Weekly Roundup, Palin Left Behind As Writers Blast McCain

We here at OffTheBus receive an incredible volume of Op-Ed submissions. We have a team of editors that comb through the more than 100 email submissions sent each day to the CampaignTrail inbox, looking for the best citizen-generated pieces to share with the OTB reading community.

Unfortunately, this leaves many pieces that many people toiled on for many collective hours unseen by the world. What I have noticed while editing is that these pieces, taken together, represent a fascinating window into what the politically active public are thinking -- the Huffington Post -- reading public, at any rate.

With that notion in mind, we present The Weekly Roundup -- a collection of musings from the vast expanse of our submission pool as a window into what your peers have been thinking over the past week of the election cycle.

In defense of recent allegations from the McCain campaign that America does not know who Barack Obama is, the Illinois senator and his wife Michelle have appeared on several programs to reiterate that they have been campaigning for 20 months, putting themselves out there for the world to see.

Twenty. That's roughly 600 days, or 14,400 hours, or 864,000 minutes.

All of this time, all of the hype, all of the frenzy around the primaries and now the general election and especially around the debates, and guess what? People are finally tired.

"Commentators, including me, have been inclined to decry the extraordinary length of the 2008 Presidential election campaign," says Dr. Gordon S. Black. "As it moves on, seemingly endlessly, for up to two years, we all become fatigued by the sheer repetitiveness of listening to the same candidates say the same things, over and again."

"I just want it all to be over," says Craig Krueger. "I was a hard charging McCain supporter," Krueger says. "I am still a supporter of John McCain, but I am not nearly as hard charging as before."

But why, Craig?

"I am tired of being asked to make this decision out of fear for the 'other guy.' I long to make this decision out of trust in one of them."

A-ha! The brow-beating is taking its toll on both sides of the purple fence. As one candidate retreats into running down the shot clock and taking errant jump-shots and the other relies increasingly on the Hack-a-Barack and other cheap tactics to make up a widening gap, the fans are headed for the exits, suddenly uninterested in the winner of a quadruple overtime thriller.

This isn't to say that interest is waning everywhere, but there is a decided shift in citizen rhetoric this week centered around Tuesday's debate and the decision by the McCain campaign to fully submerge itself in the gutter. The Pavlovian spate of panic on the part of Democrats in the face of the usual Atwater/Rove bred muckraking is mitigated only by the leaps and bounds Obambi has made in the polls. Interestingly, with a comfortable padding, OTB readers are more inclined to offer criticism of Obama as well.

"I feel that there isn't enough critical attention being paid, by the left, to Obama," says Jesse Helmes. "Attacking our general seems like the last thing you would want to do in a war," but "the only criticism he seems to get is ridiculous accusation and partisan attacks from the right," while "there is no discussion from the left about his FISA support, his Patriot Act support, and what i think is even worse, his bailout participation."

With Obama playing it generically safe, it's not surprising to see him lose a bit of luster with the base that swooned under his serenade during the primaries. But for every one submission probing a chink in Obama's rhetorical armor, there are 30 blasting McCain with gleeful irreverence as his campaign apparently enters its death throes.

"Seventy-two years old and based in the Southwest, with a penchant for running ads so vile and baseless that you can believe he hired his own feces as a consultant, McCain certainly seems to have a lot in common with Old Man Coyote." - David Sklar

Sticking with the folklore theme: "In 2008, Rumplestiltskin has returned to spin straw into gold under the guise of country first. This time it's not about beer, cake, and stealing babies. No, this time he wants to take over the entire kingdom and will stop at nothing to get what he wants." - Carrie Dennison

The Culture War is in full swing as the negativity mounts, with contributors bringing countless examples from all corners of the internet to our attention. From YouTube videos of McCain-Palin supporters taking the terrorist bait, to death threats from comments on Bill Ayers' blog, and of course, the many makeshift appropriations of "that one" into Obama campaign sloganeering.

Our very own Off The Bus resident poet Leon Freilich sums the spectrum up succinctly in his ever-whimsical style:

In calling Obama "that one,"
A vile and insolent bash,
McCain gives vocal proof
He's palin' around with white trash.


Obama's more lama than caller of names
A definite political quirk
Which explains why he hasn't lashed out yet,
Against the Perk and the Jerk.

Speaking of Sarah Palin, this seemed to be the first week since her selection as McCain's running mate that the inbox hasn't been dominated with vehement cries for a national Palinoscopy.

But if Sarah Palin has receded ever so slightly from the spotlight thanks to a semi-coherent debate performance, there is almost no attention being paid the current president: "Poor old Dubya sits in the Oval office every day waiting for the phone to ring so he can be the Decider once again, but all he hears is crickets." - Bill Devol

And of course, no Roundup would be complete without your weekly dose of Fringe Wisdom:

MY FRIENDS, MY NAME IS, JOHN McCAIN, NO, DON'T RUN AWAY, IT'S NOT CATCHING. MY FRIENDS, I AM AN OLD MAN, A VERY OLD MAN, I REMEMBER JUMPING OFF THE MAYFLOWER, JUST A YOUNG MAN IN HIS EARLY 20's AND SAYING, "MY FRIENDS, THIS IS A LAND OF PLENTY AND I AM SURE I GET PLENTY BY HOOK OR BY CROOK. (BUT THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A CROOK) I WAS SITTING AT HOME LAST NIGHT, CUTTING OUT COUPONS AND I SAID TO MY WIFE, AH, WHAT'S HER NAME? LINDY, MINDY, BINDY, SOMETHING LIKE THAT. "MY FRIEND" I SAID, "THAT BOY OBAMA IS GETTING UPPITY, WHAT SHOULD I DO, MY FRIEND?" AND MY VERY BLONDE WIFE SAID, "YOU KICK HIS ASS JOHN, YOU KICK HIS ASS, 'TILL HE DON'T KNOW SUNDAY FROM PANCAKE TUESDAY" SO MY-FRIENDS, THAT'S WHAT I'M GOING TO DO, OLD JOHN IS GOING, NO-NOT DO-LALLY, OLD JOHN IS GOING NEGETIVE. I AM GOING TO ASK "THAT ONE" JUST WHAT IS YOUR CONNECTION WITH AYRES ROCK? WAS IT YOU WHO STOLE THE BABY AND BLAMED IT ON THE DINGO? THAT'S WHAT THEY DO YOU KNOW, SO-FRIENDS, IF OVER THE COMING WEEKS, I APPEAR TO BE A LITTLE-ANGRY, A LITTLE-HARSH, A LITTLE-NUTS, JUST REMEMBER FRIENDS, THAT ITS JUST OLD JOHN GOING NEGITIVE. BUT REMEMBER-FRIENDS, THAT UNDERNEATH THE BLUSTER< THE DECEIT AND THE BARE FACED LIES, I'M STILL OLD JOHN MCAIN,A WARM, KIND HEARTED MAVERICK. MY NAME IS, AH, AH, OH YES, THAT'S RIGHT, MY NAME IS JOHN MCAIN MY FRIENDS AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE. - John McMenamin

Comments

[LeonFreilich]

Your "resident poet"

Hates to show it

But he has to confess.

He lacks your address.

He knows it's somewhere

But he must be dumbwhere

And deserves to be flogged

But would rather be blogged.

Please send it pronto,

Not to Tonto,

But to the tenancy

Of His Residency.

[demfriend]

Valid points about the whole mess being a long and drawn out thing with a life of it's own. But on the top of this we had the dem primaries which were an endless fight not too unlike the McCain mess but less hate filled and no calls for death and lynch mobs. But Hillary did a lot of the same as McCain just played down as she knew she might have to go back to her old life as a Senator and she didn't want to go back without any control or power left in her pocket book to play with. This all our assault on Obama will leave Palin most likely in a mess in Alaska as she has shown those fine people far more than she ever thought she would have to. Many there don't wat her back. McCain has used up almost all of the "hero" he had held onto over time. His value as a high ranking Senator has been damaged no matter how he ends this he has doen far worse than was ever one to him by Rove/Bush in 2000. They might have slandered him and his daughter over things which were not nice but even Atwater would never have doen so much gone so far as to incite hatred and anger at another person which could lead to that person's harm or death. Great article/blog.

[Chris Nelson - Huffpost Blogger]

I saw that exact sentiment written elsewhere today, but posed as a question: Has Karl Rove done more damage to McCain in 2000 or in 2008? It's an interesting thought for sure, especially when we're talking about a guy that was so angry after the 2000 primaries that he almost signed up for John Kerry's ticket in 2004. I'm sure a big part of what held McCain back was the chance of running on the Republican ticket again in 2008. So here he is, mired in the generation­ally-conce­ived character assassination of the Republican strategy machine. Only difference is, he is the one approving the message this time around. Strange and sad turn of events.

[ohioan73]

LMAO! I LOVE when McCain's speeches are satirized. He makes it so easy by providing so much material.