More than 3 million people have already watched this video on YouTube. Though just 2 minutes long, it captures the worst of the Bush presidency, but reminds viewers that change is coming via Barack Obama.
Tag Archive for 'McCain'
ATF arrests skinheads planning to kill Obama.
The two planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14, he added. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.
“They said that would be their last, final act — that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”
Which jackass from the McCain campaign is going to see this development as a talking point for voting McCain. . . . No one’s trying to shoot our guy, so McCain is a safer bet, even as a repeat skin cancer survivor.
Who knew Commander-in-Chief could be one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, despite the heavy security detail?
The wonders of new media in 2008 have encouraged creative people to spoof recognized material and remix campaign gaffes.
In this case, the classic approach to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America ads is put in play to publicize the Partnership for a McCain-Free White House (created by MoveOn.org). Parents and grandparents are more apt to be convinced by their kids making a rational argument than the umpteenth attack ad or robocall in their voice mail.
Should your parents show the warning signs that they’ll be voting McPalin, the website prepares you for THE Conversation. A “guide,” much like the more serious site, provides tips as how to approach a conversation with mom/dad, as well as talking points about voting for Obama and links to more information.
As of the debate last night I no longer have any doubt that Barack Obama will be our next President. That the opposition only has race baiting left as a vote-getting gimmick means they know they’ve lost. McPalin is no longer fighting to win but just fighting to staunch the bleeding from its own party.
Over at the Huffington Post today, Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God posted his thoughts on an Obama Presidency. It’s an eloquent missive about what kind of President we need in these times, and I hope you click through to read it in full.
Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn’t the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government’s capabilities and programs… President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times…
Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they’ve gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. . .
Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be a great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.
This video of Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is making the rounds. She offer a personal anecdote about growing up in the once segregated South and asks that people vote on issues and the political agendas of each candidate, not on the color of his skin.
Talking Points Memo compiled McCain’s repeated promises to run a clean campaign with the worst of his smear tactics. . . Hold onto your hats as McCain demonstrates the old saying, “do as I say, not as I do.”
Last night as I wrote about recent incidents on the campaign trail, I wondered if perhaps I was over reaching in my conclusions that McCain and Palin would be complicit in any act of violence perpetrated against Obama before (or frankly, after) the election. They hear what their supporters are saying. . . . “Terrorist” . . . “Kill him!” . . . “Treason!”
Today, I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to find much of the blogosphere that I follow is writing in the same vein. McCain and Palin are essentially inciting a lynch mob by reinforcing and reiterating and emphasizing that Obama is different and Obama is the Other. They stretch weak connections to be able to say Obama is cavorting with terrorist, when McCain and Palin have more direct ties to terrorism themselves.
Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill politics has reached the same conclusions (emphasis mine):
But the current political environment does not excuse remaining silent when a candidate for president is referred to as a “terrorist” in your presence. A desire to win does not excuse remaining silent during a threat on the life of a U.S. Senator at one of your rallies. There are no excuses for evil such as this. John McCain and Sarah Palin, the GOP and all who support them have lost all rights to legitimate argument. They are liars. They are wrong. They are evil. Yes, evil. They are one small step short of inciting violence at their rallies. They are letting physical threats go unchallenged.
I was at Obama’s rally at Independence Square in Philadelphia back in April. When he mentioned Hillary Clinton’s name, the crowd booed, and he told them to stop. Barack Obama intervened when his supporters booed his opponent. He called for civility. Yet, when faced with supporters who label senators terrorists and call for their assassination, John McCain and Sarah Palin said nothing.
This is how evil spreads, from domestic violence to genocide. People in a position to stop it choose to do nothing.
And when zealots shouts “Terrorist” . . . “Kill him!” . . . “Treason!,” McPalin chooses to hear no evil. They refuse to draw a line in the sand for their supporters, because they’re providing the fodder that leads some unhinged individuals to those dangerous conclusions. The finish line is so close, and if they can push just a bit harder in the last lap. . .
There’s an unattributed saying, “Character is what you are in the dark.” We are seeing dark days in the month leading up to the November election. An election that is set to turn the page on 8 years of administration that daftly and proudly ushered forth America’s decline in the world and under whose watch created the perfect economic storm hailing down upon us. In November we can choose to continue the decline or begin the slow process of rebuilding our nation and its standing in the world.
UPDATE 10/10: The crowds that attend McPalin events are growing more vitriolic by the day.
McCain on his part in the Keating-5.
I created the appearance of impropriety so it was my — I was guilty, and therefore did not represent the people of my state in the manner which they expected of me. [CNN, Larry King, 10/12/02]
The biggest mistake that I made in my life was attending a meeting with four other senators and four regulators because of the appearance of impropriety, and it is something that will always be a mark on my record, and something that people will judge me for the rest of my life. [GOP Presidential Primary Debate, 1/7/00]
Despite my recovery, the Keating Five experience was not one that I have walked away from as easily as I have other bad times. Twelve years after its conclusion, I still wince thinking about it and find that if I do not repress the memory, its recollection still provokes a vague but real feeling that I had lost something very important, something that was sacrificed in the pursuit of gratifying ambitions, my own and others’, and that I might never possess again as assuredly as I once had. [McCain, Worth the Fighting For Page 204]
The people “have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge– I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.”
John Adams (1735-1826)
McCain and Palin are in attack mode; it’s all they have left. The coveted female and undecided voters are increasingly falling line behind Democrats and supporting Obama.
The economic meltdown is spreading overseas, leaving McCain unable to “turn the page,” since the American voters want answers not dodging of the issues.
The farce of McCain’s campaign suspension is still fresh in voters’ minds as they consider the true cost of that bail out. Sen. McCain left the trail, but left all his campaign offices open and active and left Palin to rally, to return to DC and become a leader on the bail out. And 2/3 of Republicans voted against the bill he encouraged them to support, while 2/3 of Democrats swallowed bad medicine and voted yay. The bill that ultimate passed only did so because it was gift wrapped in the kind of pork spending McCain has spent months railing against on the campaign trail. After voting for it, he encouraged Bush to veto it.
His path to the White House grows more improbable by the day. Even Karl Rove admits Obama would win in a landslide if the election were held today. On the economy, McCain has been given a failing grade by voters. Realizing the American people won’t take their insurance dollars being taxed, McCain now hopes to slash Medicaid and Medicare to pay for his health care program. (Is this new suggestion a subtle admission that McCain is pulling out of Florida as well?)
I’m reminded of that line from A Knight’s Tale when Adhemar looks down at Thatcher early in the film after besting him, saying, “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. In what world could you possibly beat me?”
In what world could McCain beat Obama? Based on McCain-Palin campaigning stops, they’re counting on Bridge to the Yesterday filled with Racism and Fearmongering. They seem to be taking their inspiration from Shakesville’s Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Dude Watch 2008.
In recent weeks, bloggers and journalists have interpreted what could be slight racist undertones to McCain ads, from “Advice” trying to tie Obama to non-advisor Raines to “Perverse” claiming Obama wants kindergardeners taught comprehensive sex education.
Today in New Mexico McCain asked “who is the real Barack Obama?” One member of the audience shouted “a terrorist,” much to the surprise of even McCain, who, after recovering from the surprise of that shout out, seemed quite willing to work with that conclusion as he continued speaking.
This weekend Palin pulled out the Ayers card, a link so weak it did not work when applied by Hillary Clinton, but rabid conservatives continue to shout it from the mountaintops. Ayers is an unrepentant former member of the Weather Underground (never prosecuted) and a University of Illinois professor who works on education reform. They served on the board of the same non-profit dedicated to education reform in Chicago.
“Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” Palin said.
“Boooo!” said the crowd.
“And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’” she continued.
“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
Palin went on to say that . . . “I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.”
McCain and Palin are now indirectly driving home the idea that Obama is different. He’s not like you and me. He hangs out with terrorists, and surprise! He’s not a white dude. Obama predicted as much. . .
“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, ‘He’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name,’ you know, ‘He doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.’”
This same type of verbiage is now used full force by the McCain-Palin campaign daily. The very verbiage they decried just 2 months ago.
McCain took on the role of aggrieved victim, his campaign waiting almost a day after Obama’s remarks to charge that he had injected race into the presidential campaign. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong,” McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said.
Yes, that same “divisive, negative, shameful and wrong” language rallies the base, and while it also reach the few left on the fence, it’s unlikely to reverse the course of this election season.
Are they prepared to face the potentially more devestating consequences of branding the opposing candidate for President as different, an outsider, a terrorist?
Jim David Adkisson told investigators all liberals should be killed and admitted he shot people Sunday morning at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church . . .
According to the affidavit requesting to search Adkisson’s home, the suspect told investigators liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country. Adkisson also blamed Democrats for the country’s decline, according to the affidavit.
A huge uproar ensued following Jenna Kern Rugile’s column, “Does shock jock hate speech lead to violence?” in which she asked where this man might have picked up his ideas.
Might the shooter have heard talk-show host Rush Limbaugh say that “liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces” and “the Islamofascists are actually campaigning for the election of Democrats” and that riots at the Democratic Convention would be “the best damn thing that can happen to this country.”
Might the shooter have heard talk-show host Sean Hannity say in 2006, “There are things in life worth fighting and dying for, and one of them is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the speaker.”
Addison owned a number of books with anti-liberal messaging written by conservative talking heads O’Reilly, Hannity, and Savage. Surely, those books influenced his mind set and actions before whatever break down lead him to enter a church hoping to go down in a blaze of gunfire?
And here is the Republican ticket campaigning by trying to tar Obama as a terrorist-friendly predator with his eye on our innocent children and our defenseless old ladies. He’s the candidate with a Muslim-sounding middle name (Hussein). He’s the candidate that’s different. These are the words the conservative base, the Republican zealots, take to heart at rally after rally.
In the event of an attempt made on Obama’s life by a wing nut spewing the same yarns told day after day by McCain, Palin, and their surrogates, would they own up to their contribution in riling up a criminal? Me thinks not.
You saw that OMG moment for McCain in New Mexico, when he realized how extreme some of his supporters are in their blind hatred of Obama. It’s as though he just realized that the friendly, de-regulation loving Republican isn’t the only one writing checks to the McCain campaign.
Back in May, Cindy McCain swore her husband would run a clean campaign.
Mrs. McCain said that the upcoming campaign against either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton would not engage in negative tactics.
“We’d rather not win than to have to do that,” Mrs. McCain said. “That’s not worth winning for. This is about being a leader and a person that can be a good example for our children, and a good role model. There’s many, many, many more things to this job than just being the president. You are an example. You have to — you have to be better than that. You have to be.”
Sen. McCain also repeatedly called for clean campaigning.
What a difference a few months and the unbridled hunger for power make. The campaign’s embrace of the rankest of muck and insinuation speaks volumes about the campaign’s leadership and the character of its candidates. They now stir the same kettle that the Limbaughs and Hannities of this country toil over.
At what price an American presidency?
UPDATE: For my follow up post, see McCain and Palin fueling the fires.
UPDATE 10/8: At McPalin rally today: “Off with his head.”
UPDATE 10/10: Video of Obama’s prediction in July that the current GOP tactics were inevitable
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