What Bill Ayers Tells Us about John McCain (revised)

Today at a Colorado fundraiser, Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of hanging out with terrorists.

“Our opponent, though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect — imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” 

Her use of the word terrorist at this stage in the campaign of course is a not so coded attack on Obama’s name, race and plays on lingering false beliefs about Obama’s religious affiliation. Palin’s snarky comments suggest Barack is hanging out with “those People” way out there, those islamofascist terrorists that Rudy spoke about during his failed campaign.

Actually Palin was referring to the caucasion Bill Aires, professor of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago.  As the NYTimes reports today, Obama had no affiliation with the terrorist Bill Ayers, whose “terroristic” activities occurred 39 years ago (Weather Underground) when Obama was eight years old.  Palin knows as much and should be held responsible for her misstatements.

Rather, Obama has had casual contact with Bill Ayers the educational reformer, whose much lauded work Obama supported, and was financed by Walter Annenberg, Republican stalwart, and onetime confident of President Richard Nixon.  

The real issue here is that Walter Annenberg has had more to do with the success of Bill Ayers the academic and reformer than Barack Obama ever did.  Had Palin a conscience, she’d attack Annenberg (not Obama) for having made his research and writing possible. 

But Palin cares not one whit for facts, as she showed during the VP debate, and has no curiosity about larger social truths, as she made abundantly clear in the Couric interviews.

So clearly, her attack on Obama is nothing more than the latest McCain talking point and is an opening salvo of the final month of her national ambition.

I happen to agree that Bill Ayers provides some rich fodder for political discussion during the next five weeks, but not for the reasons evoked in the press. There is nothing to Obama’s association with Bill Ayers, as if there is any real problem if they really were pals.  so what. 

here’s the salience of Bill Ayers to the 08 campaign. It brings us back to a reexamination of McCain’s wrongheaded and irrational thoughts about the Vietnam War.

The Bill Ayers of forty years ago had his counterpoint in John McCain.  In the midst of a violent period domestically in the US when the US was engaged in a war that many believe should never have been fought, McCain supported it and Ayers opposed it.  McCain took up arms in support of the war effort, as tens of thousands of soldiers did.  Ayers took up arms as well, a highly controversial and unpopular move in the anti war movement. I am not suggesting a moral equivalence here between ayers and McCain, although I am suggesting these two figures represent polar extremes present in the cultural torment of the 1960s.

Ayers long go left behind his Weather Underground past.  I don’t think McCain ever left Vietnam.  John McCain’s current candidacy is rooted in milking his Vietnam legend.  And for sure, McCain’s Vietnam experience informs his position on Iraq, Iran, even Russia and Spain.  Regrettably, his psychic wounds likely left him with dangerous lessons that he would apply were he elected president. 

The lessons:

1) McCain thinks Vietnam was winnable. A near consensus of scholars and historians disagree.

2) War opponents are unamerican; potential terrorists; and to be considered the enemy.

That is why Bill Ayers casts such a large shadow over McCain. He remains a very current enemy to John McCain.  To John McCain Barack Obama= Bill Ayers. 

To understand this consider that the real cause of Mccain’s wounds over Vietnam involve his relationship with his dad. His father, who was commander of the pacific forces during Vietnam, ordered the bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia and was widely discredited for his actions and held as one person responsible for “losing Vietnam.”   McCain never forgets what war opponents (Ayers included) did to his dad.  In his mind they ruined him.

Does this oedipal story sound familiar?  Dubya & Papa 41?  The Ayers saga reminds us that if John McCain is elected president, the presidency once again could become a therapist couch used to work out unresolved feeling about how the country mistreated John McCain II.

Oy

So, Bill Ayers offers a lot more than a cheap, unfounded way to attack Barack Obama. I think he helps open the door into some scary secrets of John McCain’s mental torment and anguish. yikes!

Debate Question for Palin

Of the many questions Gwen Ifill could ask Sarah Palin, the one I would like to hear has to do with reconciling her Couric interview response that here is an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution, with her opposition to a woman’s right to choose (Roe v Wade) 1973 and a couple’s right to contraceptives (Griswald v Connecticut, 1965, which recognized a penumbra right to privacy protecting Planned Parenthood in giving info about contraception to married couples).

This is what she said during the interview:

Couric: Do you think there is an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah. I do

It would be a novel constitutional move indeed, to defend supporting an inherent right to privacy that resulted from Griswald and Roe, without supporting these two cases, and actively opposing the myriad of public policies spawned since 1965 and 1973 respectively.

The obvious answer is she cannot defend her statement, which leads to plenty other questions.

Gwen Ifill vs Sarah Palin

I think the real person on the hotseat this evening is going to be Gwen Ifill, steady and able PBS broadcaster, who has been roughed up by the McCain campaign during the past several days. In fact they have gone after Ifill more than they have gone after Biden, her opponent.

If it is true, as I believe it is, that the rules and reffing (enforcement of the rules) of a contest can and often do determine the winner, then all eyes should be on Ifill.   As moderator, she is the procedure-person in chief.  In addition to the strain of a broken ankle, she will walk into the hall with Paliniacs saying she has secretly written a book favorable about obama. Well she didn’t the book wil be published this january but there is no secret. It was announced and Ifill talked about it in July and August. As we learned in the Palin-Couric interviews, the problem here is that Paliniacs don;t read or watch the news all that much.

Assuming Ifill has let all this run off her like water off a duck’s back, then the key will be in the follo-up questions, or whether Biden has the opportunity or takes it, to challenge her on the snappy bromides she is sure to offer. The tapes from Alaska 06 show that Palin could be quite formidible in this seting. She has camera experience as a sportscaster, and knows ow to “seduce” an audience. This is the Palin that Shoeneman and Schmidt have been recreating the last two days; the former beauty pageant winner who, as SNL’s Couric suggests, gets more “adorable” with every cornering question. 

Hopefully Ifill will not tolerate such nonsense. It’s not Palin’s politics that should piss her off; rather its the sophmoric cutsy/dumb stuff that hopefully will claw at her broken ankle and force her to blow Palin’s seductions off like McCain did to Obama last night when Obama went over to shake his hand.

A Leader You Can Count On?

John McCain is in charge of what exactly? Not the Republican National Committee. Not Republicans in the House of Representatives, Not Republicans in Arizona.  Not right wing commentators and journalists. Not even of his own campaign. Never has there been such fractured leadership in a Republican Party on the eve of an election.  McCain himself has taken credit for the bailout, although it failed, and he failed to bring along his own state delegation in the House vote yesterday. They voted against the bailout.

As my two year old says, “scared.”  That’s how republicans ought to feel this week, with 35 days to go, losing by about 5% in the tracking polls, that is, unless they have already thrown in the towel this election year and are now looking forwarding to rebuilding during the next 4-8 years. 

Ask David Frum and George Will who are saying publicly that the repub ticket is unfit for office. They seem to be saying they wish the election were over already, so they could begin again. Look at it this way. Given the trainwreck that is McCain-Palin,  Frum and Will seem flat out embarassed by the sort of leadership being offered by the two heads of their Party.  

In addition to leading a failure of a campaign, Mccain-Palin also highlight the death of an ideology, which presents is greater challenge to the likes of Frum, Will, Brooks, and others, than merely casting about post election for a better candidate and campaign organization.  The credit crisis is providing more evidence than a rational voter ever needs that the republican party’s anachronistic deregulatory neo-liberalism is flat out responsible for the mess we are in.

Regardless,

McCain may not be the leader you can count on,  but he is the man who is likely to seal the demise of the Reagan Revolution. Not a bad tribute to his mentor in chief?

Suspend Campaign? Postpone Debate? Dog Eats McCain’s Homework

John McCain has not suspended his campaign despite what his campaign says. It’s another ridiculous ploy that makes little sense.  As for his noncampaign, he will be interviewed by the 3 major networks this evening. As for the non-campaign, his campaign headquarters around the country report no cessation of activity. As for for speechifying, McCain made several partisan jabs while at the Clinton summit today.

So, it stretches the imagination to see how McCain has suspended his campaign. 

Postpone the debate? why? It boggles the mind to accept the McCain bromide of country first (which is a political slogan) over a political debate that would explain to the public what he would do as president to lead the country out of the current economic tumult.  Since McCain will probably spend the time tomorrow night giving interviews, or napping, I do not understand what patriotic act he will participate in that is more important than democratic discourse and political debate on highly complicated economic issues.

Aha, That’s the key.

McCain is chicken shit, or some such equivalent. He never even read the 3 page Paulson plan before suspending his campaign and calling Obama to postpone the debate, and on the bigger plane, he knows he cannot respond coherently to questions about a 26 year career of pro market deregulation and his overnight calls for regulation, bailouts and oversight.  He knows that even tho the theme tomorrow night is foreign policy that the meltdown will indeed be the agenda. And he cannot speak to it.

McCain is doing the equivalent of faking an illness so as to be excused from the exam that his staff fears will cement the demise of his presidential ambitions.   When my students’ “dog eats their homework,” they get an “F.” In a democracy the equivalent is the candidate loses my vote.

McCain should lose yours.

McCain was 4 Reagan B4 he was Against Him

The McCain campaign is flailing. It is because he is running as the pro-new deal ronald reagan of the 1940s AND the “government is evil” reagan of 1980 and 84.  

Makes no sense. And this is the problem for McCain.  The rationale for his campaign no longer makes sense. A deregulator decrying the absence of regulation and beseeching andrew cuomo to come save the SEC. huh?  

What possible rationale encompasses a career of procapitalist deregulation including of the banking investment houses and regulation? the only one is that of the amoral, survivalist mea culpa McCain. Remember the McCain mea culpa after he was busted partying with the Keating Five.  And following that “forgive me lord for i have sinned” jimmy swaggart moment,  McCain he went on to surround himself with the same deregulatory lobbyists he had just begged forgiveness for being in bed with.

More the same McCain.

Quite recently McSame said he wanted to open up and deregulate/privatize social security and the health care industry and model them on the successes of the post 1999 deregulated banking industry.

Yesterday on 60 minutes he said degregulation in 1999 was good for the economy

Only three weeks ago, mitt wendell romney spoke before the RNC promising that McCain would take a weed wacker to government regulation.  Now the candidate has put himself under his own wacker.  

John McCain is now wacking himself.  Ugly image indeed.

Whiners and the Banking Crisis: Bad Day for McCain

Another bad day for McCain.

Could it be the walls are closing in just a little bit more on John McCain?  The polls hint at it. The national polls show Obama once again barely taking a lead while the state polls lag a little.

First, the ready-to-be-commander-in-chief-on-day-one guy doesn’t know who the prime minister of spain is. Bad enough, but McCain hears the name Zapatero and thinks Emiliano Zapata, or else he imagines it’s some left wing latin american dictator and we are still in the 80s or something.  Anyway, he says he is not sure this Zapatero fella would be welcome in a McCain White House.

Next, is a video interview floating around the web with McCain being asked questions about the economy and looking scared and dumbfounded before pleading near absolute ignorance on the issues.  All the more reason to fear a McCain presidency during economic crises, and all the more reason to talk more about Phil Gramm, the guy lurking behind the candidate and likely his most trusted economic advisor and future secretary of treasury.

The key here is that Gramm is the one person, if ever there could be just one, who is responsible for this week’s banking crisis.  It was Gramm’s bill in 1999 that repealed the depression era banking regulation law that would have prevented this collapse.  Gramm wanted and got deregulation, deregulation and more deregulation and along with that, more mergers among the nation’s top investment houses.

anyone who didn’t like this was a whiner. 

Interesting point here is that the “whiner” narrative is tied to 1990s tort reform which prevented mainstream americans from filing grievances against banks and investment houses that lost their life savings.  McCain/Gramm thinking: regulation is bad and  lawyers who defend people screwed by the deregulated market are bad.

BTW, lawyers are good when they defend right wing neoliberal/ deregulator coups against democratic governance (such as elections in 2000 and sunshine laws in Alaska right now).

Bottom Line: McCain wants the rich and wealthy to have complete access to courts to defend their dishonest holds on power while denying ordinary americans a chance to recoup losses caused by the actions of McCain crony Gramm.  

Gramm’s nation of whiners today were the anti tort reformers of the 90’s, the same folks who will be denied their day in court when they endeavor to recover losses caused by the evil doing of the McCain economic team.

All this goes to make John McCain Wednesday a bad day for John McCain.

Palin’s Responses to Charlie Gibson Reveal all-nighter’s struggle to pass final exam

So now it is no longer a matters for guessing.  Here’s the text of Charlie Gibson Interview.  It is clear Sarah Palin knows very little about policy.  She doesn’t understand NATO, cannot give any special insight that her proximity to russia gives her on the topic.  She has no understanding of cold war conceptions of international law. Nor does she know what national sovereignty is. She has no sense of the irony of her Russia-georgia responses in light of her US-Iran responses.   Further, she never heard of the Bush Doctrine and probably doesn’t know what the word pre-emption means.  She certainly didn’t understand Charlie Gibson’s question.  

And what she does know in frightening. Perhaps she sees going to war with Russia as “God’s will.” and given her inability to grasp the nuances with Russia-Georgia, she seems to stand ready to start a war with Russia should Russia make moves on Georgia or Ukraine. 

Finally, she couldnt quite recall the Abraham Lincoln quote that McCain handlers obviously instructed her to use to rationalize her “war is God’s will” quote.  Her blind faith version of american democracy takes its cue from her religious values but none from the Constitution.  

You know, Max Weber interpreted this sort of approach to policy and law as primitive and irrational.  

Simply unfathonable for leadership in an advanced post industrial capitalist nation. But then again, many said the same thing about Bush.

I find the combination of her self confidence and hubris along side her beginners grasp of facts and zealous approach to foreign policy to be pretty horrendous and scary, especially since the opinion polls show a dead heat.

Sarah Palin, email and Alaskan Sunshine

Sarah Palin is refusing to release more than 1,000 emails that might expose illegal shenanigans in Alaska and is claiming executive privilege and  ”deliberative process” privilege.  Alaska has such a privilege in the books but the emails Palin is trying to hide are not covered by the state’s executive privilege laws. (See David Corn\’s MJ blog

To be covered, the emails would have to be 1) policy oriented and not political oriented, and 2) they would have had to be concealed from members of the general public. If already released to the general public there is no basis for a confidentiality claim. Keep in mind one citizen = any other citizen under this provision of the law.

as for point 1. The email headings point to political rather than policy concerns. They deal with individuals in the republican party, the former alaskan governor, and individuals connected with trooper-gate. Unless these headings are intentionally misleading (and there is no reason for this), they are not policy oriented and thus there is no basis for executive privilege.

2) Executive privilege may cover confidential policy matters. let’s see if they are confidential. To be confidential they cannot be shared with citizens who hold no government office. Todd Palin, who holds no official office, was cc’d on these emails. If the first dude can see the emails so can joe and suzy public. they are not confidential. Executive privilege does not protect non-confidential emails.

so what’s up here:

1) Palin is abusing the powers of her office to cover-up embarassing or downright illegal activity.

The alternative is that palin is using the “trooper-gate” scandal to make a philosophical point about executive power. Although this would show some deep thinking on her part, it is even scarier that covering up scandal because were she elected veep and became president, this approach to executive power would echo John Yoo’s and david addington’s unitary executive power theory, which is an anathama to the constitution.

the Lesson:   Lipstick on a pig!

Note to Campaigns: Can’t Compare Palin to Barack on Knowledge

I think that Sarah Palin is woefully inexperienced to be vice president or president. But as Jonathan Alter pointed out yesterday on NPR, that’s not good enough.  The experience card is also being used against Obama, less effectively I think, but the Repubs are still trying to legitimize Palin’s lack of experience by comparing it with Obama’s brief tenure in the senate and then dismissing his community organizer experience.  It’s bull, but in the days of the 30 second spot, it still kind of maneuvers Palin onto the Obama playing field. 

The better line of attack here against Palin, and there are plenty others, has to do with “knowledge base.”  This concept often accompanies experience, but need not. Here, there is no earthly comparison between Barack and Palin.  Even Bill O’Reilly marvels at Obama’s knowledge. Can’t say that about poor Sarah, as she showed everyone yesterday by erroneously suggesting the taxpayers have been bearing the burden of the freddy and fannie mortgage crisis. (Shouldn’t governors know this sort of stuff?)

Further, experience argument would have dismissed Lincoln and Kennedy as too green to be president. Not so when you assess them thru the lens of knowledge-base, and on this score, Barack holds his own against anyone, including these historical legends (and Palin doesn’t bear mentioning)