Move over, Willie Horton (Marty Kaplan)

[struggle4progress]

October 27, 2008
By Marty Kaplan

... On Saturday night, the same Peter Feldman told the Associated Press that McCain "rejects politics that degrade our civics." He said this not to deny his role in the Ashley Todd story, but to try to distance the McCain campaign from an email sent to 75,000 Jewish Pennsylvanians by the "Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008" warning "Fellow Jewish Voters" that an Obama victory would risk a second Holocaust: "Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision... Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year" ...

It is conceivable, I suppose, that John McCain actually believes, as he told the Des Moines Register, that he always tells "100 percent absolute truth" - that he is not winking at us ironically, not signaling "it's just politics, my friends," not asking us to pardon him for just-doing-what-a candidate's-gotta-do, when he says that Jerry Falwell "is no longer an agent of intolerance"; or that he told Bush to fire Rumsfeld; or that he's the only presidential candidate not to receive money from "special interests"; or that he'll balance the budget in four years; or that Obama wants kindergarteners taught "comprehensive sex education"; or that Sarah Palin is the country's foremost expert on energy.

It is even conceivable that Sarah Palin really does think it's true that the Troopergate investigation exonerated her of "unlawful or unethical" activity; or that construction of a $40 billion Alaskan natural gas pipeline really is under way; or that Obama really does pal around with terrorists; or that Obama's economic plan actually amounts to crypto-communism ("If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody" under an Obama administration).

But in the end, I just can't make myself believe that the Republican ticket has drunk its own Kool-Aid, just as I can't bring myself to imagine that Peter Feldman doesn't realize that he's licking the razor ...

http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/move_over_willie_horton_20081027/