Sunday Morning Spin

This is a special Sunday post. Having watched the Sunday morning political talk shows today, I am still flabbergasted by the pundits and media that simply tip toe around the truth: the Republicans led by John McCain and Sarah Palin have been running a vicious smear campaign against Barack Obama. They are playng the race card and appealing to our inner daemons to pull out a victory in November. They are doing all this while the country is in the middle of a financial crisis largely triggered by failed Republican strategies.

Following a week of raucous rallies where McCain and Palin have been interrupted with shouts of "terrorists," "kill him," and "off with his head," these rallies and the race card were the topics of the morning political shows. Predictably the Republican spokespeople sang the chorus from their daily talking points to lament that both sides were making attacks and they regretted this type of discourse. Making sure that they were fair, the mainstream media hosts made a reference to various things that were said by the Democrats in an attempt to be fair. But the truth of the matter is that there is no moral equivalence. While the Republicans might legitimately question Barack Obama's prior associations, including William Ayers, they are not doing this to simply question his judgement. This is an orchestrated campaign to link Barack Obama to terrorists, insinuate by association that he condones terrorism, and by such association supports the Muslim fundamentalist terrorists. One of the recent hires of the McCain Campaign to "handle" Sarah Palin is the same Bush political operative who masterminded the South Carolina whisper campaign by Bush in the 2000 election against John McCain. They insinuated that McCain's adopted daughter was in fact a black child that he fathered out of wed lock. You would think John McCain would never speak with a guy like this, but instead he hires him to work for his campaign! How outrageous. This speaks to John McCain's real character more than any words he could utter about honor, integrity, and "Country First"!

Questioning John McCain's gross lack of judgement to influence government regulators for the benefit of the convicted felon and former bank executive, Charles Keating, is a fact for which he was censured and is relevant to the current financial mess. Questioning Barak Obama's judgement for serving with Ayers on the board of a Chicago charity fund is of minor consequence. Obama did not select Ayers, and Ayers, who was never convicted of any terrorism activities, is now a respected education professor at the University of Chicago. Furthermore when Ayers was allegedly plotting terrorist acts, Barack Obama was only eight years old! Ayers made a $200 political contribution to Obama's Illinois Senate re-election campaign in 2001. Compare this to Charles Keating who either made personal contributions or influenced his employees to make over $112,000 to the various Arizona political campaigns of John McCain. Out of the five lawmakers now known as the "Keating Five," Senator John McCain took the most contributions. These are the facts, so you decide whose judgment is questionable. You decide who is really putting America First.