Apparently Sarah Palin is going around lying about Barack Obama, saying he’s “palling around with terrorists.” We’ve learned from campaigns past, that this sort of thing can’t be allowed to pass. So, if McCain is going to throw mud at Obama for being on a board with a guy who was a 60s radical while Obama was a kid; anything equal to or more significant to that is presumably fair game for McCain.
Obama is hitting back with an association of McCain’s that is both a whole lot closer and more relevant to the events of today. Keating Economics will apparently explore McCain’s association with Charles Keating, Jr. in the 80s and 90s. Keating was peddling influence in the Senate to get Senators to apply pressure to federal regulators to look the other way as he was running the Lincoln Savings & Loan into the ground during Savings & Loans crisis, requiring a bailout. Hmm, banks going after loose regulation requiring a bailout. Sounds familiar somehow.
So, in response to McCain’s kitchen sink attempts at smearing Obama and attempting to get people’s minds off the economy, Obama’s going to tag McCain with an association of his own that’s significant and topical. “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way!”
Now, I wonder if McCain has any interest in discussing the issues at hand today and how he plans to fix them and attempting to present an argument as to why his way is better. If not, maybe we could descend into the muck and discuss McCain’s association with Watergate felon and political murder conspirator, G. Gordon Liddy. Maybe traitorous associations of Sarah Palin’s husband who belonged to a political party that wanted Alaska to secede from the Union. And, I’ll bet that McCain has sat on all kinds of boards and spoken to all kinds of people during his decades in Washington.
Or, maybe this is a silly game after all, and we ought not play. But, there is kind of a prisoner’s dilemma going on. Everyone does the right thing, and everyone wins. One person does the right thing and one person does the wrong thing; and the guy who does the wrong thing wins. Both people do the wrong thing, and everyone loses equally. So, the rational thing to do is to act nicely, then if the other guy acts wrongly; you bonk him on the head and act wrongly yourself until he acts nice. Then you resume. Sen. McCain, this is your bonk on the head.
Sixties radical? Are we sure she is not talking about the 1860s? During the debate she kept referring to the head of our Afghan troops, General McKiernan, as General “McClellan”. Sheesh.
“There you go again Joe, talkin’ about the past…” – Gov. Palin
Enough said. Slimy, desperate, AND hypocrites.
The above account of the campaigns’ strategies points out how easily the public can be manipulated by targeted messages. A certain number of people are very partisan and are just looking for a reason to be led along.My Republican family is pleased ,for example, that McCain is finally ‘doing something’.And I’m pleased that Obama is fighting back on a tit for tat basis.Obama obviously isn’t as ‘intellectual’ was G Dukakis in back ’88.
This morning NPR spoke with a woman who is nervous about voting for Obama because he will take care of ” his race.” She doesn’t consider herself racist.
Read this latest article in Rolling Stone about the “honorable” John McCain.
Sure, McCain’s desperate. We knew that the minute he suspended his campaign.
Obama’s run a brilliant campaign. He knows when to pull back and when to press. His vote for the bailout is exactly the same as McCain’s, but who is considered the economic idiot and who is the genius?
That may not reflect well on either the analytical ability of Americans, or the intellectual honesty of some, but it absolutley points to Obama and his campaign being very sharp and astute, and McCain & Co not so much.
lemming,
I think Obama ‘taking care of his own race’ is a widespread view judging from those I know ,and no, it’s not considered ‘racist’.My mother and sister have said almost exactly the same phrase on different occasions.It’s good ol’ conservative ‘common sense’.
We Americans spend an awful lot of time labeling others racists and explaining why we aren’t. In this blog I have already labeled my dear 88 yr old mother racist and my sister also,both of whom I love. It’s an American tragedy.
But truthfully Obama may do more for Blacks.
Repubs have helped those Blacks who are millionaires with tax cuts, so I want to fair.
My father was unskilled labor back when you could still get a union job with that label.He always thought that Blacks got more than they deserved,and he always had to compete.It was a a very racial atmosphere.I bring up this example because I think it was typical then and probably still is valid many places.
So, all this time the white politicians have been “taking care of their own?”
I was watching MSNBC yesterday afternoon, and they had on pundits from both sides. The republican kept yelling about Obama being linked to terrorists and Rezko. The dem tried to keep to topic-and also managed to keep his cool.
Which side is falling apart?
BTW-for you Joe Six-packs playing a drinking game…here it is….MAVERICK!
Minorities always have to organize and take care of each other against the majority….think the Irish, the Asians, the Italians, etc. Hell, even I belong to to AARP.
We could talk about Todd Palin’s membership in the secessionist party. But we shouldn’t neglect to talk about Sarah recording a video greeting for their meeting. That group’s only agenda item is to leave the U.S. Their founder talks about our “goddamn flag”. We should be hearing a LOT more about what common cause she has with secessionists.
In r/e the Keating 5. Did Obambi forget that #5 was his own surrogate John Glenn?? Talk about dropping the grenade a little too close to your own foot.
Glenn was an astronaut, man. That’s like P.O.W. *plus*. You get extra special treatment.
Doug–
McCain also should qualify as an astronaut. As he told the Desmoines Register, he is not an astronaut but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand the challenges of space.
He left out that he understands “splashdowns” based on three crashed aircraft.
He also left out that he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. Also, he’s rubber and Obama’s glue.
Also, trading an involved surrogate for an involved principal is kind of like trading a knight for a queen.