For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.
And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
. . . McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.
Senator Obama has built the best brand in politics by waking up every day and talking about change. And he has held a lead throughout this contest by defining his opponent as more of the same. And he certainly shouldn't stop now.
I want to congratulate Senator Obama for handing the Republicans a truly awesome line of attack with his “lipstick on a pig” insult. In fact, few presidential candidates have acted as stupidly as Obama the last fortnight, although John Kerry’s late summer silence when the Swift boaters attacked comes pretty close. Or maybe Michael Dukakis’s entire campaign.
The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama and the Democrats haven’t a clue what to do about Sarah Palin. Virtually every time they open their mouths about her, they stick their foot so far down their own throats, they initiate the gag reflex. The little lady from small town USA who is morphing into Everywoman before our eyes (minus Steinem feminists and super-partisans) has the best political minds in the Democratic party well and truly flummoxed, paralyzed with fear or so angry they go off half cocked and say something incredibly dumb.
What a sight it is to behold.
-- RICK MORAN
There is a most unwelcome parallel to John McCain, a man whom I could have voted for a year ago, and Rick Moran.
McCain descends from decency to a slim-driven campaign. Moran descends from smart issues-oriented blogging to masturbating in print over a woman who is eminently unqualified.
Get back to the issues, Rick, before you too lose your soul.
-- ME
McCain himself has clearly demonstrated that he’ll do anything to win. In 2000, he ran an honorable campaign. Leave aside what he advocated--he tried to win on the merits. This year, he has been willing to distort and lie about his opponents. It really started with the way he dealt with Mitt Romney’s positions on the Iraq war. But he has gone all out since the convention. That, combined with his choice of entirely unproven Palin for vice-president, has been enough to remove whatever lingering sympathy I had for the man. But as has been clearly demonstrated in seven of the last ten presidential elections, my sympathies don’t necessarily match those of the voters. In my view, this election is going to depend a lot on the debates. And even with the strong Democratic tailwind behind him, Obama may need some kind of slip-up by McCain or Palin to carry the day.
If McCain wins, he’ll face a Democratic Congress that’s beyond furious. Losing is one thing, but after eight years of George Bush and Karl Rove, losing a vicious campaign like this one will cause Dems to go berserk. They won’t even return McCain’s phone calls, let alone work with him on legislation. It’ll be four years of all-out war.-- KEVIN DRUMI don’t think that’s even remotely true. There’ll be all-out war between Hillary Clinton’s supporters and the Obama camp as the former wield the “I told you so” axe in order to regain control of the party apparatus but it won’t take them four years to win. Meanwhile, you’ll have a congressional leadership whose instincts are to cave to the Republicans on national security issues and try to go for constructive small-bore compromises on domestic issues and they’ll probably go about it happily, while muttering to themselves that in a lot of ways they’re glad to not be burdened by a Democratic President who tries to boss them around.-- MATTHEW YGLESIASTo white people who feel smart enough to assess the relative blackness quotient of black people, I say -- Stop Now. No offense, but just on the strength of you having this dialogue, I'm certain you haven't the fucking faintest idea what you're talking about. To black people who feel that your years of living in your skin gives you the right to question another man's blackness, I say -- Stop Yesterday. All indication seem to demonstrate that nothing intelligent is coming from our end either.
Why not give the man his respect. He is what he says he is. A black man with a white mother. Let's not act like he's the first.
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