John McCain Gets Dirty
Mom always told me that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. But then, Mom was never a Republican running for President. After originally claiming he was going to maintain a civil tone throughout his campaign, John McCain - having fallen behind Obama in the polls and weighted down with the formerly buoyant Sarah Palin - has publicly announced he's going to go character hunting from a helicopter for Barack Obama.
Dirty, or tough, or rough, or however-you-want-to-call-it politics has been a part of electioneering probably since before David was made King waaaay back in the day. But when was the last time you recall a candidate openly announcing going dirty as an actual tactic? But then, when was the last time you recall a presidential candidate "suspending" their campaign at will? That is, when they weren't just openly abdicating states. Still, maybe that's how mavericks operate; they are open and up front about how low they're going to go.
This past weekend, Republican Vice Presidential candidate and self-described pitbull-in-lipstick Sarah Palin made good on Team McCain's threat by claiming Obama's been "paling around" with terrorists. While that byte sounds like he's been golfing with Osama Bin Laden, it's really a finger wag at Obama's association with former Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers.
Bill Ayers is scum.
And Obama does have a very tenuous six-degrees "association" with him. But this is all old news. Palin needed to deliver some kind of October surprise if she were going to try and make the charge fresh.
And in this down economy, John McCain's relationship with Charles Keating is perhaps a bit more relevant (McCain was cleared of any improprieties in the Keating affair, but was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for having demonstrated "poor judgment").
While the Ayers attack may be an indicator of how Team McCain is going to devolve from here, it's also indicative of just how oblivious they are. It's hard to get dirty in a campaign that's been in the gutter for months. Obama has already survived far Right slurs, innuendoes, exaggerations and lies. What else, what more could McCain possibly hold in reserve?
Certainly nothing that would fall into the category of honorable.
For more perspective go to ThatMinorityThing.com
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
MR. RIDLEY;
While you are at it when are you going to question why Mr. Ayers was appointed to serve on the Board of the Annenberg Challenge?
Is not Mr. Annenberg a wealthy republican and did not some of the money from the Annenberg Challenge go to charities run and supported by other republican politicians in Chicago?
The republicans will get in the sewer and start to fling crap with venom that has rarely been seen front and center in this country since the days of desegregation.
The fear is going to be heightened to a level you have never seen.
The GOP bigots will have fliers, ads, radio commercials, inter-net spam and video about blacks stealing your jobs, and in these tough times how blacks and other minorities are stealing your children’s places in college. It's going to be worse than ugly.
Watch for the Bush/Cheney republicans and folks at Homeland Security will claim that we are under some sort of terrorist attack and, will also release Bin Laden tapes and al Qaeda threats and claim that they have captured a terrorist cell and the members will be black men.
The GOP will claim that Sen. Obama has terrorists who have contributed to his campaign all while our financial system burns.
McCain and the republican party have once again proven that they are the party of hatred, fear, and divisiveness.
A persons real character shows eventually. We see JMC's now!
Amazing how McC is willing to trash his entire career, this slimefest of a campaign is not going to be a footnote, it will be in the first paragraph of his bio. It will dog Sarah as well. Still over a month out, the worst is yet to come.
Draping oneself in the flag while spewing innuendo is particularly repugnant. The conservative electorate should be ashamed of this campaign. Her kind of America we can do without. This is the ugly America.
McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981,[11] and McCain was the only one of the five with close social and personal ties to Keating.[3
http://en.
This is the same man, who was swiftboated by the same people running his campaign. That in and of it self, speaks volumes about his integrity. This explains why he can so easily be bought by lobbyists. There's an old addage, a man's word is his bond. That being said, the core of that bond is his integrity.
Integrity is "consistency "of actions, values, methods, measures and principles. Consistency being the operative word.
As I've stated, speaks volumes.
with all this anger and smearing, i'm concerned that somewhere out there travis bickle is getting energized by the conservative base....he was overheard screaming "kill him" at a palin rally. do we really want to encourage this message with all the economic and war crap going on out there???
it really is time for gordon gecko to take the fall, for trickle down economics to be turned off, and not by violence, or inciting it.
I guess McCain having a convicted felon and someone with who plotted murder isn't news.
Somewhere G. Gordon Liddy sighs with relief.
!!!! WATCH McCain and Cindy LIE to AMERICA about not going negative !!!
http://www
http://mud
http://www
McCain is such a loser. I think if he had actually stuck to his promise to run an honorable campaign he would have been in a much better position to at least compete during the final stretch. Now facing a landslide type defeat he has decided to go desperate and get deeper in the mud. The man has no core principles that were anything more than campaign slogans, thats why he can so quickly change positions and reduce himself to smear tactics. Nice to see Keating 5 being raised, republicans for too long have believed that negative campaigning cant be used against them. The diffrence is is that Keating 5 is true and alot more relevant to the present financial crisis. O's camp played this wisely and sat on it until it would have the most impact at a crucial time.
John,
Two of your recent posts here have done more to hurt Obama among his base than Palin or McCain - from whom we expect just such behavior. Most recently you spoke of "Obama's worrisome campaign" and earlier "Obama gets tough: too little, too late?"
Rather than encourage people to vote (you can always make your suggestions to Obama AFTER he freakin' wins!) you have spent some time attempting to knock down Barak. You strike me as one of those people who simply likes to see their name in print.
I agree completely with your comments.
(dagdavid)
Me too! I always wonder what his real agenda is!!
Yes
First time I've seen a misstep here.
"Bill Ayers is scum" without so much as a reason for the statement is tacky at best.
I have learned never to attribute to malice what might otherwise be attributed to ignorance.
Explain - but get your facts straight first, please. Current facts. Not facts that are 40 years old...
I agree, lemon9. That sentence "Bill Ayers is scum" seemed really harsh and out of place. Sure, the rethugs would call him scum, but they would call any dem scum. Seems to me that Ayers was a patriotic young man trying to do what he could to stop an immoral and catastrophic war. Now, 40 years later it seems he is a respected college professor who does a lot of good work for poor people. Scum? I think not. Please, John, don't accept the rethug labels of people on our side.
Oh please. Setting bombs is not patriotic. Even tho the history of the radical movements in the 60's is very convoluted that one just wont fly.
Those in glass homes should not throw stones especially when they are not without sin. If Palin and McCain want to criticize McCain over Ayers, the nwhat about Palin's own radical ties to the Alaskan Secessionist Party, AKIP.
Read About Palin and the AKIP Here
http://new
It is Bill and Tom Ayers, Frank Davis, Tony Rezko and Emil Jones. This is Obama family, his mentors and council. The whole time Obama has been campaigning he has been reluctant to divulge his true history. He worked with Bill Ayers and Frank Davis was his childhood mentor. His direct involvement with ACORN that promoted the financial corruption of sub-prime mortgages is well known. Obama was part of the problem in the housing market meltdown. Smear effort? Wow, that's a stretch.
I feel so sorry for you pathetic rethugs, desperately re-hashing worn out, discredited smears as your big October Surprise.
Go on, rethugs, out to the desert for the next 40 years to think things over.
The Democrats and their friends in the media have savaged Sarah Palin. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
I am shocked, SHOCKED that you would call Sarah Palin a goose.
We haven't called her a terrorist or the anit-Christ. Just sometimes incapable of putting two sentences together that make sense. You have to remember just a couple of weeks before she got the nomination, she was wondering if God had a plan for Iraq. You have to admit she is good for shooting wolves out of helicopters and getting all dressed up in wolf skins at a party later. Now if you are saying that Barack Obama does not have concrete and detailed policy statements which make sense and every third word he uses is "Maverick," well then you have something going on. Oh isn't she just as cute as a bug in a rug; can we call her Sarah?
Nobody smeared her. She has made herself look foolish.
Savaged! Yes, it was savage of Katie Couric to ask Palin what newspapers she read.
Well, all I have to say is: Gov. Palin, if you go moose hunting with John after the election, don't stand anywhere near John's foot, because that seems to be where all his bullets go these days:
(a) McCain: "Let's turn the page on the financial crisis."
Financial Crisis: "You think you're going to turn the page on me? HAH!" (whacks the stock market in the gut)
Voters: (Shrieks of terror)
McCain: "Wait! Look over here! I want to talk about who hosted some party for Obama in 1995."
(b) And how about his response to the Keating Five business?
What he should have said: "I've talked about that and written about that many times. I made some mistakes and I'm sorry. That experience taught me a great deal about the importance of straight talk and ethics. That's what makes me the maverick reformer I am today. Maybe someday Barack Obama will have a learning experience like that."
What he did say (through his lawyer): "I was framed!! I did nothing wrong!!"
Thus he publicly chooses to stand behind everything he actually did in terms of "palling around" with the disgraced Keating.
Oh really, this is the dozens isn't it? Ayers? Apparently the last couple of decades or so he's been hiding out doing non profit work for the benefit of school children in Chicago. 40 years ago Barry Goldwater was yammering away about how extremism in the defense of liberty was no vice. Malcolm X was calling for any means necessary. Obama was a little kid; he hardly knows Ayers. Rezco and, tragically, Wright will be bigger up the list believe me.
So it's: Your mama, John McCain, I raise you and your jive the Keating 5.
But in fact, it's all down to this: McCain and Palin according to their plans will continue the work of George W. Bush--in their tax policies, on health care, in the middle east, in the courts. Four more of the eight before. The rest is nothing more than "your mama."
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
