Usually, at this point, just 22 days before the election, I’m at the point where I’m running out of things to say about the campaigns and am looking around a bit desperately for something non-political to write about, just to take a break and maybe restart my brain. This time around, I had an essay about a kitten – yes, a kitten, that’s what I’ve descended to – on the back burner ready to go against the point where I couldn’t post one more Palin quote without puking. But of course, this year has been a little different. The worldwide economic crash is huge, news that is once-in-a-lifetime, vast in its implications. It has been so big that even the campaign for what is arguably the most important election America has seen since 1932 has been pushed to the side. So: three weeks to go, and I’m looking for opportunities to write about politics. Right now, the kitten’s not even on the horizon, even though he is indisputably a very nice kitten. Europe is effectively nationalizing their banks while US “leadership” is dithering. Tick, tick, tick. That’s where the economy stands. We’re at that point in a Roadrunner cartoon narrative where we’re Wile E. Coyote, and we’ve just noticed a shadow forming around us, bugged our eyes skyward, and opened a little paper parasol in an effort to shield ourselves. Paul Krugman just won the Nobel Prize for Economics. I posted congratulations to his blog, noting that if elected, Obama was going to need a really, really good economic advisor. So let’s talk about the campaign. First, there’s the right wing smear machine. Smearing isn’t limited to the right, and you can find Democrats willing to swear that McCain caused the Forrestal accident, or is actually not a citizen and not eligible to run for president, or turned coward and traitor whilst being held captive in North Vietnam. All three can be regarded, at best, as unprovable and more likely to be politically motivated nonsense. But the smears against Obama are organized, coordinated, carefully planned, and crafted, and repeated, over and over. However, between the huge distraction of the economy and Obama’s willingness to fight the smears, they just aren’t gaining ground. The far right, predictably, has become pretty hysterical. One user on Usenet breathlessly posted recycled stories of a silly case demanding that Obama prove his citizenship with the breathless header, “This could be a game-changer!” The source in this case was something called “The Illuminati Press.” That just added to the gravitas. Apparently he didn’t know that the Dark Illuminati, by all accounts, aren’t very nice people. Or if David Icke is to be believed, aren’t people at all. Another user has posted at least 300 messages claiming that Obama had gay sex in the back of a limousine with a man named Larry Sinclair. Another claimed that Obama boasted of having sex with 10,000 white women, which would be nearly a different one every day for his entire adult life. Forget electing him president: vote him in for God! Along with the usual suspects – Sun Myung Moon, Richard Scaife, Karl Rove, Dick Morris, and Matt Drudge – the smear machine has some other faces. The NY Times just did a piece on Andy Martin, the clown who started the “Obama is secretly a Muslim” crap back in 2004. They noted, among other things, that Martin was diagnosed “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” In other words, he invents and may well believe lurid and crazed conspiracy stories in which he is a hero. The problem was evident enough that it was used to stop him from being accredited as a lawyer. The NY Times notes that over the years, he’s filed hundreds of crackpot lawsuits, despite being too mentally unfit to even be a lawyer. Larry Sinclair has been discredited as a felon with a 27 year track record of lies, fraud and deceit. He’s the one who claims that Obama had sex with him in the back of a limo. Larry himself gave a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC, which tells you volumes about the state of American journalism, and at the end of the conference, was arrested for the umpteenth time, this time on charges of larceny in Delaware. He spent 12 years in prison for one fraud conviction in 1987. According to Tim Shipman of the Daily Telegraph, Sinclair came to the conference with a lawyer in tow, one Montgomery Blair Sibley. Sibley, who wasn’t licenced to practice law in DC, was wearing a kilt, and took advantage of his time at the mike to explain to all assembled that he had to wear a kilt instead of trousers because of his enormous genitalia. For some reason, News of the World didn’t cover that story, but if Monty is Scottish, then perhaps there was mention of it in Ewes of the World. Even Sibley’s, um, imposing presence didn’t stop his client from being arrested. Again. Finally, there was Larry Corsi. He of the “swiftboat” fame in the 2004 election. He released a book, “Obama Nation” which promptly sank in a sea of derision except among the double-digit IQ members of the extreme right, who quote it to one another endlessly. When last heard from Corsi was in Kenya trying to find more dirt on Obama, and annoyed the authorities and got kicked out of the country. That may not have the cachet of being a mentally-ill lawyer, but it’s still pretty good. It would be nice to say these are just fringe crackpots, but unfortunately, these fringe crackpots have pretty much become the voice of the GOP. They have a new leader in Sarah Palin, who has been inciting crowds to shout things like “Traitor!” and “Kill him!” of Obama. One half expects her to start hoisting a noose every time she mentions his name, to cheers from the hooded crowd. I noted at the second debate that then was the time for McCain to apologize to Obama and disassociate himself from such tactics. The press was beginning to notice the really ugly tones Palin was deliberately whipping up among the mentals who believe that people like Sinclair, Corsi, and Martin are telling the truth, and Obama really is a gay moslem communist, his wife a black panther, and his daughters suicide bombers. What’s left of the GOP these days has no shortage of ignorant, hate-filled nuts. But that moment has passed. McCain clearly realizes that his campaign misstepped, and it’s possible that deep in his heart, the man genuinely regrets it. But with it now getting widespread attention in the press, he can’t make a show of changing the tone without it looking like yet another erratic political gambit to try to save a campaign that is foundering. There’s also the fact that people like the woman who told McCain she supported him because “Obama is an Arab” (McCain called her to task on it) make up most of McCain’s support these days. If McCain loses them (and they support Palin in the American European Heritage Party in 2012 or some damn thing) then he’ll be lucky to get Arizona and Utah in the electoral college. Most responsible conservatives have already bugged out from the GOP, leaving only the loons. But McCain should do it anyway, if only because it’s the right thing to do, and if he is to lose, at least he can do so with some class and dignity. And it can start the GOP on the path to breaking away from the clutches of the lunatic-fringe right. The lies and smears aren't working, that's for sure, and people are getting pissed off that in the middle of a major crisis, that's about all they have to offer.
