Bacon?

It had to be said.

It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember.

They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison.

Despite the occasional slip (referring to Mr. Obama’s “cronies” and calling him “that one”), Mr. McCain tried to take a higher road in Tuesday night’s presidential debate. It was hard to keep track of the number of time he referred to his audience as “my friends.” But apart from promising to buy up troubled mortgages as president, he offered no real answers for how he plans to solve the country’s deep economic crisis. He is unable or unwilling to admit that the Republican assault on regulation was to blame.

Ninety minutes of forced cordiality did not erase the dismal ugliness of his campaign in recent weeks, nor did it leave us with much hope that he would not just return to the same dismal ugliness on Wednesday.

Ms. Palin, in particular, revels in the attack. Her campaign rallies have become spectacles of anger and insult. “This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America,” Ms. Palin has taken to saying.

That line follows passages in Ms. Palin’s new stump speech in which she twists Mr. Obama’s ill-advised but fleeting and long-past association with William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground and confessed bomber. By the time she’s done, she implies that Mr. Obama is right now a close friend of Mr. Ayers — and sympathetic to the violent overthrow of the government. The Democrat, she says, “sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Her demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.

NY Times editorial (addl. links mine)

The member of the TV crew was called “boy.” That stunned me. “Boy”? I thought that died with old South. It’s not even an insult so much as it is an expectation that the person so addressed will stop everything to come to your pasty-assed assistance. It speaks to servitude, not lynching, but apparently yesterday’s hatred is still as fresh as a morning douche among some of Palin’s base.

McCain mostly was respectful last night. Not truly respectful, but respectful enough. 

[Greenwald on the disrespect.]

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Huge thanks to Jonathan Schwarz for digging up stills and video footage of the atrocious Wall Street skit on SNL last weekend. Schwarz says NBC’s already pulled this Soros-bashing footage from Hulu.

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Fingers are pointing so you know Katherine Kersten is loose again, spreading more vile dis/misinformation. Who is to blame for the meltdown? Why, WE are. Yes, dare I say it? ALL of us are to blame! Specifically, all of us who aren’t “traditional whipping boys — the Wall Street fat cats blamed for every financial fainting spell.”

So who is to blame? Car owners who buy on credit [insert gratuitous lecture on the Jew-hating Henry Ford and frugality],  refrigerator owners who buy on credit, power boat owners who buy on credit, and, well, here’s the whole list according to Kersten:

Those who art to blame for this which is not my fault

car owners (who buy on credit)

refrigerator owners (who buy on credit)

power boat owners (who buy on credit)

Diner’s Club members

Community Reinvestment Act borrowers

lottery ticket buyers

average guys or gals who listen to the siren call of easy money, and who throw frugality and prudence out the window

Who, by implication, is not to blame for Wall Street crashing and the markets melting down?

bankers

brokerages

investors demanding 20% returns

Wall Street

President Bush

Treasury Secretary Paulson

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke

Congressional leaders like Phil Gramm

newspapers scolds like Katherine Kersten

More generalizations and pap from the Queen of I’m Never Wrong and Liberals Are Never Right. Remember, someone else is always to blame.

By the way, maybe the best talking point out there is the simple question: why did NONE of the business magazines or newspapers see this one coming?

Right. Sort of like asking why the head cheerleader doesn’t take physics and struggles with chemistry exams. But hey, doesn’t Maria Bartiromo look hot today?

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Good post from Aaron Landry who asks, Are Coleman and the NRSC using Wellstone to attack Franken? 

The stunning truth is that the Al Franken shot from the Angry Al ad shows Franken wrapping up a moving story about Paul Wellstone, and that the arm waving was meant to depict Wellstone cheering on his son at a cross country meet.

How bitterly ironic that Norman “rich Iranians buy my clothes” Coleman would use that still to trash Franken for being an angry guy. Landry’s convinced that the ‘pugs are deliberately using Wellstone-related footage. If so, it’s not a stretch at all to say that the angry Minnesota right is still dancing their little Hitler jigs on Paul Wellstone’s grave. 

Never forget, never forgive. 

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Quick links:

Deporting Jerome Corsi (sadly, back to the U.S.)

Wicked Campaign ‘08 game (via Mediation)

Norman distances himself from McCain

Dow 6,000

Sterilizing the poor, cont.

Comrade Bush’s bailout

Flash of Genius wildly misleading?

Bacon threat shuts down John Boehner’s West Chester office

Campaign ‘08 candidates seen as Star Trek characters (brilliant!)

A succinct explanation of what’s happened to the GOP

 

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Sad news. Remember how when Barry Goldwater was in his final years and at his most lucid? And how the Republicans dismissed him as having gotten senile? Well, dementia has come to an 86-year-old George McGovern.

No clue what’s driving this current bit of anti-labor nonsense, but you have to suspect manipulative care givers.

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The economy:

Isaiah J. Poole (great graphs)

Robert Borosage (basics re-explained)

Mick Arran (reminders)

But hey, the Dow Jones is up this morning so party like it’s 1899!

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