I fear that McCain will take the same high road approach to politics as Bush did. I have a huge amount of respect for Bush, as any regular reader knows, and believe that he was the right man at the right time to lead this country….and he did it well. Not perfect, but no President has ever been perfect. That goes for Lincoln and Washington also.
But when he took the high road with political appointments, meaning he didn’t can the Clinton appointed ones, he set himself up for the The Shadow Party
Now we have a very honest debate on the decisions and character of a Democrat opponent and McCain is going to take the high road instead of highlighting it:
An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video that raises questions about Barack Obama’s patriotism.
Soren Dayton, who works in McCain’s political department, sent out the YouTube link of “Is Obama Wright?” on twitter at 12:31 today with the tag, “Good video on Obama and Wright.” It has since been taken down.
Twitter is an online device that allows users to send out short messages and links en masse through computers or PDAs.
McCain and his campaign have repeatedly said that they would stay away from personal attacks on Obama, but the temptation has increased as Wright’s words have dominated the race in recent days.
Last week, they included an op-ed that hammered Wright and Obama in their morning clip package emailed to reporters. The same day, a campaign aide they regretted doing so.
Informed that Dayton was circulating the video, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said he had been suspended and “reprimanded by campaign leadership.”
“We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy,” she said.
We will not get this kind of conduct in return folks. The uber left will have their fangs out for McCain for the next 7+ months and no high road will be taken by either Obama or Hillary, so to reprimand a campaign worker for sending out a video (the video is on the front page of Flopping Aces right now), via twitter, that is a honest look at the man Obama calls his mentor and also highlights previous Obama statements on this mentor, is just wrong. It should not be considered an offense worthy of suspension. He didn’t make the video, all he did was tell everyone its an interesting look.
If McCain takes this approach during the general he will get creamed.
On the Wright topic VDH had a good analysis of the problems Obama faces:
Whence Obama’s problems? It is not that he believes in the venom of Rev. Wright, or that when he says something stupid like a “typical white person” he means to imply a stereotyped distasteful race. He doesn’t.
The problem is instead the environment that he heretofore has navigated in — prep school, the Ivy League, the regional identity politics of Chicago, or Illinois liberalism — is hardly representative of his own country. So what he can say among sympathizers and friends will not be excused or contextualized by average others who don’t know him and won’t give him the latitude he is accustomed to and apparently has counted on.
He and Michelle have no doubt rebuked sympathetic elite white audiences, and by both their presence and purse have let it be known that they consider the Rev. Wright’s rhetoric tolerable, but they have no idea that the vast majority of Americans that they heretofore have rarely come into contact with are a far different audience, and find the Obamas both more privileged than themselves and undeserving of any more of a pass than any others.
When he praises Rev. Wright he sounds like he is from Mars — but hasn’t a clue that he does. And so like a deer in the headlights Obama keeps waiting for a black precinct captain or a Columbia professor to come to the rescue and explain — ever more clueless that even if they did, it wouldn’t matter a bit.
The typical white person comment that VDH is referring to in the first paragraph is from a interview Obama did today in which he describes his grandmother as the “typical white person.” (h/t Powerline)
Just imagine for a moment John McCain referring to a black person in the same way.
He would be done….toast…..Kaput.
Will he get the same treatment or will people just shrug their shoulders and say…”well, he’s half black, so he gets a pass?”
Meanwhile David Freddoso comments on the video the aide sent out:
The real issue is not Wright, but Obama’s weasel-like behavior concerning what he supposedly knew and did not know about his church and his spiritual mentor. Confronted with the controversy, he’s tried to have it both ways. He’s heard “controversial” things in church, but not those controversial things. Perhaps he slept through a few sermons, skipped church here or there…
He’s acting like…well, like a typical politician. Like someone who would send his economic advisor to reassure Canadian officials that all his protectionist rhetoric is just a ruse to fool voters in Ohio. Like someone who would (with permission, of course) lift a few lines from a friend’s speech and present them as his own.
Despite the awful music and poor editorial choices (I get the point that Wright is a racist demagogue without having to be reminded of Public Enemy’s music (thanks to a reader for correcting me here) or the infamous 1968 Olympic incident), the video at least captures Obama’s evasions and juxtaposes them with Wright’s fiery antipathy toward America.
When it comes down to it, this controversy has taught us all that Obama is nothing but a typical politician. Now that wouldn’t be so bad if he had presented himself this way for the last few years, but instead we have gotten the message that he is a “new” kind of politician who hasn’t been indoctrinated into the old world, that he is the candidate of “change”….
And nothing could be further from the truth.
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