Excuses, Excuses

People make excuses for John McCain. "It's just a nasty campaign all around." "This isn't the way he's like to run, but he's doing whatever it takes to win." "He needed Sarah Palin to shore up the base." "They're making him run this way."

With all due respect: Bullshit.

McCain's choice of Palin was political opportunism at its worst: He has elevated a woman who is clearly unfit to lead the country to a candidate for the second-highest office in the land. It's a sign of palpable disrespect for our judgement to suggest that she is qualified or even ethically fit for the office. She's a disaster, and even McCain supporters know it. Even if he were fit as a fiddle, the idea that he would still put her in line for the Presidency is astounding... and kind of heartbreaking, in respect to the good man I thought McCain was. I thought John McCain would put country first, long before he adopted that as his slogan. With that nakedly political decision, he's shown us otherwise.

Second, when did "whatever it takes" become a virtue? Are there any lines that shouldn't be crossed in pursuit of victory? Someone with a sense of honor would think so.

McCain has been running a disgraceful, race-baiting campaign for a long while now, and this latest bit, smearing the name of a Palestinian professor--who McCain himself gave money to on several occasions--because he's friends with Barack and Michelle Obama is reprehensible. At its core, it's about one thing: saying the name Barack Obama as many times as possible in the same sentence as Rashid Khalidi. Because Khalidi has an Arabic name, and McCain is trying to get people scared of Obama, and he's betting that we find Arabs scary.

I'm not calling John McCain a racist. But he is an opportunist, and he's hoping, deep in his heart, that the American people are racist. He's hoping enough of us are the type of people who will be swayed by garbage like this. Like words like "welfare" in his ads. At the "secret Muslim" nonsense. He's counting on more people being drawn to his tactics than repelled by them.

I hope to God he's wrong.

John McCain is clearly, manifestly unworthy of being President. He shows palpable disrespect for our judgement by proposing that Sarah Palin is qualified in any way to lead us. And this is his campaign, no one else's. He is ultimately responsible for every ad, every smear, and every lie... and every bit of horrible race-baiting that should have been left in the 19th century, to say nothing of the 20th.

Rob