McCain and Palin: Unfit for Presidency and Vice-Presidency

By Brigitte L. Nacos

During the primary season, I supported Senator Hillary Clinton. I am still convinced that she has more knowledge of the most important policy issues of our time—both domestic and foreign—than Senators McCain and Obama. I still believe that Senator Clinton would be the best of all the candidates running for the highest office in both parties’ primaries to lead skillfully and resolutely during times of crisis. During the primary season, I was appalled by the relentless attacks on Hillary Clinton by fanatic Obama supporters and liberal media pundits, their false charges of racism, and their gender bias, yet I will cast my vote on November 4^th for Senators Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. I never considered the McCain/Palin ticket, because Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin are unfit for the president’s and vice-president’s office. 

Grumpy old McCain pretends to put his “Country First” according to his team’s campaign slogan. But nothing contradicts this claim more than his choice of the intellectually challenged Sarah Palin as his running mate. McCain and whoever else played a role in picking this self-proclaimed “Joe Six-Pack” and “Pig with Lipstick” demonstrated contempt for women as smart as or smarter than mediocre McCain. If the McCain camp believed that a female running mate would win over angry Hillary Clinton supporters and assure victory in November, they could have selected one of many formidable Republican women politicians, among them senators and current or former governors. Instead, they chose the one with the best looking legs and the mentality of an attack dog. What a message they sent to women and girls.

This alone disqualifies McCain from becoming president. He demonstrated not only poor but unpatriotic judgment, when he chose Palin. He did not put his country first, as he claims, but John McCain’s burning ambition to become president. Given that McCain’s foreign policy agenda now is more hawkish than that of George W. Bush, it is not difficult to imagine what burning ambition McCain would have and act upon as president. Just think Iraq, Iran,Georgia…

Since Sarah Palin has voiced frustration over McCain’s reluctance to attack Obama because of his membership in the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church in Chicago, it is probably just a question of time, when the most extreme passages from Wright’s sermons will be revisited in attack ads. If one questions Obama’s judgment to remain a member of the Wright church as long as he did, and I do question this, one must also question McCain’s affiliation with anti-Semitic preacher John Hagee and Sarah Palin’s hand-on blessing by witch-hunting Pastor Thomas Muthee. Taken together, we know of more troublesome associations of the McCain/Palin side than the Obama/Biden ticket (Here is a link to another post on McCain's unfitness to serve as president).

It is also troublesome that the same McCain who in 2000 was a victim of the Bush campaign’s character assassination is now resorting to the same dirty tricks against Obama. If Obama is judged by his association with William Ayers, who indeed committed domestic terrorism at a time when Obama was eight years old, McCain should be held accountable for his long and close association with Charles Keating, a major and convicted figure in the savings & loan scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s. The failure of McCain friend Keating’s bank in California cheated many and especially old people out of their life’s savings. Perhaps one could call this a case of financial terrorism.

If McCain, Palin, and their stand-ins continue their character assassination mission of the last week or so, the Obama/Biden camp must fight back—soon and with the same weapons. If they find this tasteless, they need to talk to Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts and defeated presidential candidate of 1988. Attacked by Willy Horton and like-minded ads, Dukakis refused to okay what he felt were similarly dirty attacks on George H.W. Bush. He lost—as did John Kerry in 2004 after he did not fight quickly and massively back against the swift-boaters dirty attacks.

Like it or not, attack ads work.

 

Comments

[Teddy]

YOU ARE A LIAR. MAY YOU BE THROWN INTO THE TRASH BIN OF JOURNALISM. ABSOUTELY DISGUSTING AND REVOLTING. AND OF COURSE, WE ALL KNOW WHERE LIARS END UP. WISHING YOU A SPEEDY JOURNEY.

[Tony Facade]

Hello Dr Nacos,
I am enjoying reading your excellent blog, but haven't had time to respond. I agree with you that McC and Co are really lowering the bar for qualified leadership. I have several academic friends who wonder how M-P could be the best choices on that end of the spectrum. My own assessment is that the average Republican voter has little expertise in negotiating, sees aggressiveness as a legitimate conflict resolution tool, and sees him/herself as more self-righteous than the pack. I'd really like to see a bit of fire-breathing from Obama, just so I know he isn't another Kerry. Here's a link to Dukakis-Couric:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4386669n

and here's a link to the Iowa Electronics Market:
http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/news/displaystory.cfm?id=2008

My best,
Tony

[scootmandubious]

I saw your link on WaPo and came to read it, because I put up a similar post yesterday.

Good work.

You might want to add, as I did, a brief clip at the end from You Tube, where McCain states what he thinks people can conclude from negative campaigning. It is taken from the 2000 campaign.

We need his words to come back to haunt him.

If you want to check it out, it's at:
http://scootmandubious.blogspot.com/2008/10/mccains-campaign-tactics-show-he-is.html