Forgiveness?
Yes, McCain gave a gracious concession speech last night, but seriously, foax, what else was he going to do? He's a politician, for god's sake. Did we think he was going to turn beet-red and start shouting racial epiphets? He wants to salvage his reputation as much as possible. It would have been mind-boggling if he'd done anything else. There's something to be said for forgiveness, sure, but I am NOT COOL with the idea that you should be able to run the most sleazy, underhanded, racist campaign I've ever seen and then instantly make everything cool again by giving a pretty speech. Do we let murderers and rapists atone in that manner? Come on. Politics is never not going to be dirty, of course, but if you let them get away with it that easily, you're just encouraging them.
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at 7:14 PM
Was it really the most underhanded campaign? I had the impression that he was sort of floundering around aimlessly. I mean, the best thing he could think of was repeat the tired old "socialist" mantra, and other cliches from the early nineties. Maybe Rove really was entirely responsible for Bush's victories, and without him, the Republicans really don't know what to do.
SK
Well, maybe not quite Swift-Boat-level-underhandedness. But then, Bush never had a reputation for having integrity in the first place. The worst stuff was perpetrated by people at enough of a level of remove for plausible deniability, as always, but what possible purpose does "we have to know about his connections to William Ayres" serve if not to suggest in some sub-rational way that he's a terrorist? And how could you possibly construe "god damn America" as somehow "racist" unless you were projecting like mad? "He pals around with terr'ists" stands on its own. And "I'm John McCain and I approved this ad" was in all his messages, including the one where he accused Obama of wanting to teach four-year-olds sex techniques and the one with the "he wants doctors to be allowed to MURDER abortion survivors!!!11" bit.
Was this aimless floundering? As Moosewoman would say, you betcha. But it was pretty ugly floundering. I did get the impression that he wasn't always entirely comfortable with his campaign's tone, but as the late great Molly Ivins noted, you got to dance with them what brung you.
Yes, I suppose you are right. I didn't watch any of his ads, I just read about his speeches and thought that, if "socialist" was the best he could do, he must really be out of ideas. But yeah, the ads sound really ugly. As I said, despite my great ambivalence about Obama, I cannot resist giving a big Nelson laugh to McCain.
SK