All signals from the McCain camp, slipping in polls and banking on desperate Hail Mary passes, indicate that in the final month of the presidential campaign it will resort to ugly personal attacks.
Does America care that Barack Obama knows Bill Ayers, who was dangerous and foolish 40 years ago, when Obama was a child and had no part in Ayers’s actions? Is that what a presidential election should even deal with? What if John McCain was on an elevator with a bank robber; does that mean anything? When he ran against President Bush in 2000, Sen. McCain was the victim of this kind of slimy electioneering; he should be the last candidate to resort to it. If the media refuse to air this kind of garbage, it might fade (or become the weapon of shameless propaganda groups with limited credibility).
Sen. McCain and his cronies better think twice before starting the kind of fight they could lose. If Sen. McCain does take this tactic (or is it strategy?), the presidential campaign will shift from the laughs of “Saturday Night Live” (Sarah Palin on “SNL” was a laughingstock) to the bitterness of savings and loan (John McCain’s reprehensible role in the savings and loan scandals). That scandal was more recent (late 1980s, early 1990s) than the Ayers episode, and personally involved John McCain, while Ayers’s misconduct long ago had nothing to do with Barack Obama.
If John McCain (or his surrogate, Gov. Palin) prefers to avoid the pressing issues in America today, and talk about the Chicago 7 in the ’60s, Sen. Obama could talk about the more recent Keating 5. That scandal, called at the time the worst financial and ethics scandal in United States history, resulted in Sen. McCain being scolded by his Senate colleagues because he “used bad judgment” in accepting extensive campaign contributions from his good friend, later a convict, Charles Keating. Those words are not from some partisan 529 group — they came from his Senate colleagues. That scandal was the last major bailout of a financial institution by the government — sound familiar? So much for Mr. Ethics.
And, if the McCain-Palin gang of mudslingers tries to revive the Rev. Wright tapes, Americans should go to the Internet video (IrregularVideo.Com) showing Gov. Sarah Palin being exorcised by Kenyan Minister Thomas Muthee in her church, to save her, drive away witchcraft and cast out of the devil. She was there participating with others who were laying on hands. Sen. Obama never participated in the Rev. Wright’s awful harangues; Gov. Palin was part of the Rev. Muthee’s babel.
Better we get back to the economy. The McCain-Palin folks should reflect before throwing the first mud — they’ve got more to be embarrassed about in their backgrounds than do Obama-Biden. Two can play the dirty game. Don’t start it.
Visit www.RonaldGoldfarb.com.