News-Record.com

There's nothing unusual about this campaign. Both candidates have done what candidates have always done: pointed to negatives said to indicate why the public shouldn't vote for their opponent. And then they whine that the other is attacking their "character."

If you had hopes that this campaign would be about issues . . . well, there you go again with your irrational optimism.

The public could care less about issues. One voter in ten has a decent enough grasp of policy to cast an educated vote.* Politics today is mostly identity politics, and candidates are shrewd enough to recognize this and cast the contest in terms of character: messiah vs. maverick, in this case (or anti-Christ and warmongering Bushclone, if you flip it).

In short, we're not a better country than this. Just as the spend-now, pay later government is a reflection of the spend-now, pay later populace, the identitarian trend of modern politics simply gives people what they want.

*One voter in ten registered by ACORN is a living human being.

Let's say for instance that McCain had begun his political career in the home of a Eric Ruldoph, or Timothy McVeigh, served on boards with them, funneled millions dollars to them to radicalize school children, and when asked about the relationship replied that they were guys from the neighborhood that I barely knew. Then McCain said that his was all a "distraction." I guess you guys would accept his answer and move on!

What if he had spent 20 years in a church whose preacher was a white supremacist, an anti-Semite, let the American Nazi Party post on their website, said that all of our once great cities have been destroyed by black crime, illegitimacy, drugs, and lack of education, then when asked about his preacher, and mentor, said he never heard his preacher say any of those things. After repeating his outbursts at the National Press Club McCain finally left the church. I'm sure your friends in the liberal media would just let it drop! You sent hordes of reporters, lawyers, and other sycophants to Alaska in an attempt to find anything damaging to Governor Palin, while completely refusing to get straight answers from Obama concerning his relationships with Wright, Ayers, Alinsky, Rezko, Fannie Mae, ACORN, the American Socialist Party, and who knows who else.

But you scumbags try to make a huge deal out of Palin's "abuse of power" in the trooper fiasco. Even when the phony report states clearly that what she did was lawful, you media vultures try to make it something that it is not. Nohwere in any of your articles did you happen to mention that the trooper involved tasered her 10 year old nephew (you guys get crazy when police taser criminals), threatened the life of her father, and had open alcohol containers in his patrol car. Good Lord, why would anyone think that someone like that might have the temperament to be a police officer.

It has to be the mental defect that is liberalism. What other explanation could there be?

You take a lot of space talking about how ugly the McCain campaign has turned because a few people in his audience, who have nothing to do with his campaign, show justifiable anger.

Yet you say nothing about the outrageous, despicable comments by a prominent Obama supporter, and prominent member of congress, or a least the negro part of congress, John Lewis. Only an abject race baiting fool would compare the McCain campaign to George Wallace, (a Demo-Rat).

Lewis is the same idiot who told us a few years back that sharks are still swarming the old slave ship routes where NINE MILLION slave were thrown overboard. I guess that would be like Exxon tossing millions of barrels of oil in the ocean, not a brilliant business strategy! These are the kinds of fools we get when we are forced to pay reparations for slavery even though msot of us whose ancestors were not even here yet, and didn't arrive for another 50-100 years. This guy makes Cynthia McKinney, and Maxine Waters look intelligent!

Rage, Palin does x rated films? That show how low a liberal paper will go to. Now whose website did I see that on? Then the liberal wacko that posted it tried to BS us on, the fact that FOX showed it. Yes they did, however they were showing how low the left wing media will go to . Looks like if this liberal wacko had wanted to post something, it would have been, that Acorn register a 14 year old in NC. A honest media, would have fire this guy in a heartbeat! Brian you are wasting your breath, just saw on tv , that Acorn registered 30,000 illegals in Florida. They must be trying to catch up with NC. Now what paper was against voter ID cards? Same one that thinks we owe illegals a college eduction! For course I hate blacks, Alcee Hasting said that if you owned guns, you hated blacks. Do not recall reading that in your paper, Mr. Johnson, of course in 50 years of buying your paper, I have never read anything bad, about a democrat.

http://michellemalkin.com/

Visit this link only if you have a strong stomach and a need to see the truth regardless of your political bent.

NSFW

McCain was right to calm the meanness that he sensed in the Minnesota crowd.
As for Lewis, he probably went too far with the Wallace reference, but he wasn't wrong about the disconcerting tone the McCain campaign has taken and the disturbing chants it sometimes elicits from angry crowds.
As your use of the word "Negro," Tony, it brought back memories of the 1960s for me.
Thanks for the nostalgic touch.

Doug wrote: "Mr. Johnson, of course in 50 years of buying your paper, I have never read anything bad, about a democrat."
Doug, you must not have been paying attention.
We were among the first paper to call for the resignation of Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, a Democrat.
We were among the first to call Democrat John Edwards on the carpet for being untruthful about his extramarital affair.
We also called for the resignation of Thomas Wright, and Jim Black, both Democrats.
We took Democrat Alma Adams to task about the Legislative Black Caucus Foundation's scholarship fund.
What newspaper have you been reading?

Allen, ah, I know it's not characteristic of you to dodge tough questions, but you kind of ducked Tonymo's hypothetical above about what if McVeigh or Rudolph had a fund raising Koffee-Klatch for McCain etc. See, avoiding answering direct tough questions just invites people to get frustrated and mad at you. You are supposed to be a journalist and somewhat objective. This has been a repeated frustration with many in engaging both yourself and JR. I think it's why nobody much is even bothering anymore.

Do you think it's unreasonable to have an expectation that you will answer people who are bearing you the courtesy of visiting your blog?

Savage:
I never said these questions didn't deserve answers, but that's not the point.
The point is that the tone of the campaign rhetoric is mean and incendiary. And that crowds have been whipped to the brink of hostility.

Allen, I would posit that much of this hostility arises from inability or reluctance to answer questions calmly and objectively out of fear that they will empower somebody they don't want to empower.

For instance, you probably would never say on the blog in reference to the above "Of, course I have concerns about OBama's ties to radical or ex-radical bomber guys " even though behind clothes doors, you have to. In fact, you would have to be crazy not to, even though you yourself were a student activist. You wouldn't say it because you would be perceived as being weak and namby pamby.

There are plenty of concerns about both these candidates and that's why this is getting bloody, Because people are having to use their fantasy worlds and defend their ideal of what their candidates should be and the stark reality that there may be a discrepancy between the reality and the fantasy. This situation always leads to hostility and disillusionment.

Allen, once again, with your non-response, thank you for proving a point.

I would only ask that you refrain from disingenuosly implying hostility on behalf of the people who post here. Passive agression, in the form of your perpetual non-responses, is generally perceived by others as hostile, so I'd take a good look in the mirror first.

I'll defend Allen on two counts: first, as an editorial writer, he's under no obligation to be objective. And he's not: he's straightforwardly center-left, from which vantage Obama's crowds look "enthusiastic," while McCain's look "hostile." From where I stand, Obama's crowds look as kookily frenzied as the inmates of Cameron Indoor Stadium.

One of the premises of the center-left is that only rightwing radicals are truly bad. Those on the left may go a bit far in their bombings and such, but not so far that they're beyond the pale. Call it trickle-down Che chic. Stalin may have killed millions, but his heart was in the right place. Not so for Hitler. And if, like Ayers, you're incompetent enough to blow up only your own, then you're almost effortlessly rehabilitated as a civil rights activist--a guy in the neighborhood. Sure, it's illogical, but you know how liberals are.

(Slightly tangential point: Obama's true crime here is not that he associated with a former Weatherman, but that he associated with a "progressive educational reformer." I'm willing to believe that the former, but not the latter, might repent and make a positive contribution to society.)

Second, I would draw a fairly sharp distinction between John Robinson's positively eel-like rhetorical style and Allen's. More often than not, Allen shoots pretty straight (if inaccurately, given that his vision is occluded by the above-noted cataracts of liberalism).

I been reading yours.Come on give me a break.Your paper has been among the last, to go against any democrat, until it was old news.
I prove it now. The democrats in Raleigh, rip off 748 million dollars, that was to go to our schools. Now please tell me in what edition, the NR has come out against this. Black, the joke about the NR, they confessed up about Black, months after the Tibet bi weekly, announced Black was going to jail. Aron, registering a 14 year old in NC, if the NO has carried this. Has the NR? You may in some small way, report some of the corruption in Raleigh, yet you never condemn it. You were the first to call, John Edwards on the carpet, really? The was old news, by the time you reported it. Mr. Robinson said he would not report it until the NR had the facts! Bye tee time!

What Doug Johnson said!
Allen, I was waiting to see your response on the question Savage posed about McCain, re: Timoth McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. It's a valid comparison and begs an answer.

Jaycee, you must understand that Allen conversing with you is a priviledge and not a right. If your entry is benign enough and does not threaten strongly Allen's delusional system, and for myriad other reasons of no particular rhyme or reason, possibly ranging from if the stars are lined up right to the date of last physical release, he may deign to answer you.

Kindly remember-on this blog, he is God, and you are man. Look at the heading, It's Thinking Out Loud not speaking out loud, thank you very much. If you want to be God ya gotta get your own blog.

You don't have to visit here. In fact,it's quite likely if you are going to ask testy questions God may prefer you head elsewhere.

Most blogs have kind of an implied contract that people running the blog will or make an attempt to answer you , although if you are blatantly psychotic this may be waived. Not so here.

Se La Vie

ATTN: Allen has just informed me through back channels that he prefers being referred to as
JAH-WEH and not God. Don't know if it's a Rasta or a Sammy Davis Jr. type thing. Go...I mean, JAH-WEH knows

Sorry, guys. This may sound like "My dog ate my homework," but I have been overwhelmed by endorsement editorials (nine of them this week) and my Internet is out at home (Time-Warner can't fix it till tomorrow).
But here's my response:
The Ayers question is legitimate and has been addressed many times, including Obama's response last night.
And if McCain had had cocktails with McVeigh or Rudolph or McVeigh, it too would have been fair game for scrutiny.
I personally don't think having rubbed elbows with Ayers makes Obama a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer.
Other voters can decide how they feel at the polls.
I'm guessing they'll view it as a nonissue.

So Allen, say a Klan guy, and not just a wannabe, but a known hardcore, decides he likes my politics and wants to help launch my nascent political carreer. He calls me up and says how about coming to a little soiree at the old house for some coffee and he'll see if he can rustle me up a few bucks. I say sure and attend.

You would come away with no concerns about me?

Oh Allen, how did you get that bush in my backyard to burn?

A current Klan member or one from 40 years ago?

A current Klan member or a person who was one 40 years ago?

A current Klan member or a person who was one 40 years ago?

Either.

Please answer one way or the other. It makes a difference.

Forty years? When did he and Bernie come in from the cold? Early ninties? I'd have to look

Apparently it makes a difference to you. To me?

Actually, I think I could get past the Ayers thing. Like you implied-a fairly long time ago. And if nothing else you would certainly have to admire the guy's passion to have lived that kind of life, then being a fugitive etc. You just don't see that kind of thing now days, although with 40 yrs. of advances in hi-tech surveillence techniques and undercover ops etc. a group like the Weathermen or Symbionese Lib Army probably wouldn't be possible to maintain today,

The Ayers thing only bothers me when factored along with the Jeremiah Wright and the Chicago machine associations.

I can see your point, Savage. But in this campaign both issues are oldies but not so goodies.
I don't think resurrecting them will benefit McCain.

So you're saying we should treat both candidates as if they are spontaneous new beings who have spontaneously materialized out of the ether? Neither marred by the likes of "not so goodies".

Okay. Ah... Allen...pardon me while I skip down the garden path....Fa La-La-La La...Ripidy doo-dah, Zippity- ay.

My, oh my, what a wonderful day.

Nah, I'm just agreeing with conservative guru Bill Kristol, who said the same thing in Monday's column.

Agreeing with Bill Kristol is a good habit to get into. You should do it more often.

I'm with SCS: the disturbing thing is the overall picture of Obama fitting in so well in one of the most corrupt political scenes in the country. Although, on the other hand, that's not entirely a negative. If elected, I suspect he'll be a similar kind of chameleon-like, poll-driven politician--not unlike Clinton. And there's something to be said for that: such politicians find the course of least resistance, usually around the center, and govern accordingly.

McCain, on the other hand, is disturbingly principled--he moralizes everything. For Chrissakes, the man tried to outlaw cage fighting. And "conservatives" who try to prove their morality end up spending a ton of money to do so. (See George W. Bush.)

I don't expect that Kristol and Johnson will become peas in a pod. But once in a while makes excellent points.
Once in a while, I get lucky, too.