As Wall Street continued its nosedive, and markets around the world shuddered, John McCain's campaign launched an unrelentingly nasty assault on Barack Obama. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." McCain co-chair Frank Keating smeared him as a drug-using "guy of the street." McCain contemptuously called him "that one." Rally speakers repeatedly referred to him as "Barack Hussein Obama." Rabid crowds responded with cries of "kill him!" and "treason." The party of Lincoln has gone from appealing to "the better angels of our nature" to evoking the darkest demons of our nature. Nevertheless, it was Cindy McCain who accused Obama of having "waged the dirtiest campaign in American history" -- a breathtaking display of projection.
It's not that I don't hear what the candidates are saying, but I always begin by noticing what they're wearing, and whose shirt looks better, and of course, whose tie.
The Wall Street disaster is a metaphor for excess and greed, but also for a time gone by. The world of the new century requires not just a new Democratic administration, but one that is prepared to transform our nation.
If McCarthy-era guilt-by-association is once again a valid political consideration, Palin, it would seem, has more to lose than Obama.
At the end of the debate, Brokaw asked McCain to get out of the way of his Teleprompter. He might as well have been speaking on behalf of the future: Senator McCain can you please get out of the way so we can get on with it?
No more dicks in The White House!!
Everyone's fretting that the dreaded Bradley Effect will turn up in this election. But there's another shoe to drop on this issue -- and it may change the electoral map for years to come.
The problem with the politics of attack that the Rovesque McCain-Palin ticket is now employing, and the problem with Obama's defense through recrimination, is that both strategies erode trust in democracy itself.
Last week, non-partisan investigators recommended the appointing of a special prosecutor to determine whether criminal laws were violated in my ouster and that of my colleagues.
When homes and jobs and the whole damn economy seems at stake, the pump has stopped, at least in the media's focus, appearing to be such a threatening object.
My suspicion is that no Hollywood producer is involved in the McCain presidential run. I say this for a simple reason -- it's badly orchestrated.
We do see Senator Obama as a transformational figure, but we did not recommend against John McCain lightly.
The McCain campaign crossed the line today, from negative character attacks to the kind of character assassination that plays to the basest impulses and incites the most dangerous reaction.
