If McCain were really a maverick reformer, bringer of change, he could start right now, today, by denouncing the dirty, despicable campaign the Republicans are running and have run since Nixon under the tutelage of the Lee Atwater-Karl Rove School of Slime.
He has surrendered any claim to integrity and honor by showing his willingness to engage in or approve the same kind of demagoguery and misrepresentation of facts the Republicans have used for decades, while smiling piously when Palin tells her lies and sarcastically demeans Obama.
He damned Obama's lack of experience and chose Palin who has even less experience than Obama and then is complicit in the outrageous, baseless, laughable claim that she has more and better, showing that all his raging was a sham, insincere, a put-on.
Now he has become the great maverick hero because the experience tactic didn't work, and he belatedly saw that change and reform.are the magic words this year.
Palin's righteous claims about refusing the Bridge to Nowhere and her frugal disdain for earmarks are belied by her former actual previous practice, but McCain raises no question.
McCain has not condemned the lie about Obama's use of the "lipstick on a pig" notion, which was clearly not a reference to Palin.
He has not rejected his campaign's lying claims that Obama voted for age inappropriate sex education for kindergarten kids.
There is no tactic of opposition to Palin that is not made out to be either condescendingly deferential or a male brute bullying the nice lady candidate. All negative comments or attacks whatsoever, no matter what, are sexist and not respectful. Has he decried this scurrilous defense of her? Of course not.
When I was a boy in Georgia, the demagogues were still around, and I know demagoguery when I see it, and it is flourishing in this campaign in the Republican slimy tactics against Obama. Republicans are geniuses at finding the emotional hot buttons in people -- their fears, suspicions, hatreds -- and exploiting them in ways both subtle and blatant with clever pictures, slogans, and cliches that arouse the worst possible passions in voters, including xenophobia and racism.
Until McCain denounces the contemptible campaign tactics of his own party that are present here and now, I view his promise to shake Washington to the foundations as fraudulent and him as a charlatan and a phony.
PS: Obama is not without fault on this score, e. g., the 100 years in Iraq comment was not the whole truth. Maybe they could make a pact to refrain from misleading criticisms of each other and to condemn anything in their campaigns that was not accurate or fair.
He has surrendered any claim to integrity and honor by showing his willingness to engage in or approve the same kind of demagoguery and misrepresentation of facts the Republicans have used for decades, while smiling piously when Palin tells her lies and sarcastically demeans Obama.
He damned Obama's lack of experience and chose Palin who has even less experience than Obama and then is complicit in the outrageous, baseless, laughable claim that she has more and better, showing that all his raging was a sham, insincere, a put-on.
Now he has become the great maverick hero because the experience tactic didn't work, and he belatedly saw that change and reform.are the magic words this year.
Palin's righteous claims about refusing the Bridge to Nowhere and her frugal disdain for earmarks are belied by her former actual previous practice, but McCain raises no question.
McCain has not condemned the lie about Obama's use of the "lipstick on a pig" notion, which was clearly not a reference to Palin.
He has not rejected his campaign's lying claims that Obama voted for age inappropriate sex education for kindergarten kids.
There is no tactic of opposition to Palin that is not made out to be either condescendingly deferential or a male brute bullying the nice lady candidate. All negative comments or attacks whatsoever, no matter what, are sexist and not respectful. Has he decried this scurrilous defense of her? Of course not.
When I was a boy in Georgia, the demagogues were still around, and I know demagoguery when I see it, and it is flourishing in this campaign in the Republican slimy tactics against Obama. Republicans are geniuses at finding the emotional hot buttons in people -- their fears, suspicions, hatreds -- and exploiting them in ways both subtle and blatant with clever pictures, slogans, and cliches that arouse the worst possible passions in voters, including xenophobia and racism.
Until McCain denounces the contemptible campaign tactics of his own party that are present here and now, I view his promise to shake Washington to the foundations as fraudulent and him as a charlatan and a phony.
PS: Obama is not without fault on this score, e. g., the 100 years in Iraq comment was not the whole truth. Maybe they could make a pact to refrain from misleading criticisms of each other and to condemn anything in their campaigns that was not accurate or fair.
