - a group which happens to include an ambitious local attorney named Barack Obama. Though their paths cross publicly from time to time, the two meet "sporadically," to quote an article in today's New York Times. At no point does Ayers ever advise Obama or work for any of his campaigns.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, is already at it, telling a fund-raiser in Colorado that Obama "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," no doubt reading off her color-coded cheat cards.
This is horsesh*t on about 15 different levels. Haven't we heard (until our ears are ready to bleed) how McCain and Palin are these mythic "mavericks" with a track record of "reaching across the aisle" to people who are on the other side of that aisle because they disagree with you in order to find solutions? But when Obama so much as meets a few times in several years to talk about education with - get this now - an education professor - oh, my hell, he obviously wants to blow up the damn Pentagon. *LOUD NOISES*
And does anyone else call mild BS on the fact that Palin quoted from the Times article in criticizing Obama? Yes, I do believe that would be the same NY Times that McCain/Palin have been ripping for some time as a "house organ" for the Democrats - but now all of a sudden they're cool? (I'm so f*cking tired of these people. Are they stupid, or do they just think we are?) By the way, the Times wrote: "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' " Doggone it, my friends, there you go again, with your poor reading comprehension skills. *wink*
From the beginning, this has smelled like a gang of operatives combing through Obama's press clippings to find anyone remotely controversial. I mean seriously? The guy that he met that one time at that thing? Really? I gotta tell you, I meet a lot of people at a lot of things, and I don't usually vet them too seriously. Nor do they vet me. (Please, oh please, let one of my right-wing friends run for president someday and get reverse swift-boated just 'cause they met me that one time!)
The McCain campaign thinks this is a viable strategy. I guess since their only other options are taxing our automatic employee benefits and winking, they don't have much else to go on. I think we're smarter than that. I think we're more concerned about what the prospective presidents will do tomorrow than what people they barely know did 40 years ago. But you know, I'm just Sara Sixpack out here in small-town America, watching football and trying to get a good interest rate. "Weather Underground" is the Web site I visit to check the forecast every day. And that's it.
No comments:
Post a Comment