...or is John McCain cowardly enough to trot out miss cutsey-pants to fight his dirty battles?

So much for the big, brave war hero. So much for the "campaign on the issues". So much for honor, honesty and values. John McCain has shown himself for what he is: a grasping, demagogue who intends to use any lie, half truth or insinuation to obscure the fact that he is wholly unqualified to hold any public office. John McCain, you should be ashamed!


Why all this vitriol? I'm glad you asked. On Saturday at a political rally in Nebraska, Sarah Palin stated that Barak Obama "likes to pal around with terrorists who target their own country". Nice! For those of you for whom this is news, the reference is to Bill Ayers, former radical antiwar activist. Not the War in Iraq, mind you, but the Vietnam War. That's almost forty years ago. Ayers is currently a professor at the University of Chicago. Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn did some bad stuff in the early 1970's including triggering a bomb in the Pentagon and New York City Police Headquarters. They are unrepentant to this day.

The Ayers-Obama connection stems from their work in Chicago on such diabolical projects as anti-poverty programs and education reform. At no time did Obama participate in the bombing of any Chicago public school. Any attempt to smear Barak Obama as a "pal of terrorists" because of his association with Bill Ayers is a low blow worthy of Karl Rove. You can however, understand how desperate McCain is to find any life raft available to rescue his sinking campaign. Short of nominating Hanna Montana as the future Secretary of State, he's run out of cute, clueless women. He has no answers and he's having trouble remembering the questions. Maybe he can learn to wink.

McCain should be extra careful regarding slinging stones considering the glass structure in which he resides. Someone interested in dredging up old indiscretions might travel back to 1985 and stumble over a man named Charles Keating. You can read the details on Wikipedia but the short version is that Mr. Keating spent a lot of time and a lot of money attempting to get bank regulators to ignore the shady dealings going on at his bank, Lincoln Savings. His favorite method of pressure application was buying Senators. One senator from Arizona, whose initials are John McCain, received $112,000 in contributions from Keating and his gang. McCain and his family were also Keating's guests on nine vacations, several to the Bahama resort of Cat Cay. After a thorough investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, McCain was exonerated although the committee scolded him for poor judgement. Keating received a ten year prison sentence for fraud after his bank collapsed.

What we can take away from these closeted skeletons is the following:

Ayers was never tried or convicted of anything.
Keating got ten years.

Obama was eight when Ayers was bombing buildings.
McCain was right in the middle of Keatings' illegal business.

Ayers has devoted his life to education and helping poor people.
Keating devoted his remaining years to making license plates and appealing his convictions.

Obama's interaction with Ayers was casual and amounts to guilt by association.
McCain, by his own admission, acted improperly. (Yeah, graft and influence-peddling is "improper").

As icing on the cake, McCain's interaction with Charles Keating was a key component to the savings and loan scandal of the early 90's. It was McCain's love of deregulation (coupled with a love of umbrella drinks) that helped trigger the failure of S&L's all over America. You can therefore imagine how McCain, the born-again regulator, wants to explain how he was at the center of not one but two of the worst financial crises to strike America since the Great Depression. It's enough to curdle your pina colada.



The McCain campaign is swirling down the porcelain at an alarming rate. He's in danger of losing states where Obama is practically a write-in. The last time Nebraska abandoned the Republicns there was a Whig on the ticket. McCain's "the surge worked" isn't getting anyone their house back. Sarah Palin's cutsiness isn't putting Americans to work or protecting their 401k's. The Republicans have nothing and they know it. Why else attack with such tenuous associations as Bill Ayers?



Listen to that sound, John. It's six o'clock and their playing taps. It's over.