“Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.” John 9:32-34
As predicted, we are now into the last desperate weeks of the presidential campaign and the character assassination has begun in earnest.
Governor Palin appears to be settling into her role of attack dog by bringing up Senator Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and to a lesser extent Tony Rezko. In return, the Obama campaign is bringing up Senator McCain’s relationship with Charles Keeting.
I’ve covered Rezko and Keeting in a previous post, so I won’t do that again.
Here’s a little on Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadette Dohrn.
They were political activists in the late sixties and early seventies. He is credited with founding the radical weatherman group. As the organization became more and more violent, they left. Ms. Dohrn was convicted of a felony. Mr. Ayers was acquitted because of evidence of illegal wiretaps. In the thirty years since, according to many in Chicago, they have both led exemplary lives. They have become active in education reform, rights of children, and advocacy for the poor. They no longer advocate violent overthrow of the government.
Many articles point out that Senator Obama’s relationship with Dr. Ayers is casual. As a result of Senator Obama’s commitment to his Southside community, they served on a couple of boards seeking grant funding for Chicago schools. There were many Chicago political figures on those same boards including conservative republicans Dr. Ayers also hosted a small meet and greet at his house in 1995 at the request of Illinois State Senator Alice J. Palmer. She was running for Congress. She introduced a young lawyer to the group whom she had recruited to run for her seat in the Illinois Senate – Barak Obama. Senator Obama and Professor Ayers also happen to live in the same University of Chicago neighborhood.
Senator Obama has publically rejected the past political positions and actions of Dr. Ayers. They don’t correspond. They only see each other occasionally on the street and I’m sure their meetings are cordial.
The sense that we should expect our elected officials to somehow publically and privately shun folks like Dr. Ayers because of things that happened thirty years ago is the hieght of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign. As Senator Obama has pointed out, the McCain campaign is run by folks who not only associated with but were paid by organizations that McCain now condemns (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as the catalyst for the worst financial crisis in recent memory.
What’s really going on here?
Senator McCain is losing the election.
As I pointed out in an earlier post, the this election was going to turn on the fundamental points of both campaigns. The Obama campaign says that McCain represents four more years of the failed Bush policies. The McCain campaign says that you can’t trust Obama.
The bad economic news and his “deer in the headlights” response to the crisis have undermined Senator McCain’s claim to be the steadier hand. It was Senator Obama who quietly worked behind the scenes with administration officials and the black caucus to finally insure the passage of the recovery bill. Senator McCain on the other hand seem to make matters worse by rushing to Washington and then trying to distance himself from actually getting the billed passed.
The debates have also given the voting public an opportunity to see both candidates in action. Most in the media agree that Senator Obama has appeared at least as “presidential” as Senator McCain.
So Senator McCain and Governor Palin are attempting to change the conversation from an issue on which they can’t win to an issue of character assassination. But doesn’t this also go against their “country-first” mantra too? Senator McCain knows that there isn’t any substance to this charge. What he is doing instead is following a scorched-earth policy which will just make it more difficult for either man to govern after the election.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a new tactic.
We can read about it in the Bible too. The Pharisees condemned Jesus because he chose to heal on the Sabbath day. Rather than question their own values, they rejected not only Jesus but those whom he had healed too. They said they were all sinners in league with the devil. Fortunately, then as now, God’s Truth remains the most powerful element in human existence.
Hopefully we will see Truth in action in November too. If the voting public continues to reject the politics of dissension, maybe it will finally have run its course and future elections will benefit from its defeat in this one.
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
Hello. I was reading someone elses blog and saw you on their blogroll. Would you be interested in exchanging blog roll links? If so, feel free to email me.
Thanks.