We must brace ourselves for the ugliness of the next thirty days. Senator McCain’s campaign brazenly announced its intention to “get tough” with Senator Obama. Sarah Palin led the charge, condemning Obama for his association with “terrorists” like Bill Ayers. Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday also declared with a bit of disdain and desperation that McCain had to “get tough” with Obama and this included vehemently denouncing his association with Jeremiah Wright. Such proclamations reveal a desperate campaign, indeed a campaign in crisis.
However, McCain’s crisis–and we must be forever mindful of this–takes place within the broader crisis our nation currently confronts. And what worries me is that in such moments, ugliness – where the darker regions of our souls overwhelm common decency – finds expression and threaten the sanctity of our democratic ideals. When Americans have historically confronted calamity, we have found the resources to respond courageously, but we have also allowed deeply-rooted prejudices to undermine our democratic commitments. We draw hard lines between those who are considered one of us and those who are not. We need only remember Japanese internment during World War II or the brutal profiling of Arab Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. We find comfort in narrow provincialisms and often respond violently to those whom we scapegoat as the source of our misery. Our long and brutal racial past reveals this unseemly underside of who we are as Americans. Scapegoats are as American as apple pie.
McCain’s latest efforts seek to raise serious questions about Obama’s character, about his place among us. The campaign will use innuendo and outright lies to paint Obama as somehow radically Other. Cavorting with terrorists and an angry, militant black preacher – he can’t be one of us. And the characterization, they hope, will stick, because Americans are scared. Many are losing their jobs, their homes, their prospects for the future. And in these moments, ugliness can reign. The pressing question, and each and every American must grapple with it, is whether or not we have matured enough to resist finding security in our fears – a security which allows those who seek power for power’s sake to steal away in the darkness of the night with our best hopes and aspirations. My prayer, and we are desperately standing in the need of prayer, is that we will muster the courage to reject this latest assault on our senses and get about the real work of responding to the crisis of the nation.
posted October 6, 2008 at 10:05 am
I guess the question becomes, is McCain-Palin LYING about these previous associations that Barack Obama had? Of course, the answer is no, they are not lying. This article also quickly lost credibility with the italicized “black” adjective, referring to Jeremiah Wright. It’s clear that you associate criticism of Barack Obama’s character as being racist. That’s unfortunate, because I question Barack Obama’s character/judgment, and I’m not racist. And I’ve managed to pull both of these things off AT THE SAME TIME. To implicitly claim the Republican ticket is being racist for these criticisms will only further racial tensions in this country if Barack Obama loses. Such a loss will be viewed as a commentary on race in the United States. And this article will be one of many that perpetuated this falsehood.
posted October 6, 2008 at 12:24 pm
But do you have the same questions about McCain’s association with John Keating (something especially relevant today!) and his friendship with Gordon Libby? All of this is a major distraction from the substantive issues of the day.
posted October 6, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hearing about John Keating and Gordon Liddy is not causing anyone to go, “You know, maybe I don’t know John McCain like I think I do.” Everyone knows McCain. The same cannot be said for Obama. There’s a lot of mystery to him and his past associations (and no, “mystery” is not a racial euphemism – based on this article, I thought it best to make that clear). Mystery, when it comes to a presidential campaign, can be very hurtful on election day.
posted October 6, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Sam said, “is McCain-Palin LYING about these previous associations that Barack Obama had? Of course, the answer is no, they are not lying.”
The fact is that McCain-Palin are LYING. Several news chanels have already pointed out that the alleged “terrorist” Ayers was never found guilty of any terrorist activities. His protest activities that are misleadingly alluded to as “terrorist” were conducted when Obama was a child. Further, although they live in the same neighborhood in Chicago they do not “pal around together.” Besides Dr. Ayers is a well respected professor at a prestigious university in Illinois.
A much stronger case for paling around with terrorist can be made in McCain’s very strong, on going support for the terrorist activities conducted at the instigation of Bush-Cheney in Iraq, which have killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians in an effort to terrorize the “insurgents.”
posted October 6, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Oh, my, Sen. Barack Obama has an air of “mystery” about him. He surely can’t be “one of us.”
Hogwash. What do we really know about anybody who puts himself or herself up for public office? We can’t know anyone else fully, because we don’t even know ourselves. There was “mystery” about John F. Kennedy when he was elected, because nobody knew for sure if he’d be governed at one remove by the Vatican, since America had never had a Catholic president before.
This idea that one can be guilty by association formed the bedrock of the McCarthy witch hunts in the 1940s and early 50s. It’s not who you hang with, it’s what you do, and I for one am glad that among his many associations, Barack Obama has hung out with people in different parts of the world, and with regular folks back in the ‘hood, where they needed a community organizer to help them get something done.
All the McCain-Palin witch hunt does is solidify my support for Obama-Biden. Vote.
posted October 6, 2008 at 7:22 pm
It is a politically stupid move simply because right now voters could not care less about who a candidate associates himself with. And that cuts two ways.
And saying that McCain helped kill off a few tens of thousands Iraqis is not going to cost him any votes he would have, so that is also a waste of time.
The simple truth is that right now, with the exception of the zealots on both sides, the voters have absolutely no interest in anything that is not economic.
posted October 6, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I was fifteen years old when I was pulled aside by the FBI and questioned about my “association with know elements” of dissent in other words, Commies. I was twenty two years old when I was almost not allowed to join the Air Force because of my past association with people of potential dissent, you know those left wing hippie of U.C. Berkeley.
I was almost discharged as an “undesirable” because I “knew homosexuals (people they put into my barracks pending discharge for allegedly being involved in sexual activity even though no proof was ever presented).
I don’t like it when people spread rumours.
posted October 8, 2008 at 12:09 am
Yes America is standing in need of prayer and repentence. Not more lies from enexperienced candidates. What lies you may ask. Well lies about all the great changes they are going to make. Change what? I have been a democrat as long as I have been old enough to vote and I have never been more ashamed of the democratic party than I am this year. Kinderchildren wouldn’t act as childish as they are. Yes I will vote but not for Obama or Biden.j