Scary McCain and the Gutter Dwellers

H/T to Mark Kleiman at The RBC for this link  to, John McCain the presidential candidate some Arizonans know — and loathe It a fairly long piece in which Amy Goodman exposes McCain’s notorious temper, fundamentally seedy nature and strong tendencies to not let ethics get between him and what is politically expedient. A couple of major points from Mark’s summary,

1. McCain arranges for an extortion investigation against he guy who blew the whistle on his wife’s theft of medicine from the charity she ran.

4. A Republican governor is driven from office and replaced by a Democrat, Rose Mofford, who previously served as Secretary of State and has little knowledge of the Central Arizona Project, a huge piece of Federal pork. McCain helps Republican efforts to get her recalled by setting her up to be blindsided at a Senate hearing just eight days after she is sworn in. He gleefully brags about his role at lunch with a newspaper publisher — “I’ll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance” — then proceeds directly to tell a bunch of reporters “I’d never do anything like that.” He later calls the Governor and tells her “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Probably like many other bloggers I’m regretting ever taking up for McCain against attacks from Bush in 2000 and the right-wing Blogistan. McCain was attacked much in the same way that he has attacked others. What goes around comes around as they say.

Not Scary?

Remember Senator Obama’s recent tour to see the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It included some goodwill stops introducing himself to a few western European heads of state. Dana Milbank at The Washington Post wrote,

Barack Obama has long been his party’s presumptive nominee. Now he’s becoming its presumptuous nominee.

Milbank skips over the fact that most modern presidential candidates have taken similar tours and had similar briefings. You know in case they’re elected they don’t start off completely flat footed. Yet we now have self appointed President McCain sending his emissaries to do what we don’t know. In terms of substantive negotiations, this seems like a mockery of diplomacy,  McCain’s hand maidens Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have no authority to sign off on anything. What McCain is doing now is a possible violation of the Logan Act. While no one has ever been prosecuted under the Act it plainly states that unauthorized citizens cannot negotiate with foreign governments. Senators and Representatives can and do go on fact finding and good will missions, but the manner and bluster surrounding the genuinely presumptuous nominee makes it seem as though that is why they’re in Georgia. Exactly the impression McCain, with is history of public dog and pony shows wants to create.

“Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.”- Sophocles, Corsi’s previous appearance on “pro-White” radio show was streamed live on “White Nationalist” Stormfront.org

Jerome Corsi’s appearance on the July 20 edition of The Political Cesspool Radio Show — during which he promoted The Obama Nation and criticized Sen. Barack Obama — was streamed “Live” on the self-described “White Nationalist” and “White Pride” website Stormfront.org. Prior to Corsi’s appearance on the July 20 broadcast, host James Edwards claimed that “most Jews … regard[] Jews and whites as two different races,” and co-host Winston Smith repeatedly referred to Obama as a “mulatto.”

Poor Corsi who’s political ideals live and die by the smear, lies and gross distortions, does as we can see have some odd friends. Republican blogger the Presto Pundit, Greg Ransom, on August 16, 2008 writes

“OBAMA NATION”, THE MARY MATLIN EDITED BOOK ABOUT OBAMA,
has a handful of factual errors which any good editor would have excised. All these little errors are being use by the left to attack the reputation of Jerome Corsi and his book.  What it should damage instead is Mary Matlin’s reputation as a editor.  I have the book, and I’m impressed with the enormous amount of factual detail, all footnoted, and most all of it as accurate as available public.

PP must wear some pretty thick rose colored glasses with his blinders, Corsi fails to get the most basic of facts correct,

A LITTLE RESEARCH DISPROVES EVEN CORSI’S MOST BASIC CLAIMS

LIE: “The year 1995 was a banner one for Obama. He had just married Michelle and the couple bought a Hyde Park condo, the first home Obama ever owned.”[p 145]

REALITY: OBAMAS MARRIED IN 1992 AND BOUGHT A CONDO IN 1993

10/3/92 Obama And Michelle Robinson Were Married. [Chicago Sun-Times, 10/3/07]

1993 Obama Bought a Condo for $277,550. [Chicago Sun-Times, 1/22/06]

Corsi didn’t bother with reading the policy papers that Obama published on his web site or did and decided to ignore them. He and his editor Conservative hack Mary Matalin should, assuming they see integrity as a virtue, not want to put out a book that is bizarre its so filled with inaccuracies, Publisher’s promotional materials for Corsi’s Obama Nation echo falsehood and baseless charge in book

If some people like Corsi, Stormfront and Presto don’t want to vote for Senator Obama, by all means don’t. What many Americans don’t understand is the gutter load of malicious disformation to try and sway them. One guesses that since it worked to enough of a degree against John Kerry to get Bush elected in 2004 it will work again. Maybe people will see that these fringe crazies are McCain supporters. If they support McCain what does that say about their candidate. Given the opportunity to denounce the book McCain declined.