Neither McCain nor Palin would dare mention Obama's middle name, Hussein, but they can play up Obama's past associations and let others connect the dots. Terrorist. Muslim. Dangerous. Other. It is legitimate to question character and dubious associations -- and William Ayers is certifiably dubious. The truth is, Obama should have avoided Ayers, and his denouncement of Wright was tardy. But this is a dangerous game.
The McCain campaign knows that Obama isn't a Muslim or a terrorist, but they're willing to help a certain kind of voter think he is. Just the way certain South Carolinians in 2000 were allowed to think that McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate black child.
But words can have more serious consequences than lost votes and we've already had a glimpse of the Palin effect.
The Post's Dana Milbank reported that media representatives in Clearwater were greeted with taunts, thunder sticks and profanity. One Palin supporter shouted an epithet at an African-American soundman and said, "Sit down, boy."
McCain may want to call off his pit bull before this war escalates.
4 comments:
I read about the Clearwater rally. This is truly scary. Thank goodness Obama keeps climbing in the polls.
What I find so galling is that McCain & Palin are going after Obama's Ayers connection, while ignoring that Todd Palin is a secessionist. How more un-American can you get than being a secessionist?
Ayers is a despicable man who did despicable things (a long time ago). The "good deeds" he may have done since do not absolve him. The reason he's been allowed to join "civil society" is because the feds screwed up their case against him. So before making mince meat of Obama, the FRIGHTENED (who can't seem to talk about Obama without invoking his middle name) ought to take issue with the authorities who fucked up Ayers prosecution and allowed him go free.
It is frightening.
Actually, Bill Ayers did despicable things in the name of a good cause. Both he and his wife went off a deeper end, in tumultuous times. None of which dismisses the substantive nature of the wrong. However to suggest that humans might be beyond either charms reach, absolution, or forgiveness?
Ummm ... I have a couple of issues with this, both at the human level and at the level of the nexus of justice and mercy.
The 60s/70s are dead, and are gone. Whether verbally repentant or not, there is something rather important about both Ayers and Dohrn in the 80s and 90s -- and how they have lived their lives for the past thirty years. I suppose it is a tad easier for trust-fund babies, but what gets lost in the stooooooopid politicization of "terrorism", "the 60s" -- and the score of years bastardization of that legacy as we continue to fight what are termed culture wars -- is the beef and stuff of politics and human life.
I also strongly disagree with the "rejoin" civil society/"fed fuck" up" (read: there's plenty of more sober estimations now offered from investigators and prosecuters from that time that give THE best perspective around, IMO), but that probably is also not particulary germane to the McCain campaigns grasping at the last workable straw -- passing as an arrow in the quiver -- it has left.
All of which revolve MORE around: urban/Chicago machine/marxist/un-American/terrorist/community organizer/Acorn/baby-killing (abortion), etc.
It's the last straw/arrow. On that we agree: it is ugly. What McCain has left -- has stirred up, and then admonished -- is the sad heritage of a party in tatters, with little more than a bunch of Christianists and conspiracy-minded mouthbreathers as its most mobilized voters (i.e. those that show up at rallies).
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