Saturday, October 18, 2008

Liddy and McCain

In its increasingly desperate attempt to prevent the landslide that is about to come down on their tiny heads, the McCain campaign continues to plume the alleged depths of Barack Obama’s past associations. Although McCain himself and the ridiculous Sarah Palin have dropped the topic from their stump speech (Palin hilariously substituting tributes to whatever "pro-American" part of the country she happens to be visiting), Obama’s mild and long-severed acquaintance with education activist Bill Ayers in Chicago continues to be, as Obama rightly pointed out in his third victorious debate performance, the "centerpiece" of the McCain campaign.

In a suitably ironic use of dark resources, McCain has hired the same firm that the Bushies used to slander him in 2000 to send out millions of robo-calls to voters, warning of the Ayers connection and the unknown dangers thereof. Since recent polls show that such negative messages only injure McCain, it is hard to figure out what they hope to accomplish by this. Besdies, automated phone calls don’t have nearly the impact they did back at the turn of the millennium. People are much more sophisticated about unsolicited phone calls coming in – from just not answering to hanging up the moment they figure out that the conversation is, by nature, one-sided. Heck, I do it with people I'm agreeing with.

But, at least it looks like they're doing something in their lost cause. Perhaps they are trying to take the edge off of the angry mobs who were threatening to grab their torches and pitchforks and take over the campaign just last week. The last time that happened, local radio clown J.T. Harris shamefully "begged" McCain to take it to his African-American brother, and thus began his mercifully brief stint as a national laughing stock and local embarrassment. If you haven’t seen the pitiful scene he made on CNN early this week – pulling off his earpiece and lurching off-screen when he was mildly challenged by an actually thoughtful black conservative – you owe it to yourself to watch how lame and vacant Harris really is. Besides, times are tough – you need a good laugh.

The Ayers talking-points have served only to hurt John McCain. The Obama campaign has been very kind by not dragging up much of McCain’s bad buddy choices through the years, all of which were much more intimate, involved and corrupting. His close friendship with S&L criminal Charles Keating – who provided McCain with free airplanes and vacations, not to mention $112,000 in political contributions – is only part of the story. It took David Letterman, of all people, to confront McCain about his continuing relationship with unrepentant Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy.

In many ways, Liddy was worse than any of the Watergate actors – except maybe Richard Nixon himself. It was Liddy that came up with the plot to wire the DNC, as well as other bright ideas such as burglarizing the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist (done) and kidnaping anti-war protesters and shipping them to Mexico (not done – drat! Even Nixon wimped out on some stuff). In other words, Liddy was an unapologetic actor in the biggest threat to our Constitution in our nation’s history.

Since he got released after five years of his twenty year sentence by the too-kind Jimmy Carter, Liddy has been the poster boy for unrepentant thugs, from Ollie North to Karl Rove. After the Branch Dividians set fire to their compound and killed their children at Waco in 1994, the charming Liddy suggested that "if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."

"He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt," said McCain on Letterman, which is only one-fourth true as far as the prison is concerned and not at all true regarding his debt to society. People who subvert the Constitution and try to come up with creative and violent ways to serve a criminal president have a bit more of a "debt" to pay than making things worse by bragging about what he got away with. Liddy was a pioneer in the hyper-macho "I'm glad I broke the law" right-wing punk ethic.

G. Gordon Liddy did far more to threaten the very fabric of our government than Bill Ayers ever did. At least Ayers tried to make amends by becoming a positive person in the Chicago educational community. Libby continues to be proudly criminal and unconstructive, who will continue trading on his idiocy as long as ignorant people buy his books, listen to his quack radio show and enlist his services (for Sarah Palin in Alaska, no less). It reflects on McCain that he continues to associate with such people, but, hey -- he's a Republican. If you run in those circles, punks like Liddy is about what you get.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

And further from the Huffington Post, transcript from November 2007 Liddy Radio show: First off, Liddy greeted him as "an old friend." McCain replied, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family. It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

So, wing nuts, let's play whose association is worse, shall we?

Anonymous said...

Last time I checked, Ayers never served any time in prison for his domestic terrorism. To this observer Ayers hasn't paid ANY debt for what he did.

Liddy is a criminal. He faced trial, accepted his fate for what he did, and served time.

Ayers is also a criminal. Ayers never faced any penalty for what he did, he never apologized, and he never served time. He now resides in the liberal utopia of higher education where his kind of "radicalism" is admired, envied, or completely ignored.

For the same reason I choose not to associate myself in any direct way with someone who is a blatant and unapologetic racist...Obama should have never chosen to be associated with William Ayers. Obama had every opportunity to detach himself from Ayers but he chose not to, he saw the political value in having Ayers near him at the time...only now does Obama see the folly of his ways. Up until now Obama really has never had a true republican opponent in any race, each time he's run against a republican, there has always been some issue/scandal which made his victory practically inevitable. This is the first time he's run against a true republican opponent in a general election and now, finally, the Ayers issue is coming to light where it had no opportunity to do so in the past. And now surrogates like Mike are scrambling to sweep Ayers under the carpet while trying to point, in vain, to people like Keating and Liddy.

Unknown said...

Anony,

You guys made this bed. Enjoy the comfort of wiggling your way under the covers of your candidate's terrorist pals. What does it matter if he served time or not? Liddy is unrepentant and was/is more of a threat to our democracy and way of life than the punk Bill Ayers ever was.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-bernstein/ayers-and-the-mccain-g-go_b_134256.html

krshorewood said...

Don't we in America believe in atonement and second acts?


It would have been nice for Obama if Ayers had renounced his terrorist past. But this guy has had a much more positive impact than Liddy. Ayers of 40 years ago was an object of scorn. That guy is gone, but not to the angry, sullen McCain campaign

Anonymous said...

Since Ayers never did any jail time, setting off a few M-80s 40 years ago must not have been against the law at the time.

Anonymous said...

New U2 lyrics to update song

"Early morning, November 4th a shot rang out in the Chicago sky, the Newspapers shouted Obamas has died!!!!!!!Free at last from the socialist democrat joke, The liberals whined, the liberals cried, the rest of the country cheered! They said he has died, who gives a fuck about his pride, let him have his pride, he has died! Now capitalism has survived, and socilalism has also died. Obamas memory will survive as liberals are afraid to lie, they hold the line, afraid to cross the line, as they fear they may be next!! So this message is clear, for all to hear this socialists time is short, hope someone is out there for me to cheer, I hope someone not me, will take him out!! So this country can stay free.

Those are some great lyrics, LMAO

Bert said...

The previous post has knocked me mostly speechless, but when you point out the damage G. Gordon Liddy inflicted on the fabric of our government, I was going to add that I had the same thoughts about Kissinger as he schooled Sarah Palin a few weeks ago.
I'm not excusing the Weathermen's tactics, but I am lately amazed at the selective outrage partisans are using when it comes to the bad old Nixon days.

Anonymous said...

G. Gordon Liddy did NOTHING wrong, but sadly you morons sheep looking for "hope and Change" will be soon surprised, the old addage "be careful what you wish for, you might get it" may soon happen and the results of an Obama Presidency will be catastrophic, if he isn't assasinated in first 3o days