Okay, it’s time to come out and say it.
John McCain is man without honor and a man without respect.
He may once have actually been the great man that we’re supposed to believe he is. He may once have been an honest patriot, willing to do whatever was necessary to keep his country great. He may once have been deserving of our respect.
I am livid. This ad is disgusting, completely out of bounds, and a massive lie. Worse, it’s targeted at the exact sort of people who are most likely to believe it and pass on the “information” carried therein. Now to the “Obama is not a patriot,” and “Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist,” they can add, “Obama is a sexual predator.”
Oh, won’t somebody please think of the children?
Did you know that Barack Obama has done jack for the state of the education system in
Except, see, what he was voting for was a measure to attempt to set standards for comprehensive sex ed, which included teaching kindergarteners the difference between “good touch” and “bad touch.” You know, all that stuff about sexual predators and giving children the appropriate knowledge to know when they’re being abused and how to tell someone? That’s what the law is all about.
But there are some people in the world for whom the idea of sexual education of any variety are a sign of depraved minds. There are some people who believe that educating people about the issues of sex will inevitably result in sex. There are some people who believe that telling kindergarteners about the difference between good touch and bad touch is tantamount to telling them to go out and engage in homosexual orgies.
These are nasty, short-sighted people who genuinely believe that the world is hopelessly corrupt and that everyone who doesn’t behave as they are supposed to will burn in the eminently deserved fires of Hell. These are nasty, short-sighted people who will do anything at all to gain political power in an attempt to create their own New Israel.
It’s disgusting that John McCain is going to Saddleback and parroting the evangelical Christian line in front of the true believers. It’s disgusting that he’s picked a running mate who is a theocrat in perky PTA clothing. It’s disgusting and despicable that he’d stoop far enough to allow and approve of a message that basically calls his opponent a lecherous, freaky sexual predator.
The truly disturbing thing, though, is that this would appear to be the primary Republican strategy of this election. Every day Barack Obama has to stand up in front of the country and say, “I am not a pederast,” is one day that he’s not addressing the nation on the things that really matter. Even if it’s demonstrably wrong and even if it gives Obama a chance to hit McCain, these are issues that the Republican base will largely ignore and will simply pull Obama off target.
It’s a brilliant strategy, in a sick and wrong and creepy and slimy sort of way. It’s the sort of thing I would do if I wanted to win without actually saying anything and had no standards against which I felt it was necessary to measure myself. I can’t admire or respect it, but I can see the horrible logic of it.
Besides, it will all get boiled down to “sex education” and “kindergarten.” That’s kind of like “abortion” and “holocaust.” They don’t have anything in common in reality, but they’re powerful when combined with unthinking dogmatic sloganeering.
Hell, these are the people who spent weeks saying that Obama was nothing but speeches, then followed up Sarah Palin’s single speech at the Republican National Convention with, “Well, now I’m sold!” These are the same people who accused Obama of running only on personality, then thought it was a good idea to focus McCain’s Convention speech around the umpteen millionth telling of his POW story. These are the same people who still assert that when we went in to
These are horrible, disgusting people who will let nothing stand in the way of winning. Truth and decency are their enemy and their victory would be a loss for us all.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Word has it that Sarah Palin is talking tough with Russia. Over Georgia. That'll end well.
Here's a quick primer on the whole Georgia situation, since no one seems to be mentioning the timeline:
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia some time ago. They've been skirmishing ever since, with Russia taking South Ossetia's side.
The first day of the Olympics the Georgians pushed in to South Ossetia in force. Russia responded with a great deal more force. Now, I'm not entirely sure what the timeline was, as I've seen some reports that Russia had declared in support of South Ossetia an independent state before and I've seen some that they declared in support afterwards.
Either way, this is not an issue of big, bad Russia invading teeny little Georgia and pushing them around. This is more analogous to Desert Shield, when the U.N. went in to Kuwait, not to push teeny little Iraq around, but to push them out of a sovereign nation. This issue is a bit fuzzier, of course, since South Ossetia didn't exactly have the same record of sovereignty that Kuwait did, but, seriously.
Let's think about this before we start talking tough to Russia.
Oh, and in case anybody's wondering, the Munich Analogy doesn't fit here. Russia is not occupying Georgia, it's not even doing that much in South Ossetia, and it's not fixing to re-take any of the other former Soviet republics.
I don't trust Putin and I don't think we should, but if we're going to go to war with Russia, let's go to war over things that aren't this.
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