Who You Calling Socialist, Willis?

"I think it's hard for McCain to call Obama a socialist when George Bush is nationalizing banks."

-Darrell West, Brookings Institution

Taxes

You'd think from Senator McCain's wild exaggerations that Barack Obama is going to tax everyone 100%. But after four debates it's pretty clear to most Americans that he wants to give a tax cut to anyone making less than a quarter of a million dollars. In other words, 95% of Americans.

As for that top 5% making over a quarter-million dollars, their tax rates would only be restored to what they were in the 80s and 90s--before George Bush's irresponsible tax giveaways to them that have stuck us with this balooning defecit we're looking at now.

Those are the Bush tax cuts, by the way, that John McCain used to oppose, too. Before he needed to get the Republican party nomination.

How to Answer the Ayers Question Tonight

Cuz you know it's coming, right?

Look, let me clear up once and for all the rumors about me and this man.

Three points:

One, we're hardly friends, let alone "pals." My interactions with him have mainly been that we happened to work for a couple of the same charitable causes in Chicago over the last decade. Now it's true he did contribute--once--to one of my many state senate campaigns. A one-time donation $200--so, hardly a significant amount and I never considered him a "major" contributor. I did once go to his house, but it was to attend a function honoring another local politician, not myself.

Second, the only reason we met is that we both happened to be involved with a charitable education program called the Annenberg Program. Now that's a very famous name, Annenberg--famous for philanthropy, but also a famous Republican name. Mr. Annenberg was an ambassador for Richard Nixon and Mrs. Annenberg--irony of ironies--is now a supporter of Senator McCain's! In fact: Senator McCain, just this week, issued a press release stating he was proud to have her endorsement. So I say to you, Senator McCain, if you think working with Mr. Ayers is so reprehensible, why don't you ask Mrs. Annenberg herself. I'm sure she would resent being accused of "palling around with terrorists" and rightfully so.

Third, let me say this: I have no admiration or sympathy with William Ayers for what he did as part of the Weather Underground thirty, forty years ago. As I've said, I'm 47 years old, so I was merely a child, when this was happening in the 1960s and 70s, and so wasn't really that conscious of this at the time, of course. I had enough problems in my own family growing up. Later I heard about the Weather Underground, but I certainly didn't memorize all their individual names. So when I first met Mr. William Ayers in Chicago decades later, I met him as an education researcher and theorist as part of this very respectable Annenberg project that was doing a lot of good, I might add, for the public school system there. An issue I cared a lot about. A lot.

I admit, that when I eventually was told more about his background I did not sever all ties. I admit that, and you, Senator McCain and the American people will just have to judge me on that, yes. But I wasn't about to walk away from an important and successful education project over this.

Now I have never, never expressed any sympathy or condonement of the Weather Underground bombings. While the physical damage they inflicted was relatively small, they did take a few lives and they did severely damage property. In my mind Mr. Ayers can claim no justification--none at all--for these actions, even though he was not directly responsible for any of the deaths. I only wish he had been punished to the full extent of the law. As it happens his trial was dismissed thirty years ago due to obstruction of justice and abuse of power during the Watergate days. So, while I wish that weren't the case, our justice system has dealt with him and many, many honorable citizens today would say he has rehabilitated himself into a law-abiding citizen.

That's the whole story. Aside from those Annenberg meetings, some later meetings he attended for the group I was a community organizer for in the same neighborhood, and just running into him on the streets of the South Side of Chicago, that's all I've had to do with the man. To suggest I'm "palling around" with this man, whoever he may be, is simply mischaracterizing and misleading. To say I'm "palling around with terrorists"--plural, mind you--really does approach slander, sir.

There's Negative and then there's NEGATIVE

Enough with the false equivalencies about "both sides" being guilty of demonizing the opponent.

Look, calling McCain "erratic" is not, I repeat not, anywhere near calling Obama a "pal of terrorists."

Erratic? Boo-hoo. Grow a pair, John.

(And by the way--Governor Palin, about that 's' on "palling around with terrorists," is there anyone else besides William Ayers you're insinuating Senator Obama is friends with? Pray tell.)

A Quiz

Question: What candidate, before running for office, sought the blessing of a witch-hunting African healer from Kenya?

Wrong. The answer is Sarah Palin.


Question: What candidate has attended for years a church run by a pastor who said this:

"God is gonna strike out his hand against the United States Of America!"

Wrong. The answer is Sarah Palin.


Question: What candidate frequented a political organization founded by a man who said this:

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won't be buried under their damn flag."

Get it right this time?

on "Troopergate" report

If Sarah Palin managed to achieve this much corruption and "betrayal of the public trust" in just twenty months as governor, imagine what she could accomplish in four years at the White House!

re: "Kill Him!"

So in answer to concerns that the Republican ticket is riling up crowds to call for violence against the Democratic candidate, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers argues: "It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn't understand regular people and the issues they care about."

Yes. Issues like...killing Barack Obama.

Speak Softly and Carry Wha???

John McCain has the nerve to lecture Barack Obama on bellicose language. The truth is that it's John McCain who has talked way too loudly about foreign crises without any stick at all.

First he champions invading Iraq with no plan for follow-through. He tries to threaten North Korea, only to watch them develop nuclear weapons anyway. Joking or not, his rhetoric certainly indicates he'd like to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," even though doing so preemptively would draw us into yet another Mideast war. And now, when Russia encroaches upon its neighbor, he promises Georgia's president full support--even though he's not yet President, and even though that means war with Russia. Russia.

Iraq, Iran, Russia...who doesn't John McCain threaten war with?

Oddly, the only country he's reluctant to take military action in is Pakistan--the one country we know Al Quaeda is hiding in.