Why Play Victim If You’re Winning?
Last week, Obama whined about Fox News on no less than three occasions in as many days. The remarks culminated in the claim that his lead would be at least three to four points higher if his broadband-beamed nemesis did not exist.
In the same week, Congressman and known blowhard John Murtha decried the “racist area” that he represents in Pennsylvania, also opining that such sentiment would cost Obama points in the election (though not victory). This week, after the remarks gained infamy, he corrected himself. He only meant in the past the same area has been “really redneck.” I’m sure his constituency is writing him Thank You letters for the speedy mea culpa.
Even Obama repeated what the Secret Service would confirm as a lie, that someone at a Palin rally yelled “Kill Him” at the very mention of “The One’s” name.
These are not isolated incidences.
For weeks, there have been multiple insinuations that those who do not support Obama must obviously harbor racist tendencies. Fine fodder for academia, who pretty much regards anyone not sharing their astute observations as lacking intelligence, even if not at their own fault due to sociological, Anglo-Saxon brainwashing, but his drumbeat has only grown louder in recent weeks, making its way from academic discussions to accepted wisdom. Numerous columns have been written on “GOP Hate.” Where were these fine people when Bush was being burned in effigy? That’s right, they were busy telling us that renowned “hater” Saddam Hussein, who had himself only brutalized, tortured, and mass murdered his enemies, should still be in charge of Iraq.
Nonetheless, the Obamabots, receiving and acting upon every “action alert,” got the memo that Republican hate is the theme of the day. Even the blog posters relay accounts of such, replacing the lame, childish “McSame” and “McBush” monikers with “McHate” in their hand-wringing posts, wondering what has come to civil discourse. Really, don’t comment back to them with one hundred accounts to one of violence and vandalism against Republicans, their McCain/ Palin sticker sporting cars, their yardsigns, or, Hell, even multiple local campaign headquarters. They’ll just call you a “moron” and remind you how Sarah Palin tried to kill her own baby in the womb by continuing her work as governor so that she could avoid the embarrassment of an abortion. Civil, indeed.
Look, I’m used to the ad hominem attacks. I’m used to the lies. Surely there are nutjobs of all stripes, but I don’t wake up in a brand new shiny world every three minutes, and I therefore remember these continual, ongoing attacks against me and those like me just for having different ideas than they do. It’s not new. Some people do forget, and it’s why a guy whose campaign has called an honorable man “dishonorable” repeatedly stands a decent shot at being President. The people who’ll vote for him probably believe him when he says he “loves” Joe the Plumber while his running mate and campaign attacks and vilifies him. While that disgusts me, both the candidate and the ignorant public following him, it’s just not new. I can just hope a few people are swayed back to sense by the irony of it all.
What IS new is the growing volume (both in the sense of sound and numbers, it seems) of these attacks in such public spheres while the media reports the election is pretty much over. Do you attack one news outlet when the public believes all but that one threw you lots of softballs if you think you’re absolutely winning? No. At best you seem like a whiner, at worst you cause people to dig at the fact that everyone else was in the tank for you. Do you attack a private citizen as a campaign opponent for asking a question if you believe you’ve won? No. At best, you keep his question in circulation longer, and at worst you cause people to become sympathetic at your attempts to steamroll someone who looks a lot like them. Do you decry the hatefulness of your opponents if you think you’re the one you’ve been waiting for? No. At best you have to answer for the hatefulness of liberals for the last eight years, and at worst you have to answer for the hatefulness of your most trusted spiritual, political, and personal advisors for your whole life.
The polls may lean Obama’s way, but there is too little correspondence in data from one to another to take them seriously. I could give past history to show these polls could likely be in error. I could show the bad assumptions that are leading to bad data. I could show the wild swings in single polls across a week. I could show the unprecedented number of “undecideds” in a starkly contrasting election. But you don’t need that to accept that this race isn’t over. You only need to look at the desperate actions of those who are attempting to marginalize half, or more, of the country and dismiss their critiques as race or hate driven.
This is only over if you decide it is. Want to spend the next four years continuing to be intimidated and besmirched by this race-baiting, socialist, anti-American apologist who trained in the corrupt machine of Chicago politics, at the feet of crooks? Better make a choice now, while you can still make ones that matter.
Jared A. Chambers
