John McFussy

Today the McCain campaign came out and called the Obama campaign "fussy" due to their "sensitivity." We went over this yesterday, pointing out the glaring hypocrisy in calling Obama "touchy" when McCain flew off into a fit of rage when anyone asked a question about Sarah Palin. No one even asked a legitimate question like, "you do realize that this woman is the biggest embarrassment in American political history, right?" but instead they got angry at a question like "what newspapers do you read?"

During last night's debate, John McCain called Barack Obama "that one." Now, a lot of people are making an issue out of this, but I'll give McCain the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't mean it in any sort of racist way, but when you're a 72 year old white man, it's probably not a good idea to refer to a young black man in that manner. Racial undertones aside, the comment was unbelievably rude and dismissive and it shows that McCain has little respect for his opponent; he has a name and a title, it's Senator Obama, not "that one."

I shouldn't be surprised though, that's been the entire tone of the campaign since McCain's poll numbers started to nosedive - try to dismiss Barack Obama. As I've said numerous times, John McCain has no agenda that really differs from the policies of George W. Bush, so of course his only weapon is to distort and smear Obama, then say he's being "too touchy." Yeah, I'm a little touchy when someone calls me an America-hating terrorist, which is exactly what Governor Avon Lady has been doing since Saturday. These McCain campaign rallies have all been started by someone invoking Obama's middle name, Hussein, as if it's some sort of epithet and then Palin comes on stage to call Obama a terrorist's best friend. That's a different kind of mudslinging than what you see from the Obama campaign of things like "John McCain has proven over the last two weeks that he is not a steady hand in a crisis and his angry smears distract voters from the real issues in this campaign."

And let's clear up this Obama/domestic terrorist stuff right now - Barack Obama's ties to ex-terrorist William Ayers is about as solid as McCain's ties to ex-terrorist G. Gordon Liddy, I'll let the experts fill you in:

As Media Matters for America has documented in detail, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Both connections are a stretch and based on events that happened over thirty-five years ago, but of course the media only reports on Obama/Ayers because that's what John McCain talks about. Obama has too much class to stoop that low while McCain has no problem flying erratically all over the map.

Here's the part that really bugs me, if this William Ayers connection of Obama's is so bad and is akin to treason and terrorism like so many idiots at McCain rallies have shouted, then why didn't McCain bring it up in last night's debate? If Obama has ties to terrorism, why would McCain even dignify the man with a meeting or a debate? Why won't John McCain just ask the question, "is Obama a terrorist" rather than dancing around it with things like "who is the real Barack Obama?" C'mon, I thought this was the Straight Talk Express, I thought McCain was the tough maverick that's not afraid to stand up to people? Perhaps it's just the simple fact that McCain knows these ties are bullshit, but he's hoping voters will draw their own conclusions from these smears just like with the Swiftboat ads in 2004?

Did you notice McCain wandering around all over the place during the debate, even when it was Obama's time to talk? I don't think a greater metaphor could be used for McCain's campaign than a broken down, ailing man wandering around like a lost Alzheimer's patient. And they're the ones that want to talk about the other campaign being "fussy?" I pity John McCain because this is not the Arizona senator that I respected and admired, this is a cynical man that is willing to try any gimmick, any stunt or any lie in order to get elected. He has surrounded himself with scum like Rick Davis, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin and has made it perfectly clear that he would rather win an election than to put country first.