Will McCain and Palin Be Happy if Someone Hurts Obama?

I don't know where to begin today. 

Last night's debate isn't really worth commenting on. I think the candidates' performances speak for themselves. 

I'm really incensed about something else: the McCain/Palin campaign's utterly reprehensible stirring up of racial antagonism, general hatred and even talk of murdering Barack Obama. 

In my post yesterday I pointed out how the McCain campaign is resorting to irresponsible smears of Obama as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage its vanishing election-day prospects. What I didn't know then was just how despicable the behavior that McCain and his running mate are prompting — and indeed, tolerating — on the part of their supporters. 

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank's coverage of Palin's Monday rally in Florida reveals that supporters in the crowd reacted to her media-bashing by "hurl(ing) obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Unfortunately, it gets worse. At another rally in Florida, Palin intimated that Obama thinks our troops in Afghanistan are nothing but baby killers — a blatant and irresponsible lie that elicited a cry of "treason!" from the audience. Here's the video:

Then there was McCain's refusal to correct a supporter who clearly answered the candidate's question — "Who is the real Barack Obama?" — by angrily shouting "A terrorist!" Here's that video:

And moving into chunks-welling-up-in-your-throat territory, Palin's wacko accusation that Obama's political career was launched by "domestic terrorist" Bill Ayres prompted one man in the audience to shout "Kill him!," according to the Washington Post. The Secret Service is now looking into that doozy. 

Is this how John McCain wants to inspire Americans and solve the litany of grave problems we face? Mudslinging is one thing, and to some extent an expected part of the dirty game that is politics. But tolerating such hateful, violent comments and behavior is beyond unacceptable. It's sad and shameful, but also dangerous. Every citizen with a brain and a heart should punish this conduct with extreme prejudice.  

Will John McCain and Sarah Palin be happy if someone hurts Obama? Is that their idea of patriotism? They should ask themselves those questions and think very hard about the answers, for their latest round of smears is clearly inciting that type of feeling in some supporters, and they are doing nothing to stop it from tragically spinning out of control. 

 

McCain: What's Missing?

OK, take a look at the video below from the September 26 presidential debate, and the various other photos here of Senator John McCain from the presidential campaign trail. Specifically, look closely at McCain and tell me what's unusual about his appearance. And be nice to Cindy. She's a recovering drug addict. 

  

Give up?

He doesn't wear a flag pin. 

Is he an Islamocommufascist terrorist? 

Do we know the REAL John McCain?

Can we risk putting such a man in the White House, as commander in chief of our noble troops that are in harm's way around the world?

Well, of course we can. John McCain loves his country. I know that and so do you. We may disagree on whether he's the best man for the job but his basic patriotism and desire to do right by his country and its citizens is not in question. 

My point here, as some of you probably have figured out by now, is that using paranoid innuendo to smear someone for what he wears or doesn't wear, how he looks or who he may have had tenuous associations with is no way to help citizens decide whether that person is qualified to lead us. As the McCain campaign recognizes that it appears headed for defeat on November 4 it has turned increasingly to irresponsible smears of Senator Barack Obama — from surrogates using his middle name to silly chain emails that keep repeating the same demonstrably false claims: that he is a Muslim who was sworn in to the Senate with his hand on the Koran and refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance or wear an American flag lapel pin. 

Serious citizens should recognize this trash for what it is, and demand better of our candidates.  

McCain and Obama: the Best America Has To Offer?

I was just reading an article in the Week In Review section of today's Times, about the changing role of the vice presidency, and was struck by the following passage:

The next president will face challenges probably not equaled since Franklin Roosevelt took the oath in 1933. Two wars, an economy in crisis, an energy emergency, destructive partisanship, frayed alliances overseas — all add up to a burden that will be tough for any new president to tackle alone.

It's hard to disagree with this sentiment, and it gets me to thinking:

Are these the best candidates America has to offer?

Each of the major-party presidential candidates has at least one serious deficiency. Most of the elections in my lifetime have also been contests between similarly imperfect candidates, but I can't help but feel that the problem is getting worse with time. The situation is particularly troubling now, with our nation facing a wider array of serious problems than at any time I can remember. And it's noone's fault but our own. As citizens we need to be more engaged in public affairs and demand better of our leaders. Until we do, we'll get the government we deserve.

What do you think?

Vote McCain, Get a 25% Chance of President Palin

Now, for something from the "worth considering" department: According to the Associated Press, actuaries have determined that John McCain has a 25% chance of not surviving a second term in office, should he win the presidency on Nov. 4. 

Discuss.

Why Main Street Needs to Bail Out Wall Street

On Monday I left my New York financial district office to get some lunch and Jesse Jackson was out on the street leading a protest of union members against the government's financial bailout plan.

"Bail out working people, not Wall Street," was among their chants.

What they didn't understand was that "working people" (I resent the implication in this phrase, incidentally, that non-union, white collar employees don't really "work") are inextricably tied to Wall Street.

It's understandable that many citizens are struggling to grasp why it's so important for the government to spend $1 trillion or thereabouts to buy the troubled assets of financial institutions, many of whom wound up in this mess because of their own irresponsible behavior. Populist rhetoric from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle isn't helping. In his column in today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman lays it all out perfectly:

"This is a credit crisis. It’s all about confidence. What you can’t see is how bank A will no longer lend to good company B or mortgage company C. Because no one is sure the other guy’s assets and collateral are worth anything, which is why the government needs to come in and put a floor under them. Otherwise, the system will be choked of credit, like a body being choked of oxygen and turning blue.

Well, you say, “I don’t own any stocks — let those greedy monsters on Wall Street suffer.” You may not own any stocks, but your pension fund owned some Lehman Brothers commercial paper and your regional bank held subprime mortgage bonds, which is why you were able refinance your house two years ago. And your local airport was insured by A.I.G., and your local municipality sold municipal bonds on Wall Street to finance your street’s new sewer system, and your local car company depended on the credit markets to finance your auto loan — and now that the credit market has dried up, Wachovia bank went bust and your neighbor lost her secretarial job there.

We’re all connected. As others have pointed out, you can’t save Main Street and punish Wall Street anymore than you can be in a rowboat with someone you hate and think that the leak in the bottom of the boat at his end is not going to sink you, too. The world really is flat. We’re all connected. “Decoupling” is pure fantasy.

I totally understand the resentment against Wall Street titans bringing home $60 million bonuses. But when the credit system is imperiled, as it is now, you have to focus on saving the system, even if it means bailing out people who don’t deserve it. Otherwise, you’re saying: I’m going to hold my breath until that Wall Street fat cat turns blue. But he’s not going to turn blue; you are, or we all are. We have to get this right."

Actually, I think Mr. Jackson understands this perfectly, but he'd rather exploit citizens' fears than tell them the truth, because doing the former preserves the tattered remains of his political standing. The nomination by Democrats of Obama — who, unlike Jackson and other liberals of his generation, prefers to appeal to the better angels of our nature than to our basest anxieties and class resentments, is ushering in a new era for the left. And that era has little room for demagogues like Jackson.