When You’ve Got Nowhere To Go But Down
Hoisted on His Own Petard
John McCain seems to have returned to sanity, or at least to have had a brush with his own decency, but it may be too late to save his campaign, which is sinking as quickly as the stock market. At a town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota on Friday, McCain found himself in the unusual position of actually defending Barack Obama not once but twice as members in the audience made claims against the Democratic candidate.
One man said that he was afraid to raise his unborn child in a country run by a President Obama, and another woman actually openly declared that Obama is an Arab. McCain, obviously uncomfortable by both declarations, said to his supporters, “I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,” and was promptly booed by the crowd. As to the woman who declared Obama to be an Arab, McCain, took the microphone away, and quickly shook his head no repeatedly. “No, ma’am. No, ma’am,” McCain said. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen who I just happen to have serious differences with on fundamental questions.”
This is the McCain I have seen before, the one who Joe Biden respects. It’s obvious that McCain has realized that he has started a fire (or someone in his campaign has) that is running out of control, and it is leaving a very bad taste in his mouth (apologies for the mixed metaphor). Can he salvage the situation? Unless he can muzzle Sarah Palin, I don’t think so. She enjoys her role as pit bull too much, and there is something afoot in these crowds, a mob mentality that is truly frightening, and I’m not being sarcastic here. For everyone’s sake, I hope that the Secret Service is being just as paranoid as I am, because this is the type of wildfire that makes loonies want to do something “for the good of the country.”
Speaking of Which
I can’t hold my tongue any longer on this whole William Ayers matter. Palin truly is like a pit bull with lipstick. Once her jaws lock onto something, they simply will not disengage. Ayers is 64 years old, almost a contemporary of John McCain, certainly not a contemporary of Barack Obama. Obama and Ayers served together for three years on The Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation. Obama joined in 1993 and attended a dozen of the quarterly meetings with Ayers between 1993 and 2002, when Obama left his position on the board. Ayers and Obama also appeared together on a University of Chicago panel on juvenile justice in 1997 and another academic panel in 2002, which was sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.
Now, when Bill Ayers was at the height of his political radicalism in the late 60’s and early 70’s as part of the SDS and then as part of the more radical Weathermen, Obama was just a child. It was a tumultuous time in American history. The Viet Nam war was hugely unpopular, and protesting was prevalent and towards the end, violent. Ayers, and his wife Bernadine Dohrn were key players in this violence, bombing the New York City police headquarters, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon in protest of what they viewed as a hugely unjust war.
The couple eventually turned themselves in to authorities in 1980, and both have apologized for their actions. However, in an interview in 2000, Ayers was quoted as saying that he didn’t “regret setting the bombs.” Ayers subsequently said that his words were distorted and that he had no regrets about trying to stop the United States’ war efforts in Viet Nam and felt that the country as a whole could have done more, not that they could have set more bombs.
Today, Ayers is currently a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. Ayers has earned the support of a number of prominent Chicagoans, including Mayor Daley. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman suggests that while Obama was “justly criticized for his ties” to Ayers, that connection should be matched by equal coverage of John McCain’s association with infamous Watergate criminal, G. Gordon Liddy, who, by the way, is certifiably whacko and a textbook case of a domestic terrorist if there ever was one. (After the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Liddy advised listeners of his radio show: “Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they’re going to be wearing bulletproof vests. … Kill the sons of bitches.”) But that’s just my opinion, of course.
The Peanut Gallery
Would someone please tell Cindy McCain to ease up on the Botox? I understand that she has suffered a recent loss of her half-sister, so I won’t be too unkind; however, if she is going to be one of her husband’s pit bulls, then she needs to leave her hair down so that her face at least looks as if it still has the ability to move from the eyebrows up. Oh, and if she’s going to criticize Obama for not passing a bill to fund the troops (which he later passed), she should make sure that she remembers that her husband also didn’t pass a similar bill, which should have made her blood run similarly cold (but maybe she just couldn’t feel it).
And someone please tell Michelle Obama to start wearing suits instead of short-sleeved dresses to important events. It matters. I know that it shouldn’t, but it does. She looked great when she showed up for the The Jon Stewart show, so why doesn’t she wear something similar for the debates? Future first ladies are scrutinized for the most bizarre things. Tim Gunn, where are you?
Did everyone get a chance to see the (supposed) Palin home pictures that are making their way around the Internet? I sure hope so. Hockey mom in ultra mini skirt and ***k me heels does not look like conservative fundamentalist, looks more like swinger ready to exchange car keys. All of the teenagers have bottles of booze in various levels of depletion. Yep, bless their hearts, those Palins are just down home folks, dontcha know? Probably wanted to get rid of the trooper brother-in-law so they wouldn’t get any DUI’s (or should I say more DUI’s, Todder?). Excellent stuff that Photoshop.
On that note, just waiting for Wednesday night. I’ll be glued to MSNBC from 7 p.m. on . . .
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 