Robo Calls

COLIN POWELL: And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate.

Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that’s good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It’s not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration. I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is?

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn’t have a Christian cross. It didn’t have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.”

I have to say, Powell did a fine job expressing himself. The inevitable cries of “Only Because He’s Black” came from the rushists of the world on que. People making that accusation missed the part of the story where Powell gave money to McCain back in his pre-racist, rational days on late 2007, when he was an American hero. Now he’s just another racist shill, according the right wing media elite.

And McCain’s Response….”I don’t care about Ayers, let’s talk about Ayers!”, “The attacks on me in 2000 by the same people I hired in 2008 are totally different that what I defend now.” “I’m a victim of racism.”

I think the most hypocritical statement of McCain’s (of many) is how personally insulted he is being associated with people that would bomb innocent people. He’s probably worried since racists bombed and killed an infinite number more people in the incident mentioned [4] than the Weather Underground ever did in their reign of terror [0].

Many people, McCain/Palin foremost amoung them, seem to forget that the Weather Underground was a bunch of pansy liberals who warned people before they blew stuff up and schemed endlessly to avoid civilian casualties. Actually, considering how “effective” McCain’s terrorist attacks have been on Obama, my guess is that most people realize this (or how long ago it was and how remote the “connection” is), and consider it a non-issue.

Like Powell did.

It looks like the latest strategery has been set in place for the McCain / Palin Campaig final two-week sprint.

From the looks of things, it’s a steady diet of the same: Smear, Lie, and Obfuscate. From an objective viewpoint, it seems like they are sticking with the same general plan I mentioned before and running against one another.

Several top Republicans, including Senators Susan Collins and Norm Coleman, have condemned the tactic. Asked about those criticisms, Palin at first dismissed the matter as “inside baseball stuff” and said it’s “some of the campaign top brass’s call on that.”

But when asked if she would approve the use of robocalls if she were running the campaign, Palin said she’d probably chart a different course.

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Ultimately, the Alaska governor said she was not calling for an end to the automated calls, and she did not say if she had spoken to campaign officials at any point about the calls.

[full article]

Nice, huh? First she says they suck, then she says she wouldn’t use them, then she says that she hasn’t done anything to stop them. Guess what I cut out…the part where she blames them on Obama.

“[The American People] get a bit irritated with just being inundated,” she continued, “and you’re seeing a lot of that of course with the huge amounts of money that Barack Obama is able to spend on his ads and his robocalls also.”

I haven’t seen anything about Obama robocalls from anyone except Free Republic (which I feel dirty linking to…but is the only thing I’ve found online that makes the accusation). The rest of the google turns up empty. At least now we know what Internet sites Sarah Palin reads.

Go and check out Free Republic some time. I dare you to read a whole thread on Obama or the Democrats, which is to say in Freeperville, PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL.

I wonder if anyone will follow up Palin’s hollow accusation regarding the robo-calls? I know the media *refuses* to follow up the allegation that Obama is a terrorist Muslim (and by “follow-up”, I’m using the Right-Wingian definition which translates to “Pass along rumors without research” in English), but maybe they could call St. Sarah out for this bold…assertion…based on what, exactly? Hmmm?

And yes, it does get better and more hypocritical. Are you ready for another round of Republican Scarewords: The Home Game!. That’s right, it time for another All-American episde SCAREWORDS!!

The scareword for the day is SOCIALIST!!!!!

Palin was also asked if she and McCain believe that Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would raise taxes on Americans making over $250,000 and provide tax credits to middle and lower-income workers, is SOCIALIST. At a campaign rally in New Mexico earlier Sunday, Palin said Obama wants to “experiment with SOCIALISM.”

“There are SOCIALIST principles to that, yes,” Palin said of Obama’s plan. “Taking more from a small business or small business owners or from a hard working family and then redistributing that money according to a politician’s priorities. There are hints of SOCIALSIM in there.”

Before we continue… a poll….

The questions for Sarah continued….And, BTW, this all happened when she tried to answer questions directly from the press. It’s why she contradicts herself from moment to moment. Asking questions like this are what journalists are supposed to do. It helps to find out if the hamsters upstairs are working, or just reading cue cards.

Asked if she thinks the government’s plan to inject billions of taxpayer dollars directly into troubled banks amounts to socialism — a belief held by many conservative legislators, talk radio hosts and bloggers — Palin said, “No, I do not.”

“I believe that there are those measures that had to be taken by congress to shore up not only the housing market but the credit markets also, to make sure that that’s not frozen, so that our small businesses have opportunities to borrow, and that was the purpose, of course, and that part of the bailout and the shoring of the banks,” she said.

To this anyone should scratch their heard. If you just reverse a couple of paragraphs, she’s saying the same thing backwards.

“I believe that there are those measures that had to be taken by congress to shore up not only the housing market but the credit markets also, to make sure that that’s not frozen, so that our small businesses have opportunities to borrow, and that was the purpose, of course, and that part of the bailout and the shoring of the banks,” she said.

“There are socialist principles to that, yes,” Palin said of [The Government’s] plan. “Taking more from a small business or small business owners or from a hard working family and then redistributing that money according to a politician’s priorities. There are hints of socialism in there.”

UPDATE: The previous bouts of hypocrisy and SCAREWORDS!! came from Colorado. The game continues from New Mexico. The game has evolved. Palin is now going after all three men in the campaign.

“Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic,” Palin said. “But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think it sounds more like SOCIALISM.

“Friends, now is no time to experiment with SOCIALISM,” she told the cheering crowd.

[full article]

She then continued her attacks on the Senator from Arizona that voted for the SOCIALIST bailout plan.

“Our opponents keep saying, ‘No, no, no,’ to sound and responsible energy solutions,” she said.

Yes, I know (and fact-checked) McCain’s record of voting against alternative energy consistently….

Obama said that McCain had voted 23 times against alternative energy:

Obama: Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel.

Here’s the Obama campaign’s list of the 23 votes. We find they’re overstating the case. In many instances, McCain voted not against alternative energy but against mandatory use of alternative energy, or he voted in favor of allowing exemptions from these mandates. Only 11 of the 23 votes cited by the Obama campaign involve reducing or eliminating incentives for renewable energy.

Meanwhile, McCain was indignant at the suggestion that he’d voted against alternative energy at all.

McCain: I have voted for alternate fuel all of my time. … No one can be opposed to alternate energy.

But McCain’s record says differently. As we say above, he has voted against funding for alternative energy on 11 occasions. He may be in favor of alternative energy in theory, but he has declined opportunities to support it.

…so that was a pretty solid shot by Palin there. Considering her own energy expertise is along the feeble lines of “Pray, Baby, Pray” (since we all know that drilling won’t even begin to solve a hundredth of the problem for 20 years), it’s kind of surprising that she would go after McCain on this topic.

I wonder how McCain will respond?