I'm Just Sayin' . . .

Dennis Prager this morning speaking to a teacher-caller:

"Look, we admire teachers. However we do not admire the teacher's union."

Then some blather about "lefties" and "radicalism" and "fear."

Not worth mentioning, except it reminded me of the go-to response of the far right for anyone with the temerity to trash Bush's policies in Iraq: "Stop criticizing the troops."

"Look, we admire soldiers. However, we do not admire the Bush Administration."

Any hypocrisy there?

It's not a rhetorical question - I haven't finished my morning coffee and the thoughts are still sticking together.

They're Trying to Kill Him

Accuse him of palling around with terrorists? Check
Say he doesn't see America the way that ordinary Americans do? Check
Claim he is - hint, hint - from the street? Check
Insinuate that his campaign is funded by foreign terrorists? Check
Stoke the fires of hatred and racism? Check
Invoke cries of "terrorist!" and "traitor!"? Check
Look the other way when a supporter advocates murder? Check
Defend those views as coming from "ordinary Americans?" Check
Taking it a step further and actually accusing Obama of attacking those same violent, enraged nutjobs? Holy shit, check

McCain has gone too far. Will an adult please step in before one of these wackjobs takes the obvious cues being given by McCain and "puts country first" by trying to take Obama out? Really.

MSNBC:

McCain camp defends the behavior?
Posted: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:30 PM by Mark MurrayFiled Under: 2008, McCain
From NBC's Mark MurrayEarlier today, Obama remarked on recent outbursts of "Traitor!" "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" at McCain campaign events. "It's easy to rile up a crowd," Obama said. "Nothing's easier than riling up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that's not what we need right now in the United States."

In response, McCain senior adviser Nicolle Wallace released this statement, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports. "Barack Obama's assault on our supporters is insulting and unsurprising. These are the same people obama called 'bitter' and attacked for 'clinging to guns' and faith. He fails to understand that people are angry at corrupt practices in Washington and Wall Street and he fails to understand that America's working families are not 'clinging' to anything other than the sincere hope that Washington will be reformed from top to bottom."

"Attacking our supporters is a new low for the campaign that's run more millions of dollars of negative ads than any other in history."

*** UPDATE *** McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers adds in another statement: “Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo."

Dem Democrat "Hooligans"

"I am madder than a old wet hen. Let me translate dat der jumble-o-words I just dropped on yah, McCain: I ain't happy as a pig in slog no more. Even dem lipstick pig variety and such. Get dem commie bastards, Pelosi, the lot of em, and that uppity boy Obama. Get him good!"

Get them, Johnny. Go get them!!!! Burst through that door and hack'em up!!!!!

Nothing is more Americana then an ol' country kook cleaning the crust from his mouth, rattling his partisan chains around like Jacob Marley, calling the Democrats "hooligans" and "socialists," atavistically referring to "an Obama" like he's subhuman for having a feasible health care plan, then starting a hackneyed "U.S.A . . . U.S.A." chant just in case you thought McCain was hosting a tea party in Paris.

And the curmudgeon's incendiary red glare, an octogenarians head full of air! Francis Scott Key was the original Toby Keith. Yippeee! U.S.A! Obama is a muslim, terrorist, radical! Kill darky! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

The gap is shrinking between embellishment and what my eyes perceive. That's frightening.

Whether it's Dennis Miller deranged bellicosity on the O'Reilly Factor, looking into the camera and screaming at McCain to "fight, John. Fight!!!" or Michelle Malkin making the case for her own internment because she can't live under a Democratic administration, the Republican Party is fraying at the base (or is it a Socialist administration as the next bucket of radical paint is dumped on Barack Obama for tomorrow's news cycle).

There are many revealing moments in the short video of Waukesha, Wisconsin apoplexy! A complete lack of respect for McCain, the rampaging codger giving the "maverick" senator the business and telling him in campaign speak to "shut his piehole" (ie, "Let me finish, please"). The imbecilic dissonance of two sequential sentences, one saying "and I'm not mad about the economy," the very next sentence shrieking I'm mad "about the socialists taking over our country."

Socialism (as defined by Merriam Webster): Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Hey Wilford Brimley - you're mad at the economy, you f**king wingnut, or at least you will be when they repossess your PT Cruiser, they take your job away greeting at the Wall-Mart and disabuse you of your last five dollars because the church needed it! It's the Christian thing to do.

What's the use. There is an exorbitant premium on making sense within conservative dens during the last throes of what Karl Rove touted "50 years of Republican domination."

I found McCain's instinctual response to the surly fella even more fascinating. It's almost like he's uncomfortable consorting with these vitriolic crackers demanding a political lynching of Obama. "Act together because all of us are Americans first." All of us. And McCain will "work with anyone" and "work together as one nation indivisible."

But the ideological dummies, clod fanatics of neo-conservatism on the wan and firebrand zealots waving their bibles wildy don't want bipartisanship, cooperation or even the "maverick" persona McCain and Palin shill.

They want leftist blood. They want to murder liberalism. They have no idea why. The rhetoric is a hodge-podge of hate, fear, insecurity, a dollup of subconscious racism (a bigger helping for some folks) and confusion. They cannot formulate sentences to express this madness. It's a venomous melange of terrorism, communism, socialism, radicalism, liberalism, nihilism and any other "ism" reduced and muddled into formless chimeras haunting the good neighbors on Main Street, Mayberry as they slumber.

It's a request for grotesque and unseemly tactics that John McCain may not fulfill - for two reasons:

One, a political view, that this election is not won by preaching to the converted at Republican rallies, but by appealing to the whopping 40% of the electorate that consider themselves independent, many of them rational thinkers, unfettered by party talking points.

And two, a moral view (really, an American view): that I will not spark a match and set this country ablaze when the blood in my veins pulses with doing the right, but sometimes unpopular thing and working with members of both parties if that's what it takes to accomplish it.

How ironic: McCain might lose this election because he truly does put "country first." As dirty as it's getting, McCain may not be willing to cross every line, only most of them. And that will come up short.