Palling around with criminals and sleeping with separatists
The McCain campaign is telegraphing to everyone who will listen that it's about to embark on an eleventh hour swift-boat campaign. In tried and true Republican fashion, they've decided that they can't win on the issues and so they're going after Obama's character. From the Washington Post this morning:
I know this association game only works one way, but let's imagine for a moment that Republicans actually held themselves to the same standards.
In light of Palin's past association with the Alaskan Independence Party, for instance, couldn't she just as easily (and more fairly) be accused of "palling around with separatists"? Indeed, her husband's a card-carrying member of that party, so she could even be said to be "sleeping with separatists."
And as for John McCain, if we're going to talk about past associations, let's compare Bill Ayers with Charles Keating. Ayres is an english professor who last engaged in illegal activities when Obama was 8 years old. His association with Obama is tenuous at best. They live in the same neighborhood and have served together on a few charitable boards. There is exactly zero evidence that Obama shares any of Ayres' radical views (and not much evidence that Ayres still does either).
Charles Keating is a convicted felon who swindled tens of thousands of people--mostly elderly--out of their life savings and cost the federal government billions of dollars. McCain and Keating were not mere acquaintances (like Obama and Ayres), but had a close personal relationship. Keating befriended McCain in 1981 and helped him launch his political career. He contributed $112,000 to McCain's first two congressional campaigns. While in Congress, McCain took nine trips to the Bahamas with Keating on Keating's dime. He didn't report any of these trips as he was supposed to under congressional rules. And most importantly, when Keating's savings and loan was under federal investigation, McCain and four other Senators went to bat for him and held highly improper meetings with federal regulators.
So let's recap: Obama served on a charitable board with a guy who committed crimes when Obama was 8 years old (and is now an unassuming english professor). McCain's chief political benefactor and good friend bilked thousands of McCain's constituents out of their life savings while McCain was in Congress. While this was happening, McCain was going on undisclosed junkets with him and attending improper meetings with regulators at his request.
I believe in Palin-speak that's called "palling around with criminals."
Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said. . . .Sarah Palin got the ball rolling this morning when she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." Very classy.
Two other top Republicans said the new ads are likely to hammer the senator from Illinois on his connections to convicted Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko and former radical William Ayres, whom the McCain campaign regularly calls a domestic terrorist because of his acts of violence against the U.S. government in the 1960s.
I know this association game only works one way, but let's imagine for a moment that Republicans actually held themselves to the same standards.
In light of Palin's past association with the Alaskan Independence Party, for instance, couldn't she just as easily (and more fairly) be accused of "palling around with separatists"? Indeed, her husband's a card-carrying member of that party, so she could even be said to be "sleeping with separatists."
And as for John McCain, if we're going to talk about past associations, let's compare Bill Ayers with Charles Keating. Ayres is an english professor who last engaged in illegal activities when Obama was 8 years old. His association with Obama is tenuous at best. They live in the same neighborhood and have served together on a few charitable boards. There is exactly zero evidence that Obama shares any of Ayres' radical views (and not much evidence that Ayres still does either).
Charles Keating is a convicted felon who swindled tens of thousands of people--mostly elderly--out of their life savings and cost the federal government billions of dollars. McCain and Keating were not mere acquaintances (like Obama and Ayres), but had a close personal relationship. Keating befriended McCain in 1981 and helped him launch his political career. He contributed $112,000 to McCain's first two congressional campaigns. While in Congress, McCain took nine trips to the Bahamas with Keating on Keating's dime. He didn't report any of these trips as he was supposed to under congressional rules. And most importantly, when Keating's savings and loan was under federal investigation, McCain and four other Senators went to bat for him and held highly improper meetings with federal regulators.
So let's recap: Obama served on a charitable board with a guy who committed crimes when Obama was 8 years old (and is now an unassuming english professor). McCain's chief political benefactor and good friend bilked thousands of McCain's constituents out of their life savings while McCain was in Congress. While this was happening, McCain was going on undisclosed junkets with him and attending improper meetings with regulators at his request.
I believe in Palin-speak that's called "palling around with criminals."
posted by A.L. at 8:28 PM
10 Comments:
I wonder if the reason McCain is going negative is that McCain is desperate for Obama to go negative. If Obama becomes "the angry black man" for even a second, that could turn off many voters. Obama must walk a tightrope: he can't let himself be defined by McCain's negative ads, but he must be very careful and intellitgent about how he "fights back". Perhaps Biden can be of help here.
Sarah just quoted the New York Times. Also the Keating Five was four Democrats and three were found quilty. McCain and John Glen were found to show lack of judgement but not quilty. Tell it it is, ok? Just tell it all.Obama scares me because there are pieces of his life missing and ant time any one trys to question it, the democrats cry foul. Yet they can tear Palin's family to pieces.
Tear Palin to peices??
What the hell are you talking about, she's always hiding, she won't even do a press interview!
I'll bet she'll be MIA on the Sunday talk shows.
Give me a break, what a total lightweight.
Only one word for Palin's recent attack on Obama's character: Desperate. McCain campaign simply cannot control the Obama wave. The biggest mistake that McCain has done was pull out from Michigan. And the day after the VP debate, Palin, herself, was surprised and puzzled to why McCain pulled out from Michigan. In plain English, she wasn't giving the headup by her own running mate or was giving the memo. Again, McCain will continue to struggle in those battleground states. Look forward to Tuesday's debate.
To get up to speed on Ayers aand Obama read the blog of Steve Diamond. If you had read more than the Obama boilerplate aagitprop you would know, fwiw, fyi, that Ayers isn't an English Prof.
"I am a lawyer, political scientist and law professor. I teach courses and conduct research on the global capital markets, business law, international human rights and labor law." Saturday, October 04, 2008
Obama/Ayers Update: NY Times Responds Again to Global Labor
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamaayers-update-ny-times-responds.html
How did Ayers Make Obama Chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge? http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-are-we-now-update-on-ayersobama.html
The Authoritarian Radicals: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1262085
I'm never surprised by the guilt-by-association games the right wing plays. It's what appeals to their paranoiac, anti-intellectual, RWA follower base, after all.
What is surprising is that this appears to be all they've got -- and it's awfully weak when compared with Keating, Gramm, Davis, and all the other lobbyists in McCain's campaign.
AnonLiberal is right to highlight the contradictions in the rhetoric issuing from the Republican campaign just now. Theirs is a demoralized party, with a peculiar bouquet of candidates leading the ticket this national election year, yet, that configuration represents the material heritage of the initial 4 years in the majority in both chambers of congress, aftermath of which continues to reverberate in realms like the approaching census two years hence, and plans for regerrymandering, voter picture ID, state managed HAVA compliant vote purge lists based on minutiae like whether your driver license has a middle initial but your precinct signature line lacks the disqualifying middle initial. The Republican party long has been under court order not to cage votes, as well, as the numerically lesser of the two parties, one of its favored vote day dirtytrick tactics.
One way to describe the corps of lobbyists guiding the McCainPalin campaign is as GovSarah depicted that organization during her Biden debate appearance this past week, as a "team of mavericks". I doubt Sarah has mounted a saddle and looked for the hiding steer calf, or she would hear the oxymoron in her verbal image. But, to be easy on her here, she omitted characterizing their strategists as a herd, no, they are a BraveNewWorld cadre called a team of political animals with primitive instincts which are telling them now to launch into ad hominems. So then the only voices telling the electorate how to improve our lot will be the two Democratic party candidates. One supposes that will be how the campaign draws to a conclusion during these next four weeks. The Democratic party has the solutions, or, as starters, the willingness to look and discuss.
I would imagine the next two debates will feature the ad hominems scripted for McCain to spout, proving the irrelevance of the legacy he is attempting to portray as his.
Adjustment of the campaign strategy already has been in the making during these past two years while congress has shifted away from a Republican dominance to slight Democratic party margin. That is what McCainPalin are facing, the ebbing tide of investment bank crashing, one million Iraq civil casualties, US withdrawal from the Geneva conventions, ongoing efforts to remake a hyperpoliticized Department of Justice with a special investigator named within the past few days by the Attorney General. Then there has been the treblng of oil prices and oilco profits, the gutting of forest regulations to favor resource extraction interests, the refusal to acknowledge air pollution factors guiding CA's request to enact a new law to compel industry to self-regulate engine design so the atmosphere cleanup may begin. List trails off page...McCainPalin will defend it vernacularly.
McCain seems intent on demonstrating the true nature of what it means to be a Republican ... that the ends justify the means. That will help insure they lose many more Senate and House seats as people get disgusted. Of course he has broken his prior vow to run a clean and respectful campaign and yes, it will get a lot dirtier. If he thought he could win by waving the Confederate flag and shouting the N word, he would do it without hesitation. He has no commitment to truth, no principles, no judgment, and no credibility.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure the right response is to get into the Keating Five or the First Dude's separatist beliefs. It may be better to run just the kind of ads they have started now, pointing out that having failed to convince the American people on issues, they are now insulting our intelligence with a smear campaign.
The essence is to play on their own lack of credibility ... "they aren't any more right about these smears than they were about Iraq, the economy, or health care. Smearing an honorable and worthy opponent is not how you put country first." The right response is disgust and indignation, not mud slinging.
Correction: her husband WAS a member of the AIP until 2002 (when Palin first ran for state office). I would correct that.
"Correction: her husband WAS a member of the AIP until 2002 (when Palin first ran for state office). I would correct that."
Compared to Ayers' alleged activities 40 years ago, 2002 is like yesterday.
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