10.11.2008

Fear and Loathing in America: Episode Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Seventy Six

Fuck You, John McCain.

It may not seem like it, especially given the nature of the other posts I've made, but it does pain me to say that and mean it about a genuine American hero.

But what else can I say, really?

I can live with someone who fundamentally disagrees with me politically. I've done so before literally before in fact. I can wrap my head around a politician lying. And I can especially understand one trying to win.

But Senator, when the the fervor you sparked with your own rhetoric and tactics boiled over and you had to tell your supporters to respect your opponent, don't fucking pretend that you were leading by example. Your audience booed you when you told them that they had no reason to be afraid of Obama. They booed you when you told them that they should be respectful, in the first act of this two-year presidential campaign that's been becoming of the maverick you've claimed to be. This isn't the first time you've expressed either sentiment on the stump and they weren't met with derision before. Something changed, and it wasn't Obama.

Don't pretend that it wasn't at your direction that all of your spin doctors deflected questions about the two-minutes-hate tenor of your rallies. Don't pretend that you didn't know that your supporters were shouting out that Obama is a terrorist, and don't pretend that you didn't hear them call for the life of a black man running for the highest office in the land to be taken in a country that has seen three one time presidential candidates known for their advancement of civil rights (two of whom won) assassinated.

Don't pretend that Nicolle Wallace, who defended this treasonous behavior and attacked Obama for DARING to say that the American people deserve better than a political discourse providing fertile ground for death threats, did so against your urgings. Yours or the network of thugs trained in the tradition of Richard Nixon who defamed you yourself in 2000. You wanted it enough to place them in your employ. Did you want it enough to incite the torrid congregation of paranoid, hateful fuckwits that as of now (judging by the contingent now showing up at these rallies) seem to form the base of your support to threats against the life of your opponent? Against the man who before you even entered the race had his life threatened enough to be given Secret Service protection earlier in the race than any other candidate ever to seek the office?

When you finally responded to the utterly horrifying vitriol that your campaign has engendered, were you doing it because you were ashamed of the ugliness or because it seemed to be losing you the election even more decisively than your other tactics? In 2000, we might not have had to ask that, and we may not today either, but for two different reasons.

As it stands now, Senator, your name will join the ranks of Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon, and Barry Goldwater(and not in the way that you'd like). When our kids read about you in the history books, they'll ask us to please, please tell them that we didn't vote for you. There's only one way to avoid this, Senator. Denounce every ounce of fear and loathing radiating from the rancorous lemmings who were hanging on your every word until you asked them to behave like decent human beings, at lest while the cameras were on. Apologize to the American people for your irresponsibility, your lemmings for leading them off a cliff, your well-meaning supporters for besmirching them with this recent behavior, and Senator Obama for seeming to regard his safety as less important than a last-ditch effort to get back into the hunt for an office that you have by all merits already lost.

Do this, and you may one day regain my respect, which until now was hanging by the thread of your service to our country-- which was once a noble and courageous sacrifice but has now been diminished by your own actions to a technicality poised to pre-empt the statement "I have no respect for John McCain."

Until then?

Fuck You, Senator.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:40 PM

    it's ugly to the point of exhausting. I have come to the conclusion their are just way too many really ignorant people in this country. Way ore than I have previously given this country credit for.
    That it took tow female news pundit/journalists to actually be the first on the telly anyway of calling McCain out on this bothers me too.

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  2. Anonymous11:45 AM

    I agree with Cooper. Actually I have no time for campaigning for Obama but I must do little things

    I have always thought there were ignorant people in this country. Was raised to believe in stupidity

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  3. Anonymous7:01 PM

    wombat, wombat where are you?

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  4. Cooper: right here. Apologies.

    It really boggles the mind. I have a great uncle who will not accept that Obama isn't a Muslim. It's simply impossible to talk policy with some people.

    It seems like it isn't working this time though. Or at least, it's working slightly less than before, but that's just enough to put Obama over this time. Hopefully we'll get better in four years. And thereafter. Information is abundant, and people are learning to use it more and more.

    Pia: All there is to do is speak the truth as clearly and convincingly enough until it takes hold.

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