By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist
Surely John McCain's long political career has not unraveled to the extent that he needs to seek refuge with the thuggish extremes of the Republican party.
Rallies on behalf of McCain and Sarah Palin grew ugly last week, with party activists sneeringly referring to the Democratic opponent as "Barack Hussein Obama," and people responding with cries of "treason" and "kill him." Attendees at some functions booed and heckled the mainstream media.
This is NOT McCain's style. Never has he cozied up to this element. But his tepid protests about how Barack Obama is an "honorable" man don't cut it.
McCain, who said he would rather lose an election than lose a war, needs to prove that he would rather lose the nutty fringe of his party than lose his honor. In the words of his opponent, he needs to "denounce and reject" these smears and innuendo.
Obama, prodded by Hillary Clinton in a debate, said in a debate that he denounced and rejected the extremist views of Louis Farrakhan. McCain should also denounce and reject, loudly and forcefully, the next Republican supporter who drags his campaign into segregationist territory.
And he needs a new strategy for Palin. Her "pit bull" antics are dishing up nourishment for the fringe.
Delicious
Digg
chazzy
the perpetual abuse of the voter registration process by ACORN
For all your histrionics, the fact is that ACORN isn't doing anything except other than what it should be doing -- signing up people to vote. We've seen that the organization itself has been the victim of fraud by its own employees (the KC case in 2006), who ACORN itself turned in. We can all acknowledge that for whatever reasons, people turn in multiple applications that clog up the process, but that doesn't equate to actual voting fraud, particularly if the elections board is doing its job.
I'll have a lot more respect for you if you drop this silly "blame ACORN" bit of yours.
As an addendum, there simply doesn't seem to be a major connection between Obama and the organization.
Seems the problem is
not so much that the media aren't reporting the truth, but rather that they aren't reporting the made-up version that you want to see.
Oh, put a sock in it
"Single direct slander"...well, let's start out with "palling around with terrorists, yew betcha." If what Obama did with Ayers is palling around with terrorists, McCain's been palling around with terrorists his entire career. Nonsense
Bob Dole lost honorably to Bill Clinton. McCain has tried pandering and he's tried reining in the worst of what he and his advisers have let out of the bottle. He's going to lose, now the question is which way to go in the next three weeks and whether he intends to lose with his honor intact.
yeah ....they "cut it"
Every single direct slander or charge of racism that i have seen in this campaign cycle has either come from messiah's mouth or his democrat surrogates , Babs.
Where is your request of them? It really would be nice to see a hint of fairness in your editorial postings....not to be.
Where is the star's editorial staff on the perpetual abuse of the voter registration process by ACORN, who Obama represented, helped fund and continues to support?
I guess Independence is too far away for you guys to bother covering.......LOL.....your hypocrisy continues to shine in the eyes of your dwindling readership.
"The unpredictable mob"
John McCain went out of his way to defend Barach Obama from the rabid mob of Republican supporters, and incurred their wrath in the process. He assured them that Obama "..is not an Arab...He's a decent family man...You should not be scared of him..." Of course, by implication, this means that Arab males are not decent family men and we should be scared of them. I wonder how John Zogby feels about this gratuitous insult and will his future polls be a little bit skewed. Oh well, he's just an Arab and we can't trust "them" anyway, can we?
I dunno, sweetcheeks
How is it "possilbe" that your boy Puffy says he's been best buddies with Saakashvili for 25 years? Puffy can't pronounce his best buddy's name, and Saakashvili's 41 years old--but they've been bunkies just FOREVER.
Check this out: Saakashvili chows down on his Countess Mara:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kid379OjuC0
Sore on the Butt of mankind
I once again must tell you that I will never have to call that number and ask for Osama Yomama. a/k/a ACORN Booster, a/k/a surrender now, a/k/a Tax till you bleed, Barack Hussein Obamba!
BTW I see he and Bill Ayers (aka Timothy McVey) had their kids go to school together. How is this possilbe, Ayers's kids are 30, and Yomama's are 6 and 9. Are Ayerr's kids that stupid, or are Yomama's that bright, Hmmmmmm?
It's a pity he doesn't have any friends, who could TELL him
That Roe-gue doesn't know what "in the tank" means.
Rogue--Barry's waiting for your callback. Got the number? Just in case: 202-456-1414.
It is so funny
To see Babs and Gusewelle howling about unfair the lamestream medis is being treated with their"totally in the tank" position for Barack Hussein Obama (that is his name Babsy)
You wonder why your newspapers are firing people every month, and losing advertising bucks big time?
You folks have a lesser reptutation now than honorable used car salespeople.
The lack of MSM vetting is the problem
The MSM as an institution has lost morality. It now is an institution of persuation rather than objective information. When Jefferson chose "excessive Newspapers" over "excessive government" he never envisioned the newspapers would advocate and persuade.
By ignoring issues like Acorn assosciations, MSM tacitly approves the behavior. Lack of vetting of Barrack H. Obama and acting in an advocacy role for arguably the most radical and left leaning presidential candidate in American history will engender radical reactions on the other side. Lecturing from this press is dubious at best and this particular article 'Time for McCain to denounce and reject' smacks of elitistism. Clean up your own institution before lecturing on behavior of citizens.
McCain Tactics
So the poor MSM got booed, well boo-hoo. the media had spent the entire campaign on its collective knees in front of Obama. Maybe if you would report the truth about Obama's connection to Freddie/Fannie executives, his connection to Ayers, ACORN, tell the truth about his tax plan instead of just "reporting" that 95% of all Americans will not get a tax increase, do I need to go on? Have you forgotten why the first ammendment exhists? It was to keep government honest. Why don't you try reporting instead of issuing the press releases and let the electorate decide?