Mind Games in the Presidential Race
May 9, 2008 Political
John McCain, the MSM’s and Democratic selection for the Republican party, has been the subject of debate because of his age. While Howard Dean stated that the Democrats would not take this up as an issue that has not stopped some of them from chiming in. Jack Murtha, the unindicted criminal who is three years older than McCain said that McCain was too old to be president by stating that it was no old man’s job. B. Hussein Obama recently complained about a factual statement by McCain that the terrorists would rather see Obama win. Since this was stated by terrorists it is not a lie. Obama indicated that McCain was losing his bearings which the McCain camp took as a veiled shot at the candidate’s age.
Is age an issue in this campaign? Certainly there is a minimum age requirement for the office of President but there is no maximum age limit. So why are people able to make statements about McCain’s age? Ageism is a form of discrimination so why is it tolerated. Imagine for a moment that a prominent Republican Congressman had made the statement that Hillary Clinton should not be president because she is a woman by saying “this ain’t no lady’s job.” Or imagine this same person said that Obama should not be president because he is black by saying “this ain’t no job for a black man.” The howls of misogyny or racism would be heard from coast to coast. But members of the Democratic party make a crack about age and it is quite alright. It is ironic that Murtha would say it given that he is ancient. It is also strange that age never seemed to be a problem for Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of the last century. To be fair, Chuck Norris also made an issue of McCain’s age and he was just as wrong as Murtha.
What about this age issue? Is it a concern? Has John McCain lost his bearing ? I might argue he lost his bearing a long time ago with regard to conservatism but I somehow don’t think that is what Obama meant. It is true that as we age our minds get a little slower and we forget things and of course we are more susceptible to brain diseases that result in a decline of brain function. McCain though, seems to be in pretty good shape and except for a few gaffes it does not look like he has lost any of his mental function.
There are those, especially when the general election rolls around (if the Democrats ever figure out who is running), who will make a big deal out of the gaffes and attribute them to decreased mental capacity. These would be the same people who excuse Hillary Clinton’s lies about sniper fire as a mistake. Hillary says that she told us something that she knew to be different from what actually happened and she has even written about it. Does she have decreased mental capacity because she can’t recall if she was shot at or not? The media and those on the left never attributed it to her age and decreasing brain function. Many could not compel themselves to call her a liar opting to say she simply “made a mistake.”
Now Hillary is 60 so there might be people who say that she is declining. In fact, Bill Clinton said as much (when he was trying to excuse her lie) when he said that when people get to be 60 they will forget things when they are tired. Obama though, is a mere babe in the woods compared to these two. Certainly, his mental capacity is not in question and he has the most sound mind for the job.
But wait! Obama has told us that he started attending Pastor Wright’s church 20 years ago when he was 26. He also told us that in 20 years he never realized that Wright was a racist. It took this man 20 years and public outcry to see that his pastor was an American hating racist with crack-pot conspiracy theories about the government inventing AIDS to get rid of blacks. Good thing his mind is sharp or it might have taken 40 years.
Obama’s sharp and well tuned mind did not prevent him from insulting many Americans by saying that they are bitter and as a result cling to religion and their guns while hating outsiders. If we are to believe that Obama did nothing wrong in his land deal with Tony Rezko then his sharp as a tack mind did not keep him from making a deal that had red flags flying all around it.
John McCain was tortured at the hands of our enemy for nearly seven years and he can go toe to toe with either of the other two in an intellectual battle and not get bested (I bet he could go toe to toe in a fist fight and beat them both). To make his age an issue does an injustice to the elderly in our society.
There are plenty of problems with John McCain but his age is not one of them.
Sources:
WSJ
My Way News
Will NYT Hit Piece Help McCain?
Feb 24, 2008 Political
The New York Times put out a hit piece on John McCain that its own ombudsman criticized because it made accusations about a sexual relationship without providing any evidence. As the ombudsman pointed out, there is a pretty good story if all the sex references are removed. This is true and the story deserves attention with regard to the meat of the issue. That is, did John McCain engage in activities that favored a lobbyist? If the NYT had stuck to that part of the story there might have been more focus on it and less on the concept of a hit piece.
In essence, the paper might have helped John McCain. It is no secret that many conservatives are unhappy with McCain and it is also no secret that he was not helped by an NYT endorsement though the realists among us knew that as soon as he was the nominee (or close enough to leave no doubt) that the NYT would turn on him. And turn they did. The Times did exactly what many believed it would and instead of casting more doubt on McCain, the hit piece rallied people around McCain for what was seen as an unfair attack with innuendo and speculation.
The Times is an enemy of conservatives and they showed that they are definitely biased when they went after McCain. Given that there are plenty of speculative stories about Clinton and Obama, one would have to ask why the paper has not gone after them as well. Despite the Clinton’s claims that the media is unfair to them, they have gotten a free ride for decades. Obama is a charismatic young man who has brought the Democrats together and given them “hope” though no one, not even Obama, can describe exactly what his message is other than hope and change. Hope is not proper mission planning and it will not get him very far should he actually win the presidency.
McCain has his faults but one thing he has that the others do not is experience. He has more experience in Congress, he has more experience as a legislator and he has more experience with regard to the military which means he has more experience to be the Commander in Chief. I am not overly happy with all of his positions but I agree with more of his than the other two. They will be a disaster for this country while McCain is more likely to do an adequate job. One thing is certain, he will be better for our national security than either of the Democrats.
The paper’s hit piece might be a gift to McCain in that it will rally people around him who otherwise might have sat out the general election. I am sure that was not their intention when they published the piece but it is certainly having the effect of helping rather than hindering him.
Time will tell if he benefited from the piece and it is still a long way until November. Any of the candidates can slip up between now and then. Obama seems to be the cleanest of the crew because he does not have as long a paper trail but if he wins the nomination people will be digging in the weeds to find the dirt he has left behind.
It would be poetic justice if McCain beat him and the determining factor was the Times hit piece. If McCain wins the presidency one gets the impression that on a Wednesday in November a lot of people at the Times will be jumping from the upper floors of the building.
On the way down they will be screaming; “we have seen the enemy and it is us.”
Others with interesting posts:
The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, A Blog For All, WayWard Fundamentalist Christian, 123beta, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, Pursuing Holiness, Chuck’s Place, Nuke Gingrich, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Wolf Pangloss, , Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Hillary Can Control Bill
Jan 31, 2008 Political
In a recent ABC interview the involvement of former President Bill Clinton was addressed by Hillary. She indicated that any statements he made were not intended to be offensive. Then Cynthia McFadden asked Hillary if she could control Bill.
Her response was; “Oh of course.â€
How is it we are supposed to believe that she can control him when she could not do that in all the years since they met? She sent her father and brother to Arkansas (before they were married) while she was away to keep him from sleeping around and there have been countless women who admitted to having consensual affairs as well as those who claimed to have been raped by him. Then, of course, there was Monica Lewinsky and that whole ugly affair. Despite their denials and defamation of Gennifer Flowers she turned out to be telling the truth when Bill admitted to having an affair with her. Despite his denials and cover up by Hillary, the Lewinsky affair turned out to be true. Even though he denied it and his people tried to portray her as a star struck kid, she turned out to be the one telling the truth.
So tell me, how is is she can control him when she has failed to do so since the time they met?
Source:
ABC Political Radar
Tags: bill, Clinton, control, Hillary, lies, out of touch, sex
The Phantom of the Oprah
Jan 21, 2008 Political
Oprah Winfrey has been very vocal in her support for B. Hussein Obama. In her first venture into the political scene, Winfrey campaigned for Obama at several events and he is the only candidate that has appeared on her show. Winfrey has been paying a bit of a price for her support of Obama and has been labeled a traitor by women who think she should be supporting Hillary Clinton.
This kind of thinking is very dangerous for the political scene because it places emphasis on a physical characteristic rather than on policy issues and qualification for the job. Winfrey is in a particularly difficult position because if she supports Clinton she will be labeled a traitor by the blacks who support Obama. Race and sex are not supposed to play into the selection process and picking a candidate based solely upon those, or any other characteristics, is a silly way to select leaders. Imagine what kind of uproar there would be if famous male supporters of Hillary were labeled traitors by other men who think a male should be president or if whites were labeled traitors for their support of Obama.
Think of how ridiculous it would be if the supporters of other candidates did the same thing. The elderly and Vietnam vets would label other elderly or VN vets who do not support McCain as traitors. Balding men would label as traitors those who do not support Thompson, evangelicals label other evangelicals as traitors for not supporting Huckabee, trial lawyers would label other trial lawyers as traitors for not supporting Edwards, those who have been divorced several times would labels others with that history as traitors for not supporting Giuliani and successful businessmen would label other successful businessmen as traitors for not supporting Romney.
Ron Paul supporters already label anyone who does not support Paul as a traitor.
These examples are just as ridiculous as concentrating on the fact that Obama is black or Hillary is a woman. Of course these are barriers that have never been broken but electing someone just to break that “glass ceiling” (as Hillary calls it) is not the correct way to select leaders. If one is a liberal there are many reasons to vote for Clinton or Obama and if one is a Conservative there are plenty of reasons not to vote for either of them. The color or sex of the candidates does not fit into this equation.
In order to see how invalid the idea of support based upon color or sex is one only needs to ask the question; is it OK to oppose Clinton because she is a woman or Obama because he is black? Would a person who said that he will not vote for Clinton solely because she is a woman be labeled a sexist and would a person who says that he would not vote for Obama solely because he is black be labeled a racist? If the answer is yes (and we know the answer is yes) then support based upon those two items is just as wrong.
This country is ready for a woman president and it is ready for a black president and there are plenty of both who would do a great job. These two just are not the ones.
Clintons Defend Racist Remarks
Jan 12, 2008 Political
Looks like the Clintons are now finding out what Republicans have to go through all the time but what most Democrats get a free pass on and that is the issue of race. Any Republican who makes a remark that is perceived as racist is boycotted by those idiots Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It becomes a circus while the race hustlers have people kissing their rear ends begging for forgiveness. Then, ultimately, the person who offended the black community loses a job or position or some other thing because God knows we can’t offend the race hustlers.
The Democrats always get a pass. Hillary speaks in a black voice and talks about plantations and she is excused. There are plenty of examples of this. Hell, it isn’t only race. It deals with sex as well. Let a Republican talk about women and he is a sexist pig with NOW having a cow. Let Clinton rape women and let Ted Kennedy kill them and there is nary a word. Let’s face it, Hillary is only a viable candidate because of her husband. She had an unremarkable career and only has name recognition because of him. Without his sexcapades she might not have even been elected to the Senate. NOW surely does not chide her for needing a man to get ahead. She is qualified because she slept with the president…
Back to the point. The Clinton campaign is trying to put an end to the outrage over some comments made by them which were taken as racist by many in the black community. Bill and Hillary are used to having their way with the black community but now that a brother is running for the White House (kind of ironic when you think about it) they are fair game just as any Republican would be. Bill had to go on the Sharpton radio show to kiss his butt and explain what he said. Bill told Al that the campaign was not a fairy tale after stating that it was (which started the mess for him).
Bill was on some satellite radio program where he talked in circles, lied through his teeth, and generally used a lot of words to say nothing of substance. The Clintons also have to worry about the South Carolina primary because the black vote is capable of making the difference. In addition, New York, once though to be in the bag for Hillary, is now considered in play. The Clintons have probably feared this the whole time but never really thought it would happen. Now people can complain about the race issue being brought up (it was not raised by Obama) but no one gave it a second thought when Hillary was playing the gender card.
It is fun watching them squirm and it would be great to see the black vote ruin her after all the years the Clintons pandered to blacks and then abandoned them after the votes were counted.
As for the racism, let us not forget that Obama is probably a racist as well. He hangs with Sharpton and other shady characters who hate white people and make racist remarks about them. As one of the other bloggers put it, Obama is a smile in an empty suit. However, that empty suit is just as racist as the Clintons are made out to be.
But the black guy will always get the pass on that issue. Look at Sharpton and all he has gotten away with. Kos was interested in helping the Republicans fight with each other blah, blah. It appears that the black guy and the racist woman in the Democratic party might cause a lot of fragmentation. If they are not careful the Breck girl John Edwards might sneak in.
It is getting fun and keep this in mind. If the Clintons did not think they had made racist remarks (they probably meant to and figured they would not be taken as such) then why are they all over the airwaves and TV shows defending what they said?
They know they are wrong and they are now pandering.
Hillary is Satan.
Related items:
Emperor Misha has a great post.
The Politico
Yahoo News
The State
The New York Times
Tags: bill clinton, Clinton, Hillary, NOW, Obama, racist, sex, sexist