McCain Campaign No. 1 at Self-Parody;
McCain support for Mujahideen Papered Over
Sarah Palin's jab at Barack Obama on Sunday attempting to tie him to terrorism (!) is another in a long line of gaffes that will hurt her ticket tremendously.
You always suspected that McCain, if he got in trouble with the electorate, really would stoop to calling his rival a terrorist.
Saturday Night Live writers don't even have to create parodies any more. They've just been quoting Palin verbatim.
The comedy writers have another wild statement from Palin/McCain to work with now.
As for the real terrorism, someone should please ask McCain about his support in the 1980s for the mujahideen (Muslim holy warriors) blowing up things in Afghanistan, which ultimately led some of the mujahideen to form al-Qaeda. Or about McCain's friendship and support for Gen.Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, who refused to help capture Bin Laden in 1999 and who continued to support and use the Taliban.
Oh, I forgot, if you declare yourself right wing, it is all right to foment terrorism and the corporate media will never question you about it because, well, because it is the corporate media.
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/06/2008 01:16:00 AM
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15 Comments:
Regarding Sarah "I'm not going to answer questions at a debate" Palin:
Will someone please put a towel over her cage?
"You always suspected that McCain, if he got in trouble with the electorate, really would stoop to calling his rival a terrorist."
Okay, this asshole crashed at least five US warplanes. One would think that after the first two or three he might become a little more careful, but nooooooo.
Another example is support for the Contras, who far from being akin to the founding fathers, specialised in massacring villagers, rather than fighting government troops.
Today, even Bill Kristol began walking away from the McCain/Palin campaign, in his NYTimes Op-Ed, where he went to pains to indicate that he had not had any contact with Sarah Palin since first meeting her a year ago.
Not that long ago, he was bragging to acquaintances that he discovered her while visiting Alaska and encountering her at a conference there.
The McCain/Palin campaign is disgusting, confused and outright ridiculous. Even Peggy Noonan is walking away, having understood that in November, the electorate will punish the GOP, and punish it hard.
The Rovian way of substituting responsible government with outright lying, cheating and stealing has generated enough Karmic payback to blow Republican representatives and their enablers clear out of both the House and Senate. Americans now want solutions, and they do not think they are going to get them from an addled John McCain or from Sarah Palin from Stepford.
It is hard for a foreigner to comprehend how a man such as John McCain is contending for the presidency of the USA.
He's a lying, cheating, obfuscating, conniving SOB. Short tempered, dangerously ill-informed and vengeful to a point beyond psychosis. Anyone doubting this should read this month's Rolling Stone's expose of crybaby McCain.
Here's a man who has said "I know how to win wars!"; "Oh, there will be more wars."; and sung "Bomb, bomb, bomb - bomb, bomb, Iran" before cameras. He literally changes positions form hour to hour, because he can't remember what he's said - and he proposes wildly irresponsible reactions to the crisis de jour, while providing no long-term planning or thinking worthy of note.
He shouldn't be feted, he should be put away somewhere. With him in power, people would end up looking back at the Bush years as relatively harmless.
Bush promised that he would put the grown-ups in charge, and that he would return honor to the White House.
He's now hiding, unwilling to face up to the consequences of his delusions and mismanagement, and he will leave Washington D.C. in disgrace - half his administration under investigation for misdeeds ranging from corruption to war crimes.
The complete disrespect he and his handlers showed for the Constitution, for Civil Liberties and for the Dignity of Humankind has finally resonated with the electorate, and John McCain and Stepford Sarah the Shallowly Programmed Android will be shunted out of sight 28 days from now, in a landslide victory that is not an affirmation of what is great about the Democrats (they have yet to prove they can be great) , but of what is disgusting about the GOP.
Enough.
Let's not also forget the right's support for the PMOI, using loopholes in UK regulation to get them off the proscribed organizations list.
Barbie-doll Sarah Palin doesn't have too many thoughts of her own. I wonder which one of Bush's speech-writers put those words into her foul mouth.
Thank you for your comments today. Can you write more on the genesis of al-Qaeda? McCain and the right throw them around like they are Superman's arch enemy Lex Luther.
Truth is always a beacon.
Wait - it could get even better.
I first saw this transparently ludicrous attempt to connect Obama with terrorism about eight or nine months ago on Larry Johnson's formerly uniquely interesting and worthwhile blog called No Quarter. Right about that time Larry and his blog were beginning their descent from credible, interesting blog to a nonstop source of increasingly toxic, and generally absurd anti-Obama screed that started with a seemingly ordinary declaration of support for Hillary Clinton. It did not take all that long for their declared pro-Hillary position to become buried in a mountain of purely anti-Obama manure. And oh my how the personnel changed around there too!
But I digress. The attempt to associate Obama with terrorism via a tenuous connection with Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground, who might have committed some violent acts when Obama was a pre-adolescent, will likely not be the last silly attempt to use the guilt by association card.
Another of the wild and crazy claims made by Larry Johnson and his cohorts was his attempt to establish a close relationship between Obama and Saddam Hussein based on a claim that Tony Rezko knew someone who knew someone who knew Saddam. Get it? Obama knew Rezko, Rezko knew someone who knew someone who knew Saddam, therefore Obama was a close associate of Saddam's. Gee, maybe if you reached far enough into that pile of horse manure, you could connect Obama to bin Laden.
"If you declare yourself right wing, it is all right to foment terrorism and the corporate media will never question you about it because, well, because it is the corporate media."
Couldn't we doves and donkeys leave self-sorrowing about journalistic bias to the sweet puppies of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh, who can never, ever get a fair break from the fiendish ‘MSM’?
"Someone should please ask McCain about his support in the 1980s for the mujahideen (Muslim holy warriors) blowing up things in Afghanistan, which ultimately led some of the mujahideen to form al-Qaeda.
‘Ultimately’ tends to be rather a long time off and not very accessible. If JC is absolutely sure that fomentation of terrorism in Afghanistan and the former ‘Iráq will be universally regarded as a dumb idea a couple of centuries hence, he is well ahead of this keyboard, which thought opposition to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's was a reasonable project, and sees no reason to think differently now. ‘Blowback’ notwithstanding, to represent Prof. Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski as the -- or even a -- founding father of al-Qá‘ida falls well on the far side of the sublime-ridiculous border. (And by the way, what is there in that plan for us Democrats?)
As long as one is playing politics at the "Saturday Night Live" level, why not announce that President Truman is chiefly responsible for the attack of 11.IX.2001, which would -- obviously! -- never have happened if St. Harry had only resisted Jewish Statism properly. Or indeed, let’s blame Father Zeus for putting most of our oil underneath their sand, as the bumper sticker has it.
Fossil fuel and Hyperzionism at least look primâ facie like plausible contenders for ultimacy, terrorismwise, unlike anything to do with Afghanistan.
___
To suggest an alternative more or less in earnest: instead of trying to make the Fabulous Flyboy out a terrorist too, it might be more effective to josh him and his neocomrades a little about their bein’ so terrorized all the time. Even for card-carryin’ members of the Stupid Party, it is quite an accomplishment to really and truly expect that B. Hussein Obáma will (1) demolish the Pentagon to gratify Professor Ayers, and (2) invite M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí and the Rev. Omar to come resettle in the caves of Utah -- with financial assistance from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Barney Frank, naturally -- and (3) legalize infanticide, and (4) prohibit the public practice of Christojudæanity, and (5) . . . and (318) . . . . [*]
Happy days.
___
[*] Everybody can write the rest of that skit to suit himself. Why should McParody hog all the fun?
BHO betraying us all to Bolshevism would be a far more plausible worry. Unfortunately Congress did that on an impeccably bipartisan basis last week.
Yes, please write more about the history of al-Qaeda.
Is it not true that Obama's top foreign policy advisor, Zbigniew Brzeznski, admitted to passing the executive order to funnel support to the Muhajideen fighters in Afghanistan months before the Soviet invasion?
The documented history of US intervention and support of these Islamic groups seems to be forgotten in the wake of 9/11. Both parties are responsible for our reckless intervention around the world.
When will we wake up and smell the blowback?
Back when the Ayers aligations were first being talked about I remember some of the bobble heads on tv saying that the issue was so weak and tentative that they could never see McCain using this as an issue.
Well, I guess he is scraping the bottom of the barrel now... Obama sorta knows Ayers but its so easy to debunk that he "pal'ed around with him".
More McCain flailing around looking for something, anything that will stick... its kind of pathetic, actually.
If Caribou Barbie gets any dumber they'll have to water her twice a week.
Dr. Cole,
Regarding American political hierarchy- if the Republicans do win in November, and the top of the ticket is deemed unhealthy because of any number of visible cues, and Gov. Pallin is considered too inexperienced, who will head the government?
If the health of the president elect is questioned before January 11, who decides our new leader?
Could there be another Bush/Cheney term "for the sake of the country"?
- Scared independent.
As a 5+ year (several periods) visitor to the US, I find it extremely painful to view infinite replays of the statements and performances of the republican vice president candidate. On every local news channel!
I think these replays happens most over the world, and not for the purpose of promoting the US republican party.
They are obviously there to fundament their arguments that the US as a voting nation is mainly consisting of complete idiots.
RobinH
From Wikipedia:
"Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. His interests include teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues."
I would assume that Professor Ayers leads a fairly active life, in which he "pals" around with many people. I wonder if these people are aware that they are "palling around with a terrorist".
I wonder if his students and fellow faculty members will have a mark on their records because of their exposure to, or association with the Professor. I'm sure the FBI has kept his file in tact and could compile a list of everyone he's ever met, given the resources.
We might be talking of hundreds or maybe thousands of people that have had much more interaction with Professor Ayers than Obama did, including, I suspect, many politicians and government officials. Would Sarah Palin and John McCain label them all "pals of a terrorist", and seek to obstruct their professional and political ambitions.
The tragedy of this is not only the tar and feathering of Professor Ayers for long past and paid for mistakes, but also the need for Obama's campaign to minimize and trivialize Obama's contacts with him. In affect the campaign is reinforcing the negative implication of associating with Professor Ayers.
Its a shame that Obama is forced to distance himself from Professor Ayers, just as happened with Reverend Wright. I think and hope that Obama is really a better man than that. But it seems that to get elected president, a candidate has to give the public the impression that he or she is at least 50% asshole. At 100% McCain and Palin meet that spec easily.
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