Spin Wars

The Christian Science Monitor published a little piece poo-pooing voter fraud today (click the title link to see the original). It occurred to me while reading it that one of the problems Republicans are facing in fighting for an election win (being vastly overspent), is our tendency to talk just 'amongst ourselves.' It's certainly comforting to speak with like-minded folk, and is one of the reasons I come back from phone-banking every week feeling charged up. But, self-congratulatory back-slapping won't help get John McCain elected President, and I very badly want him win this election. In fact, I've wanted him to be President ever since watching the way he handled the Keating five scandal with dignity, honesty, humility and leadership.

So, what should we do? Take the fight to them. We should all be reading opinion pieces and articles we don't agree with, and commenting on each and every one of them with well-written, well-reasoned arguments (poor grammar and irrationality don't help anyone's case). I've included the comment I've posted to the Christian Science Monitor article at the bottom of this blog posting. I noticed that their posting policy says the following:

"We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published."

Depending on how this policy is implemented, my comment may never show up on their website. I also couldn't help noticing that all of the comments so far were from Obama supporters calling Republicans racist and other friendly comments, so I think using 'idiot' shouldn't be too out of line (but all my friends and family could tell you that it's my favorite epitaph). Whatever the result of this election, I want to know that I did everything I possibly could to get John McCain elected. Don't you?

My comment:

Voter fraud, perhaps not (although there were reports today on ABC and CNN of some of the fraudulent registrants casting ballots in early voting in OH), but registration fraud is a felony and should be rigorously prosecuted. Members of ACORN have admitted to offering bribes, and registering the dead, pets, children and cartoon characters. While this may be limited to a small sector of their workforce, it's remarkable that so many of the demonstrable false registrations are occurring in 'battleground' states. Further, fraudulent registration detracts from ACORN's stated mission of ensuring registration of people who typically don't participate in the election process. If registrations are taken up by fraudulent filings, how does that assist anyone who truly needs and wants to register? The sentence, "In Indiana, Lake County officials stopped processing about 5,000 applications after the first 2,100 looked bogus," says it all. They found NO legitimate applications among the first 1/3 they examined, indicating that the majority of filings were likely to be fraudulent. And by the way, messdeupfacemccain, plumbers are not required to be licensed when working as sub-contractors, which was 'Joe's' job, and McCain's face is 'messed up' because he spent much of his life defending your right to be a flaming idiot.

Dreams of my father and tribe

Let me state at the outset something I emailed the other day to a regular reader. I do not believe Obama is a Muslim. I came to this conclusion, not so much because of his denials and membership in a church, but because he seems too corrupt; a practitioner of the politics of convenience; to be ideologically committed to any one belief. He is leftist, because those ideals got him elected and bring him money. He associates with believers in black-liberation theology (a slight variation of the liberation theology as practiced in South America) because its leaders in Chicago hold a great deal of power. He argues for attacking Pakistan because it makes him look tough. He has business and personal dealings with people most of us would refuse to break bread with (because they are unrepentantly violent, not because they thought something ridiculous in their twenties), because it garners him support and power and jobs.

All of that said, I think it's clear that Obama's 2006 odyssey to Africa was not so much a Congressional fact-finding mission (despite being billed and paid for that way, and despite the fact that no other Congressional members were part of it), but a personal one. An odyssey to 'find' his father, connect with his roots and tribe, and (cousin or not) campaign for Odinga. He was hot-to-trot when it came to slamming the political corruption endemic in Kenya and Kibaki administration (despite the improvements it made over prior administrations), but made nary a mention (despite being joined at the hip for two weeks) of Odinga's corruption, ties to communism and agreements with Islamists to implement Sharia law if their support garnered him the Presidency. This despite highly publicized reports in various Kenyan papers, the BBC and CBS. In fact, there are not a few similarities between the Presidential campaigns of Obama and Odinga. Both are the young 'agents of change.' Both have strong ties to current and former communist parties and leaders. Both have received help from Islamist organizations. Both seem to use these various associations, not so much because of personal belief, but out of convenience and for power.

Obama has repeatedly ridiculed John McCain for focusing on corruption in campaign finance and through the earmark system (Obama's personal requests amount to $1M/daily). His own corruption is the probable motivator. Of course, the sad end to all of this is the horrible violence, murder and mayhem that Odinga's supporters enacted when he lost the election. No one (except perhaps Kibaki himself) claims that the election was truly fair. But it wasn't worth the slaughter that Odinga wrought on the country in vengeance. Or perhaps to him it was, since it garnered him a power-sharing deal and the Prime Minister's post. Let me know what you think of the videos below.