Joseph Lane: McCain Continues Down the Low Road: “Obama & Domestic Terrorism”
[Joseph Lane is the Hawthorne Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Emory & Henry.]
I guess now I know what it is like to live in a battleground state. I got both of the calls transcribed below (you can listen to the audio at Talking Points Memo) this week. They came to my southwest Virginia home right before the dinner hour.
“Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats aren’t who you think they are. They say they want to keep us safe, but Barack Obama said the threat we face now from terrorism is nowhere near as dire as it was in the end of the Cold War. And Congressional Democrats now want to give civil rights to terrorists. John McCain and his party allies understand the threats we face. When you vote, vote for the team you can trust to keep America safe. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.”
“Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.”
I guess that John McCain’s resolution that he is going to run a race grounded in “facts” rather than negative insinuation lasted less than 24 hours. How are these scripts meaningfully different than the “we need to be afraid of an Obama presidency” comment that McCain denounced last Friday? What happened to “I don’t care about an old, washed-up terrorist”?
I cannot imagine the rationalization.
Read the first call’s script through quickly. Is there any escaping the insinuation that Obama and Ayers worked “closely” on planting the bombs rather than on the board of an educational foundation that is run by a McCain supporter? If even remotely true, how could McCain live with his own claim that Obama is a “good family man” and that they only “disagree on issues”?
John McCain seems unable to decide whether he is ready to go into the pit in order to win the election. He disavows any intention to suggest that the Democrats are anything other than “honorable men (and women) and citizens,” claims he has denounced everything that Republicans have said that might be out of bounds, and then accuses his opponents of being directly affiliated with terrorist activities and suggests that they are only pretending to care about keeping Americans safe. The cognitive dissonance is bizarre.
It may be a long last three weeks.
Read entire article at Britannica Blog
I guess now I know what it is like to live in a battleground state. I got both of the calls transcribed below (you can listen to the audio at Talking Points Memo) this week. They came to my southwest Virginia home right before the dinner hour.
“Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats aren’t who you think they are. They say they want to keep us safe, but Barack Obama said the threat we face now from terrorism is nowhere near as dire as it was in the end of the Cold War. And Congressional Democrats now want to give civil rights to terrorists. John McCain and his party allies understand the threats we face. When you vote, vote for the team you can trust to keep America safe. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.”
“Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.”
I guess that John McCain’s resolution that he is going to run a race grounded in “facts” rather than negative insinuation lasted less than 24 hours. How are these scripts meaningfully different than the “we need to be afraid of an Obama presidency” comment that McCain denounced last Friday? What happened to “I don’t care about an old, washed-up terrorist”?
I cannot imagine the rationalization.
Read the first call’s script through quickly. Is there any escaping the insinuation that Obama and Ayers worked “closely” on planting the bombs rather than on the board of an educational foundation that is run by a McCain supporter? If even remotely true, how could McCain live with his own claim that Obama is a “good family man” and that they only “disagree on issues”?
John McCain seems unable to decide whether he is ready to go into the pit in order to win the election. He disavows any intention to suggest that the Democrats are anything other than “honorable men (and women) and citizens,” claims he has denounced everything that Republicans have said that might be out of bounds, and then accuses his opponents of being directly affiliated with terrorist activities and suggests that they are only pretending to care about keeping Americans safe. The cognitive dissonance is bizarre.
It may be a long last three weeks.