Senator McCain, Have You No Decency? [Updated] [Update Part Deux]
By Larry Johnson on November 9, 2008 at 10:36 PM in Current Affairs
(bumped up by NoQuarter from noon ET)
John McCain’s continued silence in the face of a campaign of smears against his running mate, Sarah Palin, is troubling on several levels. By his silence, he is endorsing those attacks. Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that the lies about Sarah Palin are true. THEN WHO IN THE HELL SELECTED AN UNQUALIFIED WOMAN TO RUN AS HIS VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE? If McCain lets these attacks stand unchallenged he is demonstrating once and for all that he was completely and totally unqualified to be President. He lacked the judgment and intelligence required when it came to selecting people for key positions. So that is one possibility. John McCain is simply incompetent.
There is evidence of McCain’s incompetence. I got this note last night from a friend who was a big fundraiser for McCain.
Hi larry
I was going to call you
I was distraught… I never cry
And I cried on and off for 2 days!!!
I worked so hard and raised so much money
And brought so many in to the fold
And alas I was just tilting at windmills.But I knew all was not well long ago
The campaign was lacking in every single way
Small and big. Down to the smallest detail
The campaign was frustrating and fell short.
There was no infrastructure or communication
And systemically they were not any match for the flawless and seamless campaign of Obama.
And you are so right about the vile treatment of Gov. Palin.
She was the only bright star in all this menagerie of fools.
She was authentic and maybe not prepared for all that was thrust her way, but whose fault is that?
The only hope I have for BO, is that he is so ambitious that he will run to the center and, hopefully, not alienate 80 percent of Americans who do not regard themselves as liberals.
Of course, the change he touted is a mirage, he surrounded himself with the Clinton people.
My fundraiser friend correctly notes that the McCain campaign failed, completely, to put in place a system to reach out to voters, to contact voters, and to return phone calls. So there is an organizational incompetence to the McCain campaign.
But I think that is the real reason why the attacks are being levied on Sarah Palin. Rather than accept responsibility for their own fuck ups, the Republican consultants who presided over the electoral disaster want to shift the blame to Sarah. But it is more than that. They are scared shitless about the woman’s uncompromising principles when it comes to cracking down on insider dealing and ending the gravy train of favors for Washington lobbyists. As she moved around the country she was able to observe the best and the worst the Republican party had to offer. A woman who fearlessly took on the corrupt Ted Stevens faction of the Republican Party also has the balls to do the same to the national Republican Party.
John McCain’s silence is stunning. He always spoke up quickly and pointedly to bat down comments he felt were smears of Barack Obama. Remember when the one lady at a campaign event started talking about Barack being a Muslim? McCain shut that down and immediately praised Obama as “a good man.”
Now we face the spectacle of seeing the woman who changed the dynamic of the McCain campaign for the good being trashed by anonymous sources as a brainless bimbo. It is sexist and it is a bald-faced lie. If John McCain remains silent then we are learning that his status as a hero and a man of principle are hollow, empty claims. He is demonstrating that he lacks the character and integrity required of someone to be President. Maybe the criticisms of some who were jailed with McCain–who claimed McCain was a self-seeker who sold them out–are true. We will find out in the coming days. Where are you Senator McCain?
McCain may have been a hero in Hanoi, but when it comes to his treatment of Palin, he is looking like a coward.
UPDATE–Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy, true to her name, offers this important point of view:
…One of our readers mentioned that Palin and McCain may very well have discussed this whole post-election attack on her. Their take was that they decided to let Palin handle it instead of having “Daddy” come to her rescue. That she needs to prove she can stand up to these kinds of offensive attacks on her own, especially if she IS going to run for prez in 2012. Just a thought, but it seems plausible enough to me. And I say that because he seemed to GENUINELY like her. I think if she WANTED or NEEDED for him to stand up, he would. But it is more empowering for her, and women, for her to take care of these male sleazeballs herself. Know what I mean?
Let me be clear where I am coming from. I agree with Amy that Sarah is quite capable of defending herself. But in the face of a massive media onslaught, where they are helping spread these lies (e.g., Fox News was helping lead the pack with Carl Cameron as drum major), McCain just needs to come out and make a simple statement–”Unnamed sources lying about my friend and vice-presidential nominee, are hurting our party and unfairly attacking in the most cowardly fashion a proven leader. Governor Palin is quite capable of defending herself. But an ambush from people who supposedly worked for me is wrong and I reject it.”
If McCain does that then I retract every question about his character and integrity. But so far the silence is deafening.
Part Deux Update–This from Politico is heartening. At least some on the McCain campaign get it:
The Republicans who worked most closely with Palin — the ones who were with her from when she first walked into that swooning Ohio basketball arena in August until she walked off the stage after McCain’s concession speech in Phoenix Tuesday — are now having their say in that conversation.
And they want it known that they’re sick of Sarah Palin being dragged through the mud.
“It’s depressing,” said Steve Biegun, a veteran foreign policy hand who tutored and staffed Palin and traveled with her through the fall. “We worked our asses off. It was a tough campaign. Then we have this?”
Biegun emphatically made the case for his much-maligned former boss.
“I think she was fantastic. She just brought a special energy to our ticket. Look, I was there at those rallies.”
Adds another former campaign aide: “You know what she did for us. She certainly solidified a hell of a lot of [previously unenthused Republicans].”
Without question, Palin offered McCain a boost of energy that he’d lacked since winning his party’s nomination. She gave the party’s base something to be excited about, nearly overnight drawing wildly enthusiastic crowds, more grassroots volunteers and a spike in small-dollar fundraising.
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, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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