The Double Take Post

On Tuesday afternoon, during a visit to a children’s hospital in Nashville, Cindy McCain said that her husband’s opponent, Senator Barack Obama, has “waged the dirtiest campaign in American history.”

Huh?

Maybe Cindy meant that Obama has been the target of the dirtiest campaign in American history. But I doubt it. No, she meant what she said, and it’s ironic that she made these remarks in a hospital. Back in 1994, Mrs. McCain admitted to stealing drugs from her own charity to sustain her personal addiction to Percocet and Vicodin. She also fired the administrator of that charity in an effort to cover up her crime.

If Barack Obama has run the dirtiest campaign in American history, as this woman alleges, why haven’t they mentioned these facts? Can you imagine what the McCain camp would do if it were Michelle Obama who had done this?

In the past several months, conservative advocates have spread vicious and unfounded rumors about Barack and Michelle Obama. He’s secretly a Muslim. She hates “Whitey”. The subtle and not so subtle instances of racism have been a consistent undercurrent to this campaign. With less than a month until Election Day, and with McCain’s poll numbers sinking like the NASDAQ, now the surrogates have stepped aside. Now the principals are directly involved in the slander.

It’s a simple matter, really. The American people are preoccupied with the economy. McCain’s own advisers admit that his poll numbers go down when he addresses economic issues. So if you’re losing, and you can’t talk about the one thing people really care about, what do you do? You throw bombs. You call your opponent “unpresidential” because he’s willing to negotiate with our enemies. You roll out the stewardess to say that Obama is “pallin’ around with domestic terrorists.” And now, in a new low, you trot out the trophy wife to engage in personal attacks and distortions.

Distortions? Oh, yes, I forgot to mention Cindy’s remarks on Wednesday. At a McCain rally in Pennsylvania, she said “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.”

No, Cindy, that was the Vicodin.

What Mrs. McCain declined to mention, or perhaps does not know, is that Senator Obama voted against a particular appropriations bill that did not include a timetable for withdrawal for Iraq. Now, I know that it goes against the policies of the last eight years to ask questions and demand accountability before handing out billions of dollars. But this is nothing but the same old foolishness of singling out one vote on a particular bill and ignoring the fact that a legislator voted for a different but similar bill instead. They did this to Kerry in 2004. At one time, I thought that this was one tactic we would not have to endure this year, because we had two senators running against each other, and presumably that would cancel out the effectiveness of the tactic.

What we have seen in this campaign, rather, is John McCain’s refusal to let facts get in the way of a good line. He continues to recount in speech after speech Governor Palin’s opposition to the “Bridge to Nowhere” even though it has been well documented that she was for it until it became a political issue, and only then did she oppose it. We have seen Senator McCain continue to claim that his opponent voted 94 times to raise taxes. What he doesn’t mention is that the votes in question were to lower taxes for most people, while raising them for a much smaller number of people. And neither the Senator nor his felon, I mean wife, bothers to mention that McCain himself voted against funding for the troops. McCain voted against a funding measure virtually identical to the one opposed by Obama. The difference? The bill McCain voted against included a timetable for withdrawal. You know, the same timetable that the Iraqis themselves have now adopted because they want us to leave.

So why does Cindy McCain say these things? Maybe she doesn’t know any better. Maybe she doesn’t care. Or maybe she can’t stand the thought of the next few years at home with a defeated John McCain. Maybe she’ll say or do anything to prevent him from going off on her and once again calling her (in public) a word that rhymes with runt.

What a wonderful First Couple they would have been...

The Apology Post

The Blog to Be Named Later returns, despite a relative lack of commentary expressed by its readers, either publicly or privately, because it is now necessary for me to issue a formal apology.

During the life of this blog, I have been awfully critical of our president. I have expressed evolving views of the candidates to succeed him, with one constant caveat: Whoever is elected to succeed him, I opined, it will be an improvement. After all, I could (and have, on occasion) made the case from a historical perspective that George W. Bush ranks 42nd out of 42nd in terms of successful presidents.*

Well, Mr. President, I owe you an apology, because it’s clear now that I am completely wrong, because President John McCain would obviously be much worse.

Why is this, as I say, “clear”? Well, there is an overwhelming preponderance of circumstantial and concrete evidence that points to a McCain Administration eclipsing its predecessor in ineptitude.

First, there is the issue of ideological inconsistency. Say what you will about President Bush, but he has, over the last eight years, remained consistent with his core beliefs. I happen to think that they are wrong, but he has at least stuck with his principles. Whereas John McCain opposed offshore drilling as an impractical solution to the energy crisis, until he ran for president. He opposed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, until he ran for president. He sponsored campaign finance reform and decried negative campaigning, until he ran for president.

Second, there is the issue of the nature of their campaigns. Bush ran for president in 2000, and ran for re-election in 2004, promising smaller government, compassionate conservatism, reluctance to commit American forces to open ended military assignments, and ample funding for education. Okay, so he gave us the exact opposite of all that. But at least when he tarnished the honor and integrity of his opponent, he did it by inference. He suggested that John Kerry’s policies would leave the nation vulnerable to terrorists. John McCain and his running mate are now calling Barack Obama a terrorist.

Third, President Bush is in one sense the kind of person I admire. He’s an idiot, but he at least KNOWS he’s an idiot, so he recruited some smart, experienced guys to work in his administration. For instance, he selected Dick Cheney as his running mate. Now, I’m no fan of Dick Cheney. He has, in my view, routinely abused the power of his office and promoted an agenda favorable to Big Oil at the expense of the American people. But how does he compare to his potential Republican successor? He’s Abraham Fucking Lincoln.

Finally, there’s one major difference between Bush and McCain, and it’s not that Bush at least didn’t crash his planes when he was flying them in Alabama. No, the biggest single difference is that while I have never doubted Bush’s incompetence, I have also never doubted his sanity. Again, say what you will about George W. Bush, but at least he has been steady. At least he could be counted on to at least speak responsibly compared to Captain Chaos. It’s one thing to elect a dumb guy to be president. It’s quite another to elect someone who is unstable. And that’s what the Republican nominee for president is. I am referring to his apparently unresearched decision to select Sarah Palin to serve a heartbeat from the presidency after months of promising to select a running mate solely on the basis of qualifications. I am referring to the bizarre back and forth make believe shutting down of his campaign to address an economic crisis that he one week earlier denied existed. And I’m referring to the following quote from his own biography:

“I don't torture myself over decisions. I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often, my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint."

Well, I for one am not prepared to live with the consequences of President McCain’s quickly made decisions. And, after all, given the power of the presidency in these perilous times, millions of Americans might not get to live with the consequences of those decisions.

Senator McCain, in the absence of a coherent economic policy, lacking the ability or knowledge to address the health care crisis, burdened by decades of opposition to alternative energy, and desperate to escape the performance of his own party these last eight years, has spent a large portion of what he promised to be an “honorable campaign” trying to convince the American people that electing Barack Obama is too great a risk. Instead, he has amply demonstrated that he himself is the true risk.

And so as the McCain campaign thrashes around like a boxer, losing on points but desperately seeking a late round knockout, I say to you, Mr. President, I’m sorry. You weren’t so bad after all. Comparatively speaking, of course.






*George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. However, only 42 men have served as president. Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms and therefore counts twice.