It was a step of desperation so obvious that even my seven year old daughter could see it coming a mile away.
I had just turned on the news and watched McCain's Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, falsely accuse Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" when my daughter, in the first semester of second grade, asked me the following question:
"Daddy, who is that lady - and why is she saying such mean things instead of helping people from losing their houses like Barack Obama?"
Very few times in my life have I ever been at a loss for words. The fact that my daughter comprehends what millions of American voters evidently cannot understand left me speechless - and proud of my daughter.
John McCain, campaign flailing like a seagull and poll numbers sinking like a rock in the ocean, has swung his presidential campaign completely around from one with principled disagreements with Democratic Party Presidential Nominee Barack Obama (D-IL) to one forced to dive into the deepest gutter with its Right-wing cronies from Fox News and other conservative elements of the lunatic fringe.
This on the heels of McCain's plummeting national and battleground state poll numbers and the upcoming presidential debate on Tuesday - which will almost certainly be directed toward the economy, health care, and other domestic issues salient to the American voting public.
McCain has cause to be concerned. According to Fivethirtyeight.com, the premier scientific analysis site regarding matters of an electoral nature, Obama is on course to enjoy a large electoral win in November - with a large working majority in congress to accompany him.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Make no mistake about it, folks. McCain will not be alone in his gutter. If the McCain-Palin ticket needs assistance with its desperate attempt to shift focus, it needs only to look to its media surrogates at Fox News.
Sean Hannity, during the Democratic Party Primaries, led nearly every segment of his radio and television shows for months with his 'top story' - the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That concentrated solution of bias and distraction filtered through to nearly every show in the Fox News lineup when the 'stories' about Wright and Ayers first broke.
Then, a couple of months later, these distractions made a comeback from the likeliest of sources. Just when you thought Fox News had finally gotten its fill of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill O'Reilly's fixation stepped in where Sean Hannity had left off.
During his 'O'Reilly Factor' show on July 31, 2008, Bill O'Reilly attempted to demonstrate what he believes is a dangerous 'association' with rapper Ludicris on the part of Barack Obama by tossing out every conservative's favorite fear-mongering symbol: The Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
What made that turn of events almost laughable is the rage-filled tirade O'Reilly went on at the onset of his show the night before - where he re-broadcasted a portion of his radio show that contained his hissy fit over Scott McClelland's assertion that he and the rest of Rupert Murdoch's army received talking points from the Bush White House. Yet during the very first show subsequent to that tirade, he started off attempting to link Obama to Ludicris (even as Obama strongly denounced the comments made by the rapper) - then tossing Rev. Wright out there for the world to digest. For someone who claimed to not be taking talking points from the Right, O'Reilly (or is it O'Hannity?) sure had the Republican Party playbook out - and he seemed to be following it page-for-page.
For his fellow Kool-Aid drinkers, the continuing exposure of O'Reilly as a blatant partisan hack for conservatives and Republicans will likely have no effect. For those of you who are undecided heading into this election, let these types of tactics serve notice as to what types of ethics and morals exist on the political Right. They will use words like 'anarchy' and 'extremist' to scare you into marching in lockstep with them. They will try to clump together radical supporters of those they do not agree with politically in order to make you believe that the candidate actually believes what vile, unprovoked statements come out of the mouths of these individuals.
Ask yourself why these scare artists are rushing to avoid the true issues of this election by sending out hacks like O'Reilly to bash someone who dares to bring (gasp) change to Washington D.C. Could it be that the present economic downturn, energy crisis, failing education and health care system, and our diminished status around the world are direct results of their failed public policies? When someone runs from one narrative and rushes to another, the reasonable and intelligent course of analysis is to not examine the distractive narrative, but rather the reason the previous narrative has been so quickly discarded. In this case, McCain not only knows that his so-called 'solutions' are nothing less than re-hashed failed Bush policies, but that the American people refuse to buy what he is selling.
Make no mistake about it: This election is one of the most important in our country's history. Will you let biased partisan hacks like Palin and her supporter Bill O'Reilly scare and intimidate you into voting their way? Or will you educate yourself on the issues that affect you and your family - such as a floundering economy, an immoral war, an energy crisis, and a health care disaster - and make the right choices for the improvement of your lives and this country we love?