Don't forget Obama and ACORN, a notorious organization.

When did McCain, Palin, or anyone actually associated with their campaign say that Obama's ties to Ayers mean that he might be a terrorist or that he's a terrorist lover?

What complete and utter BS. How many times has Palin described Obama as “palling around with terrorists”? OTOH, even Republicans work with Ayers now and have done so for years as this quote shows.

“It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier,” said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. “It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly.”

Here is a link to a Time magazine article very critical of Ayers and Dohn but that is honest enough to point out that in fact much of the establishment in Chicago of both parties has ties to them at least as strong as Obama's. Yet it doesn't even occur to CS that just maybe she and other Republicans who condemn Obama and say that there are still huge unknowns about their “relationship” are just plain wrong. The truth is that Kurtz got access to those papers. Whine all you want, at the end of the day he did get access to everything. What shocking news did he come up with? That in fact Ayers was one of five people on the committee that invited Obama to join the CAC board.

Of course I don't say that that's the case- and neither is it the case that McCain and Palin questioning Obama's judgment and potential sympathy for far left radical politics is meant to actually imply that he's a terrorist.

The event I described is that Sandra Bernhardt said that Palin should come to NYC to be gangraped. I maintain that this is somewhat of a parallel because of someone being whipped up into an irrational state of advocating violence because of rhetoric that has been over the top and that demonizes a political opponent.

So, should Democrats denounce this, or do we have to get into some kind of precise equivalence before you can have the decency to do that?

What Mikkel said here needs to be repeated:

Your objection is the sort of thing that has really been driving me up the wall, where principled people such as yourself and a lot of moderates kept defending Bush based on the explicit words and actions rather than the themes in the presentation. The whole “terrorist” refrain is what it is…they are not saying “Obama had functions with this person that has social views that we disagree with and are harmful.”

The implication is clearly that Obama is a terrorist or loves them or something along those lines.

Let's keep in mind that this was the same group of people that crucified for Bill Clinton for saying: 'It depends on what your definition of “is” is'

The topic is someone screaming KILL HIM, referring to Barack Obama. But since you brought a different topic up, has anyone shouted KILL HER????

This is exactly the environment in which some crackpot could do something really bad. It is incumbent on John McCain and Sarah Palin to state unequivocally that hateful outbursts will not be tolerated and do not reflect their views.

Perhaps Rick Moran can lead that effort over at his Rightwing Nuthouse. What say you, Mr. Moran?

I await word that they have done so.

I don't completely disagree about ignoring the context that is used as propaganda method, but I find your analysis of it in the current situation disingenous (though I don't think you're doing it intentionally, just that it's one of those things that always looks worse when you see the other side doing it.)

The Ayers issue goes directly to a problem with transparency of Obama's history and record. If the concern is that this association is being hinted at as worse than it really is, then the Obama camp deserves some blame for that because they haven't been open about it (even some of Obama's close associates are admitting that he's tried to keep the relationship under the radar screen.) Now, you can complain that this is because the public is unnecessarily or inappropriately biased against such types of relationships, but again I'll point out a hypothetical if a GOP candidate were associated with a Dominionist and tried to hide it. The left would be completely unglued over that.

I'm getting off topic though because what I wanted to point out is that you generally are willing to admit that the Dems fearmonger in certain ways but you aren't really calling Obama and Biden out on that, but you are specifically deriding the GOP candidates for fearmongering on their own version of the “us vs. them” theme.

And one other area where Obama's lying about their relative tax plans is when he keeps repeating that he'll give a tax cut to 95% of Americans. That number includes something like 45% who DON'T PAY ANY INCOME TAX- so they can't possibly be getting a tax cut but will instead be given a credit. That's a spending program, not a tax cut, but Obama chooses to frame it that way so that he can claim one up on McCain for giving tax cuts.

(You can say he only meant staying there long term in a similar role, not active combat and that's the misrepresentation. But there is no plan that will actually work long term in Iraq that has been proposed.)

As for the other stuff….

His SS plan, same thing..what McCain has proposed at times would destroy how it works or at least doesn't make sense. I'm not even sure what his plan is these days it keeps changing…but if he's still tlaking about private accounts then yes that doesn't do anything. (I just joined TMV and am going to be doing posts that focus on math and science and how not understanding how things works leads to bad policies and misconceptions. One of them is going to be about how the stock market works….because all sides are missing the obvious.)

The health care plan IS a distortion depending on whether his plan is for a “deduction” or “credit.” I've read credit meaning that what the Obama camp is saying is wrong. Economists have argued it's wrong because they are lying about how wages will be affected (i.e. if they drop benefits wages will have an equal rise), but that relies on wage models that I don't think work for a myriad of reasons. But as long as the companies keep the benefits and people can apply the credit towards their income, then what Biden is saying is wrong. If the credit can only be applied towards paying for health care benefits explicitly, then it depends on whether you believe the wage models or not (which I don't). At the very least, it would put a lot of people into the individual pool and their rates would increase, although I'd personally get a lot more money under the plan. So it's a toss up based on how the credit is structured.

Taxes? Well Obama is lying about only on those that make $250K because of increased payroll for everyone, it hurts people that own their own companies. Also he is lying when he says that McCain gives nothing to most people, as the average tax cut is almost identical McCain just gives a lot more to the top 1% instead of increasing their taxes, and has a greater deficit than Obama does even with Obama's programs.

Energy plan? Well Obama does lie about McCain's and McCain lies about Obama's. That is where they are worst.

Anyway I feel like we're clogging this thread so this is my last post.

They are saying Obama might be a terrorist…or at the very least won't protect you from terrorists because he's friends with them. They are just doing it in a way that they have plausible denialibility.

It's like saying that Palin is a crazy right wing Dominionist End of Dayer when if you listen to her opinions on governing she brings up a lot of legitimate issues about the limits government power on different lives. She seems to be a creationist and I hold that against her because I find that they tend to not, shall we say, pay attention to science. But when I heard her argument about the role of the government in ciriculum I had no problem with it. So if she demonstrated scientific acumen in things she'd actually control then I think it's completely pointless to care what she thinks about creationism.

And yeah I'm aware that they are using that impression to try to manipulate people, especially in Florida. That's wrong too.

OK, it is not even certain that the “KILL HIM” comments was really made.

So, how about just a comment to the effect of, “If such a comment was really made, it is a comment that Republicans would frocefully condemn and distance themselves from.”

As far as what the Ayers/CAC thing is all about- first point is that we really don't know yet because the records were just finally released!

Second point is that they're not necessarily even about fraud or anything illegal, and I certainly don't think there's any indication that Obama is a Manchurian candidate who will allow his allies to blow up the Capital. What does appear to have happened though, is that Obama has tried to cover his tracks for what was a pretty far left agenda and use of a political cronyism system of Chicago to foster his career. A lot of money changed hands and went to people who helped him get elected, and Ayers' fingerprints are all over it.

You may not see anything objectionable about the education issues involved, but shouldn't the information about the projects be allowed to see the light of day? Ayers (as well as many other people involved in those projects- including one of Obama's education advisors) DO have a very liberal agenda, and they're on record discussing their theories of promoting that agenda through the classroom. People have the right to know the details and decide for themselves.

To try to create a hypothetical if it were the other way around: what if Palin really had pushed for Creationism to be taught in Science classes? And then the minutes of meetings where she was expressing support for this agenda were blocked from being released to the media? Would people on the left be upset about that?

It's not necessarily about fraud (though I do think a legal form of graft was quite possibly involved.) It's about transparency, and the appearance that there was probably quite a bit that is politically unpalatable to people outside the Chicago bubble, which needed to be surpressed.