All fear, all hate, all the time
The McCain camp is getting desperate. Even after Palin's aw shucks winkin' and blinkin', Obama is still ahead in the polls. So now they have Palin out there accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because he once crossed paths with a former 60's radical.
How many days for this strategy to backfire...I say seven.
From the Washington Post: "Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.
With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.[..]"
A few days ago the Wall Street Journal editorial page ran a piece by conservative writer Stanley Kurtz about Obama's past with 60's-era radical William Ayers. The headline was "Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism on Schools" -- and far-right bloggers wet themselves with joy.
But after all that hoopla, Kurtz, after exhaustive research, couldn't find any meaningful dirt, didn't prove that Obama and Ayers had pushed radicalism in schools. The best he could come up with is that Ayers and Obama were both members of Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a nonprofit educational group.
That's pretty weak. But remember, this is the same strain of rightie nutocracy that thinks Bill Clinton is a murderer and a drug dealer.
BTW--the money for the Annenberg Challenge was given by Walter Annenberg, who was a Republican newspaper publisher who served as Nixon's ambassador to London. I doubt that anything Annenberg was involved in was some sort of radical leftie project.
Funny how Republicans remain firmly stuck in the '60's...the simple math that shows Obama was a child then, too young to be a flower child, escapes them.
Anyway, so next the New York Times started digging, detailing the "crossed paths" of Obama and Ayers...and yet, again, the Times couldn't find any meaningful dirt, either:
"At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol.
Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama's first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors. [...]
[T]he two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.""
We have heard for months on end about Obama’s connections, his character, his honesty, his religion, etc. It's sooo old hat, and if McCain is so desperate he wants to rehash it and avoid answering how he will solve the nation’s problems, then let him.
I lost the last shred of respect I had for McCain when he handed his campaign over to the Rovians...the same ones who attacked him so unmercifully in 2000, saying he had an illegitimate black baby, which turned out to be his adopted girl.
It's pathetic to see McCain now stooping to tactics that he says he's always despised. Watch what he said here:
