Thursday, October 30, 2008

The ADD Campaign

[Disclaimer: When I mention Attention Deficit Disorder, I know of whence I speak!]

We are witnessing the ADD presidential campaign, or perhaps at least the Slogan Deficit Disorder camp. The old joke about "How many kids with ADD does it take to change a light bulb?" and the answer, "Let's ride bikes!" certainly applies to this pathetic excuse of an organization.

More than a century and a half ago, an Illinois politician described a flailing president as being "in no wise, satisfied with his own positions. First he takes up one, and in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another, and goes through the same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond it's power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature, on a burning surface, finding no position, on which it can settle down, and be at ease." That is indeed the McCain campaign.

He has never enunciated any positive vision for America, or made a case as to why we should trust him to lead. Despite his pledges to the contrary, he has been nothing but negative, but he has shifted the targets of his bile as often as Lincoln's "tortured creature on a burning surface."

Let me back up a minute though. It took the candidate quite a while to gin up the slime. For weeks after all but clinching the GOP nomination, McCain disappeared from the landscape. No organization, no boots on the ground, no message. He resurfaces, and his tepid campaign stresses "experience." Then, after making perhaps the most disastrous and ridiculous vice-presidential choice in recent history, he effectively tossed away the "experience" argument, because no one could credibly argue that point when sharing a ticket with such an incompetent dullard.

OK, scrambling, scrambling, where do we go now. Let's try...Rev. Wright! The man goes to..church! Oh wait.

How about AYERS! Look, terrorist, see? Terrorist! Obama knows a ... guy! Oh wait.

That didn't stick, let's ride bikes! Where does the tortured creature land next? ACORN! VOTER FRAUD!

Of course, no one with a functioning cortex believes the "voter fraud" nonsense. Even if desperate poor people falsified forms to meet quotas to keep a minimum wage job, NONE of those people will ACTUALLY VOTE. ACORN! ACORN! Oh wait, that's not working, so where now, where now...

TAXES! Obama will TAX you! He'll take the bread from your children's mouths. Oh damn, facts, that won't work. Now where?

Hey look, Joe the Plumber! Socialism! Joe the Plumber! Socialism! Wait, you mean he's not a plumber? He's just a douchebag Republican plant? Really? And progressive income tax isn't socialist? Damn, now where do I go?

Cue Caribou Barbie. Let's see, what can I attack? We're out of stuff, let's circle back to...he knows a GUY! (Note from post below. If you depend on the support of yahoos, DO NOT put the yahoos on TV!)

The guy? Rashid Khalidi, an outstanding scholar who (gasp!) disagrees with U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian question. Oh the humanity! And what is really shocking is that...they both TAUGHT together at one of America's greatest universities and (horrors) Obama went to a GOING AWAY PARTY when that evil person went to teach at ANOTHER of America's great universities.

Let's ride bikes.

2 comments:

Carlos said...

Great post Peter.

We all know what their strategy is: lie, lie, lie, spread fear and innuendo, balkanize the electorate, then put on a full-court voter suppression effort.

Obama himself has cautioned, time and again, that those who hold on to the levers of power will not give them up willingly or easily. There's still the final act to play out on Nov. 4.

I'm not relaxing until the final vote is cast and the results are in.

schmidlap said...

Outstanding essay, my friend.