It is not enough for John McCain to describe the present and state what he will do. He must also speak of the past make comparisons with the past. Specifically, his opponent's past.
In fact — what I am going to say now may sound senseless and outrageous at first, but read it through and see if you do not agree — in fact, that is the only (or at least the main) thing McCain should speak about. He should forget about challenging Obama and only speak of patterns in the Illinois senator's life, career, and speeches.
Challenging Obama — unfortunately — does nothing, or little, to make a dent in the Illinois senator's poll numbers.
Simply describe Obama's pattern(s) and leave it at that.
Stop looking for explanations or apologies from Barack Obama or his campaign on this topic or on that topic.
No. What must be adopted is a matter-of-fact tone that pictures Obama for what he is.
Not because this is a strategy. Not because this is campaigning.
But because this is — precisely because this is — the truth.
There is nothing to attack. No matter what he has said in the past, no matter what he will say in the future, Barack Obama is surrounded by radicals with radical ideas — end of story.
Simply describe Barack Obama for what he is.
It is vain to ask for repudiation of this associate of his and apologies for that other associate of his. What counts is to point out that his entire entourage bathes in radicalism. Point it out as a fact. A fact that asks for no explanations and no apologies — nothing more than a vote against the Democratic Party at the polls.
And a note to John McCain: By doing what I write about here, you are not using unfair tactics. You are doing nothing more and nothing less than giving a description — a highly accurate and objective description — of who is likely to be in the highest spheres of power should Barack Hussein Obama win the presidency. It is vital — even patriotic and, yes, honorable — to point out exactly what awaits America should Americans make the leftish choice at the polls.
Domestic Policy and the
Content of Obama's Character
Content of Obama's Character
The point about the Reverend Wright was never the "God Damn America" epithet itself. It was, first, that, given the evidence, this could only be illustrative of the personal pastor's message throughout the years (including the 20 (!) years the Obama family sat in his pews) and, even more importantly, that he is illustrative of the type of people that Obama has associated with before, associates with now, and will associate with in the future, especially if he wins the White House.
If you focus on the "God Damn America" alone or on a Weatherman's past alone — or one at one moment in the campaign and the other at a totally different moment — Obama's repudiation of Jeremiah Wright or claim of not knowing much about William Ayers puts an effective stop to the criticism or makes it look like unreasonable rants. But point out — matter-of-factly, with little or no emotion (and keep pointing out, without respite) — that these phenomena (violent ravings in the pulpit, violent attacks on American institutions) are only indicative of the (simplistic) beliefs of a great deal of people surrounding Obama and likely to be in his inner circle when/if he enters the Oval Office — they even seem to be the beliefs of his wife (if nothing has made her, will make her, proud of her country until her husband is elected president, then somewhere, in her opinion, it can only be true that America must be a pretty damned-awful country) — and there you get people (even, perhaps, some members of the mainstream media) to think.
Again, it does little good to focus on Jeremiah Wright for weeks or months (only to have Obama repudiate the Reverend), then, months later, on Billy Ayers (only to have Obama belittle the relationship and perhaps repudiate the former (?) Weatherman by the time of the election), then (if time allows) on someone else. From the beginning, the constant drumbeat should have been — and it must be from now on — on all the significant others, all the associates, and all the foreign "fans" (not to mention the spouse) whose just-as-constant refrain through the years (and through the decades) has been "God damn America" — or words to that effect ("America be damned", "a goddamn awful place to live", "Allah damn America", etc, etc).
It is next to worthless to make demands and requests upon Obama (i.e., ask for apologies or to denounce a certain person's views). This is what the mainstream media does — asking him to "explain" himself, saying "how do you respond to this (obviously unfair and hateful) attack?" and "What can you do — what can we do — to put this behind us and focus on the real (sic) issues", allowing him to spin an answer, however much truth there is in that explanation or not. If you come back to the issue in attack mode, Obama simply says — and his allies (and those include the media, naturally) simply say — that McCain is obsessed, extremist, and vindictive or that because of the polls, these are a campaign's act of desperation.
As I have written elsewhere, from the beginning, John McCain should have said as follows (and in the remaining three weeks this must his campaign's constant drumbeat):
You object to the Republicans' making an issue of your associations, your friends, and your allies. The problem, as I see it, is the number of radicals you are surrounded with whose basic message is (or is akin to) "God damn America"; and whose tenet that has been for the past two decades or more.. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright says "God damn America" — and it is hard to believe he hasn't been preaching as much during the past 20 years. The Weatherman terrorist from whose residence you launched your Illinois senate campaign, Bill Ayers, spouts — and continues to this day to spout — words to the effect of "God damn America." During his lifetime, the Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis, whom your campaign has admitted was the "Frank" mentioned in your autobiography, used to shout (in so many words) "God damn America." The basic message of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, is "God damn America."
How about organizations such as ACORN and MoveOn? Is it unfair to say that the basic essence of the message in such damn-civilized-debate,-damn-the-voter-process groups is God damn the American Way? How about Tony Rezko — what does his travails say about his respect for America's rules and laws? And how about Michelle Obama? Being proud of her country for the first time if and only if her husband wins the presidency is akin to saying what, pray tell… The Middle Easterner Ahmed Yousef who spoke out in your favor, is a senior leader of the Hamas terrorist movement whose members regularly march through the streets, chanting God damn America. And what, pray tell, does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say? Should Iran's president wish to meet with an American president (in order to be told that his country should not build nuclear weapons, a request which he can then ignore, as we know since George W Bush has been saying the same thing for years, as have the governments of France, Germany, and Britain), then you are his man.
All in all, that's a lot of friends and allies in your inner circle who dance to the tune of "God damn America!" That's a lot of admirers in the world, as well as same-minded activists, whose basic message is (or is akin to) "God (or Allah) damn America!"
The Jimmy Carter Style
of Foreign Policy
of Foreign Policy
What is the major reason that Iran is our enemy today instead of our friend? Because Jimmy Carter wanted to teach a lesson to a faithful (if embarrassing) friend of America's.
Did you notice this at the debates? Most people don't seem to have: at one point, Barack Obama skewered John McCain and/or the Bush administration for not acting friendlier toward Iran or North Korea. At another, he issued threats to Iraq and Pakistan.
When Barack Obama criticized, first, Iraq and then Pakistan, McCain should have gone into pattern mode — evoking Jimmy Carter then and there.
Have you noticed how my opponent is always talking about having talks with our adversaries? He speaks of acting friendly with North Korea's Kim Jong Il and heading to Tehran to hold talks with a Holocaust-denyer (and a Holocaust-promiser!).
Yet Senator Obama also speaks about talking tough. Who does he speak about talking tough to? America's friends and allies. Iraq. Pakistan.
It's been tried before, my friends.
Some of you are too young to remember it, but back in 1976, Americans were hungering for change. And so they elected a man who was almost as young as Senator Obama. An idealist who spoke the same language and who boasted the same promises of hope and change, all with a winning smile and obvious reserves of good faith.
Jimmy Carter also spoke of dialogue. He spoke of solving all the problems and having his intervention solve all problems or inititiate a beginning to a solution for all problems.
In all this, the former Georgia governor was quite honest.
He opened up to our enemies and he closed the hatch down on our friends.
A man almost as young as Senator Obama, Jimmy Carter also thought that having talks with our enemies could solve — would solve — must solve every problem.
He criticized our friends notably in the Nicaraguan government and the Iranian government, talking tough with them. Those allies were sometimes distasteful allies, but in an imperfect world, they were America's allies nonetheless.
Thanks in great part to Jimmy Carter, those friends were overthrown. And in both cases, they were replaced not only with régimes that were inimical to America and to the West, but with régimes far more repressive and with far worse human rights records than those the criticized friends had reigned over.
The most conspicuous of these was Iran. And now Iran is in worse shape than ever. It is still a dictatorship — it is, in fact, a worse dictatorship than under the Shah — and it is now America's enemy and the enemy of the free world. And — need I tell you — it's in the process of getting nukes!
The Jimmy Carter version of foreign affairs has been tried before, my friends, and it doesn't work. It must be pushed out of the body politic.
It's a based on wishful thinking where no hard decisions must ever be taken, and all we must do is elect a young handsome candidate with a winning grin, and all will be well.
Not only does the Jimmy Carter version of foreign policy not work, but it is actually counter-productive. My friends, we do not need another four years like the Jimmy Carter era.
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