I Can Hardly Wait, She Lied

by hilzoy

The Washington Post has an article called "McCain Plans Fiercer Strategy Against Obama":

"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.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.

Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.

Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, "Who is Barack Obama?" The ad alleges that "Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes." The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions."

I suspect it won't work this time -- not even if, as the NYT goes on to suggest, McCain brings up Rezko and Ayers. The stakes are very high, and people are paying attention this time. The Obama they see in the debates is not the person McCain's ads describe.

***

Sometimes, I try to imagine what it will be like for John McCain when this campaign is over, and he realizes how completely he has destroyed his character and his honor. I cannot imagine that it will seem worth it come December.

Comments

[Turbulence]

ken, Ayers isn't free because his family was wealthy, he's free because of prosecutorial misconduct.

[hilzoy]

ken: you've already been warned about incivility. At that time I wrote: "Do not -- repeat, do not -- insult other commenters, or I will, reluctantly, ban you."

Goodbye.

[russell]

russell, by all means do your own homework.

Oh well, ken's gone. Saves me the trouble of replying to his non-response.

gwangung, thanks for the expanded explanation, and for the archpundit link, I appreciate it.

Thanks -

[Tsam]

[[After being interrupted to contribute to an Obama volunteer, it seems important to not concede the charges against Obama.
- I have seen no evidence of Obama having close associations with Ayers.
- I have seem less evidence of Obama accepting favors from Rezco than McCain accepting favors from Keating.
- Obama has repudiated the hatful side of Rev. Wright.
These charges are bogus and the Obama campaign will answer them.]]

The example of McCain associating with a terrorist I first cite is Phil Gramm, his mentor on an economic policy of deregulation as the cure to any problem.

He has campaigned for President on the need to "throw [Americans] out of the wagon". Fortunately Americans showed no interest in directly electing this agenda.

He enabled Enron to attack the electrical grid during the winter of 2001/2002, and his family profited from this fraud. Most terrorists would envy Enron's ability to cause failures to in a critical public utility.

He also enabled the transformation of America's banking system into one the government could not keep safe through regulation -- a shadow banking system.

(I recall a story where German Chancellor Bismark was reviewing a parade of troops and weapons. Tanks, artillery and all. At the end was a handful of men in suits. Asked who they were, Bismark said, "Those are my central bankers. You can't imagine the destruction that they can cause.")

Compared to Gramm and McCain's corruption of our financial and electrical infrastructure, Ayers in his days as a terrorist was a piker in the harm he did or aspired to do.

Obama's focus on our present threats will trump McCain's attacks based in the past. That is why he is ahead and will finish ahead.

[Larv]

Has the dread pirate Hilzoy forced ken to walk the plank? Out into the shark-infested waters of the blogosphere? It hardly seems fair, as weighed down as ken is by the chains of reverse racism, he'll sink like a stone.

[Larv]

Doh! Dread blogger Hilzoy, that is.

[ken]

ken, Ayers isn't free because his family was wealthy, he's free because of prosecutorial misconduct.
--------------
Assuming that is true that does not make him any less a terrorist.

Heck this issue is not even in doubt as he admitted as much in his book.

Ken, you may have suffered some ugy incidents, if so, I feel for you. But I doubt you've suffered racism.
----------

Not that you would actually know of course. But you are entitled to your opinion, regardless of how ill informed it may be.

Just a general observation:

What is funny about all of this is the virelent attacks, rudeness and discourtesies heaped upon me for just telling it like it is.

Guys the fact of the matter is that skin color does not change human nature. Black racism exists and is problematic just as is white racism. But we've made great strides in marginizing white racism, an effort that I am proud to have been a part of. But we do no favors to blacks by ignoring black racism. Really we don't.

And Hilzoy, as the term troll is used so frequently around here as to have become somewhat meaningless how exactly am I being 'insulting' to others when I use that term and others are not when they use it to me?

[Gary Farber]

"Read the current (oct. 16) article in Rolling Stone about the life and times of John McCain and then tell me what character and honor he has to lose."

That's here.

"Probably because most of the people who are pushing the accusation are aware that Obama and Ayers' associations go a lot deeper than both just spending time working for Annenberg."

Repeating it doesn't make it so.

ken: "In terms of judging each candidate's reaction to the crisis so far I would give the edge to McCain."

How astonishing. You must have struggled hard to reach this conclusion, given how you're such a Democrat, and all.

[hilzoy]

To my annoyance, there are technical issues with my plank. They will, however, be cleared up soon, at which point walking will occur.

ken: it's not just the one word.

[matttbastard]

ken: I know you have your own kooky personal lexicon where, to you, words don't mean what they do to everyone else, but I thought that hilzoy's 05:39pm would be crystal clear, even to a native kenglish speaker.

Unless of course this sudden reappearance after getting banned is meant to be an illustration of the Beatles principle of unwelcome houseguests ("you say 'goodbye'/and I say 'hello'").

Added after preview: Ah, I see--backstage issues. Well, never mind then. Shall resume standard DNFTT protocol until all technical difficulties are remedied.

So, how 'bout them Dodgers?

[rea]

I recall a story where German Chancellor Bismark was reviewing a parade of troops and weapons. Tanks, artillery and all.

< Farber >Bismark died in 1898. Tanks were invented in 1915. < /Farber >

[paulo]

There is a saying" "Character is what you do when no one is looking."

This exemplifies the idea that character is something fairly called immutable. It is the essential representation of a person.

To think that McCain destroyed his character means one of two things:

1) He had an exemplary (this does not assume perfect) character that he has altered, despite a life time of sometimes arduous experience, in the course of 18 months running for president.

or 2) That thing that we call "john McCain's Character" was not his character at all. That it was a charade that was fed through his own organization and a willing press.

Occam's razor I think answers the question.

[Anarch]

On behalf of the entire Global Negro Conspiracy

I would totally buy their first album!

[Anarch]

Look, your average politician is a sociopath.

No, Brett, that's only the emptiness in your own soul.

[gwangung]

You know, I'm a little curious...what do the OTHER people who've served on committees with Ayers think of all this?

[Tsam]

CaseyL posted at 12:12 PM rumors of something, possibly a stroke, causing McCain's left eyelid to droop. I googled and looked at the video mentoned with the rumors. The eye didn't look particularly affected.

I do believe that the hissing "S" sounds are a recent change. I don't know what to make of this.

[wonkie]

AMERICA blog had a bunch of stuff about that a day or two ago. Some doctors emailed in thier thoughts--the concensus was that McCain should see a doctor ASAP because he might be having TIA's.

Or it could be just internet rumor mongering.

[Nell]

You know, I'm a little curious...what do the OTHER people who've served on committees with Ayers think of all this?

They think of him as a fixture in Chicago lib-progressive-Dem politics. He's made education his career and does advocacy for progressive educational programs, he hosts fundraisers and meetings, he serves on boards. He's not Bill Ayers, Weatherman, but Bill Ayers, professor.

The New York Times's characterization is correct:

in Chicago, Mr. Ayers has largely been rehabilitated.

It was true when I worked in Chicago in the early 1980s; it's truer now.

[lightning]

Ken --

The way you're throwing around the word "racist" sounds to me like you mean "uppity nigra". I assume that you don't really mean that. Could you give us your definition of racism?

[Gary Farber]

"And Wright is a blatant racist."

Let's look at that: what do you mean by that? What are the forms his "racism" takes, exactly?

Do you, ken, believe that people who are angry at slavery and racism, and its effects, are identically morally wrong as people who perpetuate the belief that others are inferior?

Do you believe that the anger of a minority for being mistreated is identical to the anger of members of a majority who simply hate for no reason?

Do you believe, ken, that the anger of African-Americans at being treated in a racist fashion and living in a society in which they often have to deal with being treated in racist fashion on a weekly, or daily, basis, is morally as wrong as the anger of someone who simply hates "black" people?

I'm sure you'll be happy to answer these questions, since you're all about the open discussion.

"A defense of Obama based on the notion that Ayers isn't a nasty piece of work is a non-starter, and one based on the idea that Obama didn't know that he was a nasty piece of work is, frankly, an insult to Obama."

Brett, Ayers had ideas 40 years ago that I disagree with. In the last 30 years, he's been a respected professor and member of the Chicago community, where no one, to my knowledge, has had objection to any acts by him. If he's a "nasty piece of work," what has he done in the past 30 years I should object to, other than maybe have some opinions I disagree with? (And what I've read of his opinions expressed in the past thirty years are mostly opinions I agree with, but I grant that I'm only familiar with a handful of things he's written or said.)

And if I'm declaring people "nasty pieces of work" simply for having different opinions from me, well, then, I'd have to call you one, too.

And since I don't believe in saying nasty things about people simply because I have some different political opinions from them, I'm utterly unclear what, exactly, it is about Bill Ayers that I'm supposed to be in a tizzy about.

Feel free to explain. Best it not involve something like "he's a leftist!" Oh heaven forfend.

ken: "You understand that when people say that Kissenger is a murderer that is metaphorical, right? And anyway, it was Nixon who actually conducted the war, Kissenger was a Cabinet Officer and advisor."

Might I suggest you look up words before writing? It'll go a bit of a ways towards making you appear a bit less subliterate.

(I won't bother to get into the nonsensicality of claiming Nixon "conducted" the war, but Kissinger bore no moral responsibility; trolls like you aren't worth the trouble.)

ken: "I have been an outspoken liberal Democrat all my life"

Heeheehee.

"Obama's actions during the primary campaign shows Obama's willingness to use racism against an opponent."

Still waiting for cites on that. That you have refused to answer for weeks demonstrates that you have none.

"I have endured racists epitaphs"

Try enduring their dictionaries.

"My family was forced out of our home by racists. My younger sister came close to losing her life at the hands of a racist."

I'd sincerely like to hear more about both these events. Why don't you tell us? It sounds very terrible.

"The relationship with Rezko is so tight that Obama turned to Rezko for help in buying his family mansion."

The relationship is so "tight" that not one newspaper or newsmagazine has found anything unethical, let alone legally questionably, about their transaction. Woohoo. Unsurprisingly, you can't point to anything specific, but have to fall back on vague assertions that Something Must Be Wrong. Somewhere. What, exactly? Your answer will always be "something!"

"The proper relationship to William Ayers is one of scorn and derision."

Or people could have a different opinion than you. Oh, the horror. Geez, I know tons of people with far more radical opinions than Ayers appears to have these days. I've yet to see a quote of Ayers saying anything in the last twenty years that I don't more or less agree with. I must denounce myself!

"john miller, no I mean it when I say that Wright is a racist."

How nice for you. Feel free to explain why, with specific cites.

Or we will laugh at you further.

(Note: answers do not constitute a contract that we will not laugh at you anyway.)

"What we know is that Obama had no qualms about having a relationship with an admitted terrorist. Instead of condemming Ayers and standing up against domestic terrorism he condoned him for his personal political gain."

ken, I have a "relationship" with you. We both hang out on a particular internet forum, and talk regularly! Obviously you must share my opinions! Shame on you, you traitorous leftist! Denounce yourself for this horrible association you have voluntarily indulged in! Time and again you return to associating with me! Our relationship grows deeper with every passing day! Denounce yourself at once!

If you don't, it'll be proof of how indifferent you are to the vicious leftist opinions I hold, such as being unoffended at William Ayers (until such time as specific acts or statements of his in recent years are brought to my attention to give me cause to be offended)!

ken, you shameless leftist: denounce yourself for your associations, or you'll be as guilty as Barack Obama!

By the same logic and standard of proof you so love.

[Gary Farber]

"On behalf of the entire Global Negro Conspiracy, I admit it: the largely mythical pseudo-variety of racial prejudice that us whiny niggers always gripe about is nothing but a collective plot designed to make innocent white folks feel guilty."

As an ethnic Jew, I have to confess that matttbastard only says this sort of thing at my instigation as an outside agitator.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

"The evidence of Wrights racism was endlessly presented and discussed during the primary campaign."

Yes, evidence that is never here, it's always somewhere else. Evidence that is just too obvious to provide a checkable cite to.

That's evidence that would stand up in court, and I don't know about anyone else, but all I need is ken's word that there's such evidence out there, if we'll all just care enough to go educate ourselves by finding it!

Sure.

"If the material presented then was not enough to convince you then nothing will."

ken speaks the truth for once!

ken: you've already been warned about incivility. At that time I wrote: "Do not -- repeat, do not -- insult other commenters, or I will, reluctantly, ban you."

Goodbye.

Aw, shucks. I suppose I should delete this, out of fairness, but being small and petty, I'll simply make it my parting words to ken.

And here I was planning to offer to get up a collection to buy him a link to dictionary.com.

But wait! Reading ahead, I see ken isn't entirely gone yet. Pshew.

"To my annoyance, there are technical issues with my plank."

Or even your plonk on behalf of all of us.

[hilzoy]

Gary: not to worry; he can still respond, since my plank is still out of whack. (What this means: the massive -- massive, I tell you! -- sum I pay each month for this blog was billed via my account with Typepad, as I thought, but via the superuser's. So when my computer was stolen and I cancelled all my credit cards, I updated the wrong account, and auto billing didn't work, so the superuser account got suspended. It is now processing my payment, and has been updated, and all that, but it hasn't taken hold. Until it does, I can't ban anyone. Or deal with s*p*a*m. Argh.)

[Kenneth Almquist]

The news media have shown absolutely no interest at all in following up any leads concerning Obama's past.

Well, the New York Times has devoted a lot of resources to covering Obama's past. It just ran a front page story on the relationship between Obama and Ayers.

Probably because most of the people who are pushing the accusation are aware that Obama and Ayers' associations go a lot deeper than both just spending time working for Annenberg.

Specificly, they both served on the board of the Wood Fund, and Obama read a book that Ayers wrote about the juvenile justice system.

You don't have to succeed at killing people to be murderous, being willing to try is good enough.

Irrelevant unless you have some evidence that Ayers tried to kill people.

[gwangung]

Specificly, they both served on the board of the Wood Fund,

Hm. Wonder who else is on the Woods Fund....

Ah. Let's see..

Howard J. Stanback - Board Chair - Manager, New Kenwood, LLC
(This is the Rezko connection)
Maria G. Valdez - Board Vice Chair - Attorney-at-Law Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
William C. Ayers - Distinguished Professor Of Education, University Of Illinois At Chicago
Cynthia M. Campbell - President, McCormick Theological Seminary (a Presbyterian Church)
R. Eden Martin - R. Eden Martin is an American lawyer. Martin was a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin LLP from 1975 to 2004. Martin has served as President of The Commercial Club of Chicago since 1999. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and Nicor Inc., a Life Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University. He has been an Aon Corporation director since 2002 and serves as Chairman of Aon Foundation. He has also served on the boards of the University of Illinois Foundation, the Chicago History Museum, and the Ravinia Festival.

Barack Obama - State Legislator, University Of Chicago School Of Law, and Attorney at Law with Davis, Mine and Galland
Suzanne Boyle, Board Treasurer
Kristin Patton, Board Secretary---longtime non profit management consultant

Hmm. Much of these people had more contact with Ayers than Obama did. I suppose the president of a Presbyterian seminary is also a terrorist sympathizer? And the former president of the Chicago Boards Option Exchange?

[Gary Farber]

"I suppose the president of a Presbyterian seminary is also a terrorist sympathizer? And the former president of the Chicago Boards Option Exchange?"

Of course! As is Mayer Daley. But, then, he's a Democrat, which is practically the same as a commie terrorist, anyway.

In fact, rumor has it that Obama is himself a Democrat. Which is about as bad as being a terrist. It's very alarming.

(I hear he's also a Moslimist.)

[Gary Farber]

Tom Brokaw, hosting Meet The Press, just mentioned the NY Times article on Ayers and Obama, and has just played the full clip of Palin going on about Ayers, saying "this has been below the radar for some time," and that Ayers and Obama's level of association is "unclear."

Sure, Brokaw won't be/isn't biased towards McCain at all.

[liberal japonicus]

I wonder if Olbermann will be giving Brokaw one of the 'world's worst' awards..

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

Gary,

Has Brokaw always been this much of a pro-GOP hack, or is it something unique to this election? Frankly I haven't paid much attention to him over the years so I can't tell.

[Gary Farber]

"Has Brokaw always been this much of a pro-GOP hack, or is it something unique to this election?"

I hadn't really noticed much before, but, then, when he was an anchor, anchors don't really directly cover politics themselves, so you'd have to be fairly heavy-handed to show it clearly.

And I'm not saying I expect him to go nuts for McCain as moderator; just that I'll be pleasantly surprised if he's tough on McCain.

Meanwhile, I was just stunned to read this from Peggy Noonan:

[...] "It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it's possible they are—but this is subtly divisive.

Subtly? Subtly? Not sure they're aware?