Pent-up Rage and Cowardice, in Approximately Equal Measure

Much to share. I'll be touching on the descent of the McShame campaign into the nether reaches, briefly surfacing to point at ray of hope on the "bailout," and then returning to the hot Dante-esque topic of how slimy and despicable the self-annointed POW-martyr seems willing to be in his desperate but ineffectual quest for power.

First-up, courtesy long-time Whidbey Island correspondent Ashley, is this great editorial from the Baltimore Sun (said city the former residence of correspondent and family):

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.

Well we sure-as-hell better. Right now these sleazeballs are invoking names like Wallace and Thurmond. And the Klan. When will they "allow" (sanction) the first cross-burning? Hanging? I believe your desperate pursuit of power and control have revealed that you are certifiable, John McCain.

But, briefly turning to the destruction of our economy that shrub with the enthusiastic support of McCain and so many others (including many feckless Dems, Obama not immune) has pursued, it appears there is hope the "bailout" may not be quite as profoundly awful as it first appeared:

Laissez-faire taboos and financial benchmarks get knocked down with dizzying speed in recent economic news. But this article just out from the Times seems like a pretty big deal.

As regular readers know, I've been closely following the opinions of economists like Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong and others who have been arguing that the concept behind the original Paulson plan is fundamentally flawed -- not because of the size itself, or even so much because of who might benefit, but because it does not directly address what they see as the fundamental nature of the crisis. Rather than buying up 'toxic debts', they say we should be taking this vast sum of money Congress has just appropriated and injecting the capital directly into the banking system. In more nuts and bolts language, that means the US government buying big stakes in many of our largest financial institutions.

My read of what Krugman was saying a week or more ago was that the bill Congress passed was better than nothing since it was flexible enough to allow either this or the next Treasury Secretary to, in effect, accomplish that recapitalization through the back door

In any case, if this late Times report is accurate, the folks at the Treasury have come around to the idea of doing it through the front door and soon. As an economist friend just cautioned me, the devil's very much in the details. But on the face of it at least the Times seems to be saying that the pressure of events, and the failure of everything else they've tried to date, is pushing the folks at Treasury to embrace some version of the Swedish model Krugman, DeLong and other have championed.

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Ms. Walsh at Salon is properly incensed about the right-wing attempts to blame the melt-down on loans to the lower middle class (I am counting on you to read the full article at link):

I’ve been wanting us to write on the right-wing effort to blame the mortgage crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act and other efforts to bring homeownership to lower-income, minority Americans, but this piece by Slate’s Daniel Gross is so great I’m not sure we could top it in a timely way. I’m going to borrow a big chunk here, but go read the whole thing.

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I'm not sure how to preface this. Maybe "Bully gets called out." Major kudos to Obama for calling McSleazy out on his dirty tactics. In essence, "if you have a problem with me, say it to my face!" Of course McSameBushPalin have so many of their own skeletons so much worse than Obama's (Keating, POW confessions, despicable military record, total suck-up to Bush, Alaska separatist party, etc.). But in point of fact, it does come down to the reality that today's McCain is somewhat of a Coward, not at all a man of character, in no way a maverick, and basically a truly vile, desperate, and pathetic loser. But Josh at TPM is willing to settle for Cowardice!

The image is coming into focus. Even McCain's confidants are now suggesting that it was his anger and frustration with Obama that led him to embrace Steve Schmidt's Willie Horton-on-Steroids campaign for the White House. And whether it's the appearance before the Des Moines Register Editorial board or his tense refusal to make eye contact during the first presidential debate, I don't think many people would deny at this point that McCain's hostility and contempt for Obama -- what even Wolf Blitzer calls his "disdain" -- is palpable.

After the first debate many people wondered aloud whether it was hostility and contempt or fear and intimidation that kept McCain from looking Obama in the face even once. But with two weeks and more evidence to consider, it is clear that it was both: Hostility that is magnified by the person's mortifying inability to face the person who inspires it. That's the kind of unchanneled, clogged up anger that makes you unsteady, that makes you make mistakes.

McCain's moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a physical dimension.

The tell came this week as McCain unearthed the Ayers story which, for whatever its merits, was fully aired months ago and has no clear relation to the particulars of October other than McCain's collapsing poll numbers. He's on it. Palin's on it. He's releasing slashing new TV ads like this one. Both of them are ginning their crowds up into spiraling gyres of right-wing delirium -- a ready-made Lord of the Flies (and let's admit that's a gentle allusion, given the tone of these barnburners) if Obama happened into one of the auditoriums at the wrong moment.

He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to 'take the gloves off' when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence ... nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him.

Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right back at it. In every other aspect of life, high and low, refined and unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice.

And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain's mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more.

And, speaking of John and his psychopathy or megalomania or whatever it is, these observations by scientists who deal with behavior, human and primate, seem timely:

McCain's unwillingness to make eye contact with Obama through the debate seems to be getting picked up by a lot of observers.

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Here's one comment we got from TPM Reader EO

As a psychotherapist and someone who treats people with anger management problems, we typically try to educate people that anger is often an emotion that masks other emotions. I think it's significant that McCain didn't make much, if any, eye contact because it suggests one of two things to me; he doesn't want to make eye contact because he is prone to losing control of his emotions if he deals directly with the other person, or, his anger masks fear and the eye contact may increase or substantiate the fear.

I noticed him doing the same thing in the Republican primary debates. The perception observers are likely to have is that he is unwilling to acknowledge the opponent's legitimacy and/or is contemptuous of the opponent.

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it

I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

Gary Kamiya does a great job at Salon of getting the viewfinder horizontal again (vs the cockeyed, distorting angles the increasingly desperate McCain campaign is forced to try to fob off on us. You owe it to yourself to pursue the whole article, this is only "short" excerpt

The End of Days is approaching for John McCain and Sarah Palin, and at least one member of the ticket is not likely to greet this development with religious rapture. Their numbers are tanking. Their campaign has had to pull out of Michigan, and they are trailing in most of the battleground states they must hold onto. Even Karl Rove has predicted an Obama win if the election were held today. McCain’s hotheaded behavior during the Wall Street crisis and his numerous other erratic tactical swerves have backfired. And his biggest gamble, choosing Sarah Palin as vice president, is increasingly looking like a disaster.

McCain’s all-too-predictable response: get ugly, as he did on Monday is his disturbing rant against Obama in New Mexico.

The man who incessantly talks about “honor” has checked his own at the door. Back in April, McCain — himself the victim of a vicious, race-baiting smear campaign orchestrated by Karl Rove in 2000 — disavowed a North Carolina ad attacking Obama for his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “It’s not the message of the Republican Party,” McCain said. “It’s not the message of my campaign. I’ve pledged to conduct a respectful campaign.”

But that was before McCain faced imminent defeat. His “pledge” has turned out to be about as credible as his sudden incarnation as a lifelong enemy of Wall Street. On Monday, McCain rolled out a new TV ad, “Dangerous,” that accuses Obama of being “dishonorable.” “Who is Barack Obama?” a narrator ominously asks. “He says our troops in Afghanistan are ‘just air-raiding villages and killing civilians.’ How dishonorable.”

Of course, this is an outrageous smear. Obama was simply pointing out the well-known fact that in fighting an insurgency, over-reliance on air power is counterproductive. That’s because airstrikes inevitably result in civilian deaths, which turn the population against the side carrying them out. U.S. airstrikes and the ensuing civilian casualties are one of the biggest points of contention between the U.S. and Hamid Karzai’s regime in Afghanistan, and they are a huge issue in Pakistan and Iraq as well.

But none of those facts matter, because McCain desperately needs to paint Obama as a traitor, an alien, a defeatist, and un-American. The rhetorical question “Who is Barack Obama?” is not accidental: It is intended to raise fundamental doubts about whether he is a real American. It ties into the online smears that accuse him of being a Muslim, a terrorist, of not saluting the flag, hating the troops, attending a madrassa, hating Israel, and so on.

In a fear-mongering speech on Monday, McCain continued this Mysterious Stranger tactic. “Whatever the question, whatever the issue, there’s always a back story with Sen. Obama,” McCain said. “All people want to know is: What has this man ever actually accomplished in government? What does he plan for America? In short: Who is the real Barack Obama?” Cue a subconscious image of a dark, menacing figure planning to impose sharia law on America.

Sarah Palin, confidently pronouncing on Obama’s bona fides despite the fact that she has repeatedly revealed herself to a terrified world to be someone who must be kept as far away from the presidency as possible, joined in the smear campaign. Citing Obama’s acquaintance with former Weatherman founder Bill Ayers, Palin said about the Democratic presidential nominee, “This is not a man who sees America as you and I do — as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

Never mind the fact that Palin herself supported, and her husband belonged to, a secessionist Alaska political party that advocated armed opposition to the U.S. Never mind the fact that Obama’s relationship with Ayers, as detailed in the very New York Times story that Palin cited as her source, was utterly casual. Facts are for those in the reality-based community. The point is to paint Obama not just as a terrorist sympathizer and America-hater, but as an alien. Hence Palin’s description of him as “not a man who sees America as you and I do.”

McCain is also using Palin to bring up the Rev. Wright. Prompted by GOP publicist Bill Kristol, whose intellectually vacuous, water-carrying New York Times column is one of the biggest embarrassments in that paper’s storied history, Palin said that “I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country … But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

Ah, the joys of having your vacuous, yet robotically perky, running mate do your dirty work for you, while she pretends that she isn’t.

Calling Obama a traitor, un-American and dishonorable may be somewhat effective, but the best thing McCain and Palin have going for them is that Obama is … black. The subliminal message of all their ads is “scary, black, unknown, black, alien, black, un-American, black.” The challenge for McCain, however, is that he can’t be explicitly racist: It’s no longer acceptable to run Willie Horton-type ads. But ingenious minds find a way to get around this.

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And I was very pleased to see this editorial in the Winston-Salem Chronicle (h/t Democratic Underground):

Are we the only ones who are getting a little ticked off by the cut-throat tactics that Sen. John McCain and his airhead running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, are beginning to employ?

We didn’t think so.

As this long, long race for the White House enters the final stretch, the race car with the name “Obama” on it has pulled away, according to all national and statewide polls. So no one was surprised when the McCain camp started to throw harder jabs. It’s normal for the underdog to go into October fighting, but not to hit so far below the belt.

Palin is being directed (she surely is not smart enough to conceive strategies of her own) to try to convince voters that Obama is a covert radical who “pals around” with terrorists, anti-American black pastors and God knows who else.

She has delivered this nonsense at rallies before audiences of thousands of white, conservative Republicans – folks who don’t need much motivation anyway to distrust and dislike blacks. At one such rally, one member of the crowd yelled out that Obama should be killed. Palin didn’t take a minute to tell the overzealous supporter that his suggestion was inappropriate; she just continued to read the script the campaign provides her with.

Palin’s charges are as baseless as the claim that she is qualified to be vice-president. But they show that the next few weeks will get uglier as the Republicans try to derail the Obama train. Sadly, they know that they can gain some ground by feeding some white Americans this type of garbage. The Republicans know that on the issues, they can’t get voters on their side. But racist innuendo has always served the GOP well. Remember Willie Horton?

The Democrats are vowing to swing back against these attacks while also staying focused on the issues that are most important to voters, such as jobs and health care. Obama is not perfect, no doubt, but compared to McCain and Palin, he is a class act. He would never stoop to their level, although his surrogates might.

Obama would never bring up the contradictory nature of such charges coming from Palin, whose own morals are far from solid gold. After all, it was her church in Alaska that invited a man famous for condemning Judaism. Her church also believes in praying away homosexuality.

Obama is too focused on the issues of the land to mention that while Palin was busy misusing her authority as governor to fire a top law enforcement official, her daughter was out getting knocked up. Of course, teen pregnancy is a major issue across the nation. But Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy stands out because the governor has been outspoken about abstinence and has supported measures barring the teaching of sex-ed to students. Sex-Ed was surely a course her daughter failed, if she took it at all.

Obama has too much tact to mention that Palin attended five different colleges in order to earn just one bachelor’s degree. This should come as no surprise to those of us who have seen the interviews where the governor has shown that she is completely clueless. And we all thought that President Bush was the dumbest person on the planet.

These criticism of Palin are harsh, we admit. But she is a big girl who knows how to throw a punch so she should be receiving some as well. Palin, like her adulterous, gambling-addict running mate, has no room to talk about anyone, especially Ivy-League educated Obama.

Like the old folks say – Palin needs to sweep around her own front porch first.