Cindy McCain, John McCain’s millionaire wife, has claimed that Obama is running the “dirtiest campaign in American history”. This comes from the people who are “hell bent” on turning Obama into a domestic terrorist who is “not like us”. In the same stump speech, Mrs. McCain went on to say that “The day that Senator Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body, let me tell you.” And I thought she always had that frozen, chilling look about her body, even before the vote.
There is absolutely nothing radical about Barack Obama, his past or his politics. The only thing that is radical and continues to get even more radical, and frankly downright scary, is what is being said on the McCain Palin campaign trail.
In “Rage in the Town of Bethlehem“, Dana Milbank gives us a taste of the type of Atwater/Rove xenophobic fear tactics being implemented at McCain Palin rallies. In warming up the crowd for McCain, reports Milbank, Lehigh County GOP Chairman Bill Platt had this,
Think about how you’ll feel on November 5 if you wake up in the morning and see the news, that Barack Obama — that Barack Hussein Obama — is the president-elect of the United States, . . The number one most liberal senator in the United States of America was, you guessed it, the ambassador of change, Barack Hussein Obama . . . This election is about preserving America’s past and protecting the promise of its future.”
and
Barack Obama refused to wear an American flag on his lapel . . . Barack Obama, a man who wants to be president of the United States of America, removed the American flag from his chest because it was a symbol of patriotism. Perhaps Barack Obama doesn’t put country first, but he puts fashion first.
There is no need to mention that Vice President Cheney, the biggest proponent of the Iraq War, never wore a flag pin and neither Cheney nor W. ever served in the military. But, combine the above statements with Palin’s absurd notions that Obama “palls” around with terrorists, and we are left with a very shameful vision of what the country stands for. Continue reading →
During last night’s debate, moderator Tom Brokaw asked the two candidates who they would choose to replace Treasury Secretary Paulson when he steps down at the end of the Bush presidency. Both McCain and Obama fell for the trap and mentioned Warren Buffet as a possible candidate. You would expect this answer from McCain with his one-man solutions and hero-adoration. As I have made clear before, we cannot depend on a single hero to solve the nation’s problems:
. . . Individual people cannot be the saviors of our public welfare and cannot be the scapegoats either, no matter what John McCain may think. Were you to listen to how he passionately talks about General Petraeus with reference to Iraq, you’d think that Petraeus was more powerful than the entire military and the only person in the country able to “lead us to victory.” And if you heard McCain’s words yesterday, you’d think that by firing the head of the S.E.C., the financial woes of the country would magically dissipate and erase eight years of deregulation and minimum oversight.
That’s simply not what makes a democracy strong. Democracies need solid, independent institutions — institutions that are more durable than the people who run them. The entire U.S. military endeavor in Iraq has to be based on more than what’s in one general’s mind. Otherwise if that general dies (or quits), then what are we left with? The entire financial health of the nation cannot be on one person’s shoulders either . . .
Furthermore, Obama missed a golden opportunity to say that by swapping Treasury secretaries or firing the SEC chairman without reforming the system, we would only be sweeping the problem under the rug. He also should have said, “There are many qualified and willing people to choose from, but let me make this clear: we don’t need a hero, but a government that works for the American people.”
Finally, McCain continued his Golpista military view of American policy. He once again reinforced his vision of American foreign policy being dictated by military personnel and centered on what one general has to say. For McCain it is all about the warrior hero,
General Petraeus has just taken over a position of responsibility, where he has the command and will really set the tone for the strategy and tactics that are used . . . And I’ve had conversations with him. It is the same overall strategy . . . So I have confidence that General Petraeus, working with the Pakistanis, working with the Afghans, doing the same job that he did in Iraq, will again.
I am sure it is no surprise that during Vietnam the Maverick from the military establishment had little respect for civilian government, saying that he “thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn’t have the least notion of what it took to win the war.” No wonder he prefers foreign policy to be conducted by our military and not by our democracy.
It appears, but is not fully clear, that Iceland has been negotiating a $4 billion dollar loan from Russia after Iceland was forced to nationalize its second largest bank under emergency legislation. So far this has received scarce news attention. But, as one of my friends pointed out to me yesterday, Russia coming to the aid of a NATO member state whose national security had been outsourced to the U.S. (the U.S. had troops stationed in Iceland until 2006) shows just how much the U.S. has lost its authority in the world.
An alleged aspect of the deal is that Russia would get a 99 year lease on the airport that was the former U.S. airbase. Last night, John McCain assured us in the presidential debate that there would be no new Cold War with Russia, but half way between Europe and North America, smack in the middle of the North Atlantic, it feels like the weather may have just taken an icy turn.
A note to Sarah Palin: Iceland is on the other side of Russia, the side that doesn’t have a narrow maritime border with Alaska, the side that is closer to Washington, DC.
The second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain was, for the most part, uninformative and boring. McCain came off as physically awkward, lacking in agility, and, as Colbert King said, looking like Fred Sanford from the 70s sitcom.
There’s not much new that I can add to the analysis of the debate that is not already out there, but one thing struck as particularly annoying. McCain started off with his latest Hail Mary: he proposed a massive U.S. government buyout of troubled mortgages (apparently he didn’t know that the power to do this already existed in the present bailout/rescue plan). Then a few minutes later he proposed a freeze on government spending to help save the economy. First of all, how can you freeze spending when you are buying out troubled mortgages? And second, as I have mentioned before, why would you proscribe a spending freeze during an economic crisis? That’s how Hoover dug us into a whole during the Great Depression.
Finally, on the subject of government spending, taxes, and Sarah Palin’s lines against Biden for saying that paying taxes was patriotic, Thomas Friedmantoday writes,
“Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.
As I have mentioned, Obama is finally striking back against the McCain team’s low blows. I understand why the Democrats would finally want to start firing back at the Republican Lee Atwater, Karl Rove tactics of culture wars and personal destruction. Nevertheless, I am not fully comfortable with Obama taking this path, even if bringing up the Keating Five isn’t too much of a stretch. And now it looks like McCain’s connections to Iran Contra are also being dug up out of the past.
A few days ago, I blamed the press for giving credence to Palin’s statements about Obama “palling around with terrorists” by literally making it a headline. In an excellent piece on the subject in today’s Washington Post, Eugene Robinson echoed my concerns and wrote,
We also know that no matter how skeptical we are when we write about bogus allegations, writing about them at all gives them wider circulation. So when Palin questions Obama’s love of country because Obama knows somebody who did something unpatriotic when Obama was 8, our free-market ethos makes us rush to cover her every ridiculous word. We also find ways to convey that this is pure mudslinging and nothing but a cynical campaign tactic, but that doesn’t matter to the McCain campaign. What matters is that we’re writing and talking about this extraneous stuff — and not about the issues that polls say voters really care about.
If we in the media really believe what we say about serving the public interest, we have a duty to avoid being turned into instruments of mass distraction. Of course we should cover what the candidates say, putting their words in context and pointing out when the candidates are exaggerating or lying. But we should also think hard about how much prominence we give to smears and counter-smears.
It’s interesting because if you are like me (and by that I mean obsessively reading all of the major newspapers on a daily basis to get election coverage), you know that the serious press and journalists have pretty unanimously condemned John McCain’s change in strategy, most of his cheap shots, and have all — from the right, left and center — found Sarah Palin to be uniquely unqualified. Nevertheless when I read the papers this morning, there is still more coverage given to Obama links to Bill Ayers than to McCain and the Keating Five. Even if much of the stories criticize McCain’s misuse of the facts or dispel the Ayers connection, the press is still give airtime to the ridiculous claims. Continue reading →
You kind of wonder why the McCain Palin gang waited so long to overtly go after Obama for being anti-American? In defending Palin’s recent comments about Obama “not being one of us”, McCain Palin surrogate Heather Wilson (R-NM) yesterday accused Obama of going to Germany to speak poorly about America. She claimed that
[Obama has] been critical not only of the president, but of American policy and hence of a–has kind of a negative view of America in the world. That’s not unusual, frankly, among liberals in kind of post-Vietnam America to say that America’s the problem. I think Sarah Palin believes that America is part of the solution. We are an exceptional country, we are a force for good.
Of course, these allegations are not only absurd, they could also be used against John McCain or Sarah Palin. McCain has very openly defamed the U.S. government as corrupt. Isn’t that “talking down America”? Didn’t Palin say in the debate, “Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you’re not always the solution”? Furthermore, any American who lives abroad witnesses on a daily basis how Obama is regaining the world’s confidence in our nation. Ironically, only in America could that be painted as unpatriotic.
The fact of the matter is that the McCain camp has feared retaliation. (Notice McCain hasn’t brought up Reverend Wright yet, most likely because McCain is on record earlier this year specifically denouncing the use of Wright against Obama). McCain and his boys have something they’re hoping the American people won’t remember.
So far the Obama campaign has ignored Todd Palin’s secessionist past or Palin having addressed the Alaskan separatist party’s convention, for the Palin’s are small fish to fry. It’s better to ignore them than acknowledge them. But now it appears that the Obama campaign is finally going to bring up McCain’s past ethics scandal, the Keating Five. In 1989, John McCain together with four other Congressman were prosecuted for their alleged activities in relation to the Savings and Loans financial crisis. Although not convicted, McCain was formally reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for his “poor judgment”.
Poor judgment and dubious friends in a financial crisis is not something McCain wants remembered. Too late, the Obama team are now fighting back with a documentary called “Keating Economics“. In a financial crisis, McCain — with his deregulation buddy Phil Gramm — is more likely to lose the guilt by association argument.
I just read an article that was titled “Palin says Obama ‘palling around’ with terrorists‘”. This is just another example of the irresponsible journalism that has plagued these elections. The author, Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press, should be ashamed of himself. Why is a factually inaccurate statement by Palin whose sole purpose is to falsely and offensively tie an American presidential candidate to terrorism treated as newsworthy or given the benefit of the doubt? Why even give such tactics the time of day?
Of course, Kuhnhenn tries to give both sides of the story, but when one side is so blatantly misleading, how can a serious journalist justify first the headline and second the forced neutrality? He even prints Palin’s ridiculous statement,
Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country . . . This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America.
Let’s open the flood gates. Why doesn’t Obama now come out and accuse Todd Palin of being an Alaskan separatist? Wasn’t he a member of an Alaskan pro-independence party? I could just imagine the quote,
Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that she would marry and bare multiple children to a separatist who would want Alaska to become an independent state, free of the clutches of our own country’s federal strangle . . . This is not a woman who sees America as you see America and as I see America.
I’d even suggest the headline, “Palin impregnated on numerous occasions by white separatist,” or “Palin eloped with white separatist, gave him five children, the most recent just months ago.”
If you’ve listened to John McCain’s repetitive line that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand the problems facing the world, then maybe you’d be surprised to the learn that the vast majority of the world would prefer to see Obama in the White House.
A recent Economistsurvey and poll that divided the world up into theoretical electoral votes found that a shocking 8,375 world electoral votes would go to Obama and only 16 to McCain. In every country and every region in the world, with maybe the sole exception of Georgia (where all Americans are Georgians, according to McCain), Obama would win handsomely. Even after Sarah Palin claimed that she “loved Israel” and would never second guess them, Israelis poll 74% in favor of the candidate with the funny Muslim sounding name. In another survey, the Economist found that the great majority of professional economists preferred Obama’s economic plans to those of McCain.
Now is there something that John McCain doesn’t understand? Does the fact that Obama is only leading by single digits show that America is increasingly distancing itself from the international mainstream? The U.S. has stood alone and against all the other major democracies on some of they key moral issues of the day from ending capital punishment, creating an international criminal tribunal to ratifying international climate change measures. Furthermore, the U.S. is increasingly seen, not as a force of good, but as a military empire that uses its force for the sole purpose of sustaining it’s economic and military dominance. This isn’t the view point of America’s enemies, but that of its friends. I know. I live in Europe and hear this kind of talk all the time. For example, in a recent headline in a major Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, a leading communications scholar likened Obama to Gorbachev, hoping that the American politician could move the U.S. away from imperial militarism in the same way that Gorbachev loosened the oppressive grip on the Soviet Union.
I believe that when you analyze the facts, there are two areas where the U.S. is moving dangerously out of touch with the world: consumption and war. These will eventually alienate America to its own detriment. Continue reading →
Now that the Vice Presidential debate is over, it’s about time I get over Sarah Palin too. As a matter of fact, I am no longer interested in dedicating any significant amount of space on this blog to the Republican vice presidential nominee. Nevertheless, I will end by saying this: Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin performed very well in last night’s debate. Joe Biden proved himself informed, capable, and uniquely situated to rebut John McCain’s claims of maverick grandeur. Furthermore, he instilled confidence in his ability to act as the nation’s steward.
At the same time, Sarah Palin did not crash and burn. She sounded confident, outperformed the low expectations, and hit all of the major talking points she had crammed in recent weeks. She was aided by the debate format where she was never asked to elaborate, explain her position, or specifically cite anything (Supreme Court decisions or newspapers she’s read). Rather, she was permitted great leeway to avoid answering the questions altogether and go straight to her talking points: Obama equals more taxes and bigger government, Alaska, Ned Flanders English, hockey moms and mavericks, and war. It didn’t matter whether what she said made any sense, what mattered was that these were words that average Americans could relate to.
My fundamental problem with this approach is that it treats “average” Americans as idiots — as Pavlovian dogs who will salivate at the very mention of key words. Continue reading →
Grave Error 