Obama Must Fire Staffer who Slighted McCain’s Handicap
The conservative (and libertarian) blogosphere has been abuzz for the past twenty-four hours on the Obama ad which probably ranks as the biggest campaign advertising blunder of the year.
This time, the candidate himself cannot (not yet at least) be held accountable for the bone-headed actions of his staff. Â Some might argue he should since includes the tag (required by federal law) where he says, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
To show how out of touch John McCain is, the ad’s narrator informs us that the Republican nominee can’t send an e-mail.Â
Had the producers of this ad done a few minutes of googling, they might have learned that John McCain knows how to send an e-mail, only that it’s difficult for him to do so. Â As Jacob Weisberg wrote in 2000, “because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard” Â (via the Corner.)
Unless Obama apologizes for his aide’s failure to fact-check or at the very least fires the staffer responsible for this egregious ad, he bears responsibility for its inaccuracy and slight on the Republican’s disability.
Maybe Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, the guy whose “first impulse” on hearing the news than McCain had tapped Palin as his running mate was to slight her as the “former mayor of a town of 9,000,” signed off on this ad. If it was someone else, the problem in the Obama camp is deeper than some think.
Next month they’ll criticize him for not being able to salute properly. Despicable.
Comment by Nick — September 13, 2008 @ 7:20 pm - September 13, 2008
hehehehe, i worry more about mcchange’s mudslinging and pigpalin’s lack of knowledge.
Comment by michael — September 13, 2008 @ 7:50 pm - September 13, 2008
Don’t fire him!!! Let them keep making @sses of themselves
Comment by OutliciousTV — September 13, 2008 @ 8:34 pm - September 13, 2008
Why in the world would you want that person fired? He should be promoted
Comment by Vince P — September 13, 2008 @ 8:48 pm - September 13, 2008
give me a break. my brother-in-law suffers from MS. he has a dot on his head and he surfs the net and does email just fine.
Comment by michael — September 13, 2008 @ 8:58 pm - September 13, 2008
Michael McCain doesn’t have MS, so the comparison isnt working.
There is a record of him being unable to use a keyboard and that typing is painful. My mom had a poorly set broken arm-it limited her ability to use her fingers-she typed with one hand, because she couldn’t use her other-this made typing slow and laborious. My guess this is how it is for McCain-which is why he has other people-ie his wife-type his emails for him.
Comment by just me — September 13, 2008 @ 9:01 pm - September 13, 2008
Let’s see. Mock downs babies - check. Mock pregnant teens - check. Mock disabilities - check. Mock small town people - check. Mock motherhood - check. The Dems are really going for it! How to win friends and influence voters…..
Comment by Stosh2 — September 13, 2008 @ 9:09 pm - September 13, 2008
In other words, she doesn’t get the liberal lying points or read their bumper sticker slogans.
The libs have already shown us how they truly feel about blacks, women and Seasoned Citizens. We learned how they truly feel about gays years ago. Yet somehow these clowns still vote for them expecting different results. What’s that called again?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 13, 2008 @ 9:30 pm - September 13, 2008
And the Democ-rats continue to dig into Senator McCain’s war record. They’re desperately trying to find their own “swift boat.”
Losers.
Comment by Julie the Jarhead — September 13, 2008 @ 9:43 pm - September 13, 2008
Can we get michael to do BHO’s next few ads? Please.
As they demean regular Americans it appears the rout is on.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 13, 2008 @ 10:10 pm - September 13, 2008
Oh, It gets better.
Rhandi Rhoads (I don’t care about the spelling) is telling her Air America audience (Air America still exists) that, I kid you not) Sarah Palin is the type who would molest teenage boys!
Comment by sonicfrog.net — September 13, 2008 @ 10:26 pm - September 13, 2008
That should have been (Air America still exists???)
Comment by sonicfrog.net — September 13, 2008 @ 10:26 pm - September 13, 2008
He can list all the genetic inferiors that must be put to death so that the resources of the fatherland are not wasted on them.
With michael covering their PR, the rest of the Obama campaign staff can do what they do best… lip-syncing to show tunes.
Comment by V the K — September 13, 2008 @ 10:28 pm - September 13, 2008
Did you guys know there is a case in court now considering the fact that Obama is ineligible to be President?
The lawyer who filed the case has a site here
http://www.obamacrimes.com/
In the brief they lay out this case
- There’s controversy that he might have been born in Kenya
But regardless of that
- His mother subsequently married an Indonesian and relocated to Indonesia
- Under Indonesian law, when you marry an Indonesian and live there, the mother becomes a citizen of Indonesia
- Under US law, when a person aquires a new nationality, their US citizenship is revoked
- Under US law, when a minor’s guardian aquires a new nationality, the minor loses his citizenship
- Under US law, when a former citizen returns to the US, they could regain their citizenship by swearing an oath of allegence at an embassy or court.
Barry never did this, additionally, when he was 20 years old,, he went to Pakistan with an Indonesia passport
Berg v. Obama, et al. Civil Case No. 08-cv-04083
Answers are due from the various parties to the lawsuite as follows:
Barrack Obama September 24, 2008;
DNC: September 24, 2008 and
FEC: October 21, 2008 (Federal and Government Employees and Entities have sixty (60) days)
Comment by Vince P — September 13, 2008 @ 10:44 pm - September 13, 2008
Did you guys know there is a case in court now considering the fact that Obama is ineligible to be President?
The lawyer who filed the case has a site here
In the brief they lay out this case
- There’s controversy that he might have been born in Kenya
But regardless of that
- His mother subsequently married an Indonesian and relocated to Indonesia
- Under Indonesian law, when you marry an Indonesian and live there, the mother becomes a citizen of Indonesia
- Under US law, when a person aquires a new nationality, their US citizenship is revoked
- Under US law, when a minor’s guardian aquires a new nationality, the minor loses his citizenship
- Under US law, when a former citizen returns to the US, they could regain their citizenship by swearing an oath of allegence at an embassy or court.
Barry never did this, additionally, when he was 20 years old,, he went to Pakistan with an Indonesia passport
Berg v. Obama, et al. Civil Case No. 08-cv-04083
Answers are due from the various parties to the lawsuite as follows:
Barrack Obama September 24, 2008;
DNC: September 24, 2008 and
FEC: October 21, 2008 (Federal and Government Employees and Entities have sixty (60) days)
Comment by Vince P — September 13, 2008 @ 10:44 pm - September 13, 2008
Did you guys know there is a case in court now considering the fact that Obama is ineligible to be President?
The lawyer who filed the case has a site here
http://www.obamacrimes.com/
In the brief they lay out this case
- There’s controversy that he might have been born in Kenya
But regardless of that
- His mother subsequently married an Indonesian and relocated to Indonesia
Comment by Vince P — September 13, 2008 @ 10:46 pm - September 13, 2008
it’s impossible to comment on here
Comment by Vince P — September 13, 2008 @ 10:46 pm - September 13, 2008
Yep - “michael” (who, despite being an internet savant, can’t find the SHIFT key on his keyboard) can bring his copy of Mein Kampf to the next Obama ad meeting.
Obama can keep his staff just as it is… when someone is making an ass of himself, who are we to interfere?
I’d love to see Steve Schmidt (McCain campaign manager?) issue a blanket response to these Obamanations along the lines of “we just don’t have the enough staff to keep track of the tsunami of crap coming from the other side”.
Comment by SoCalRobert — September 13, 2008 @ 10:53 pm - September 13, 2008
I agree with OutliciousTV and Vince! Let’s stop giving Team Messiah advice. They’re doing just find one their own!
Comment by KevinQC — September 13, 2008 @ 11:38 pm - September 13, 2008
Vince-
I’m not a lawyer… and I’d guess at least one of those alleged facts is in dispute… but, assuming all those facts and conclusions…
Couldn’t Obama simply head down to the nearest courthouse and swear out an oath of allegiance? Then he’d be a citizen again, and would still have been born a citizen. Technically, one might parse things finely and rule him out — but I can’t imagine any real court actually doing so.
On a barely related note… the constitutional requirement is that a candidate be a “natural born citizen” with no further explanation. Anyone think there’ll be a legal challenge to the first Presidential candidate who was born by IVF? Could a case be made against a candidate who was born by Caesarian section?
In a technical, legal sense — perhaps. In a practical, what-would-a-real-judge-say sense — not a chance.
Comment by Clint — September 14, 2008 @ 12:29 am - September 14, 2008
Obama covers his tracks
Ed Lasky
Barack Obama apparently wishes his two autobiographies to be the definitive record of his past. He has blocked efforts by others who wish to independently examine his past.
He won’t allow his transcript from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to be released.
He “lost” his thesis on Soviet nuclear policy (see “Where in the World is Obama’s Missing Thesis” which might provide insight regarding his seeming lack of knowledge about Soviet policy during the Kennedy years).
He won’t answer questions about his days at Harvard Law School.
He “lost” his Illinois Senate records.
He will only release a simple one-page letter from his doctor on his medical condition.
He won’t release his application to the state bar, which, as National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes raises questions about whether he told the truth about parking tickets and drug use, among other issues.
He won’t disclose list of his clients from his law firm days or the nature of the work he did for them as a lawyer (his clients include the indicted political fixer Tony Rezko).
He walks away from uncomfortable questions about Rezko at a news conference.
His cultists try to shut down inquiry into his stewardship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by sliming a journalist investigating his days at the helm of that group, which blew through $100 million dollars with no discernible benefit for the schools and students that it was putatively designed to help (what does the constitutional law lecturer say to the chilling of free speech by his acolytes?).
He tries to muddle his long-standing ties with Pastor Wright by producing a version of his attendance record at Trinity Church that is sharply at variance with previous versions he has given (”Obama Re-invents his Trinity Church History”).
The Wall Street Journal joins the battle over Obama’s past in today’s editorial (”Obama’s Lost Years”):
The Columbia years are a hole in the sprawling Obama hagiography. In his two published memoirs, the 47-year-old Democratic nominee barely mentions his experience there. He refuses to answer questions about Columbia and New York — which, in this media age, serves only to raise more of them. Why not release his Columbia transcript? Why has his senior essay gone missing? [....]
Voters and the media are now exercising due diligence before Election Day, and they are meeting resistance from Mr. Obama in checking his past. Earlier this year, the AP tracked down Mr. Obama’s New York-era roommate, “Sadik,” in Seattle after the campaign refused to reveal his name. Sohale Siddiqi, his real name, confirmed Mr. Obama’s account that he turned serious in New York and “stopped getting high.” “We were both very lost,” Mr. Siddiqi said. “We were both alienated, although he might not put it that way. He arrived disheveled and without a place to stay.” For some reason the Obama camp wanted this to stay out of public view.
What can be said with some certainty is that Mr. Obama lived off campus while at Columbia in 1981-83 and made few friends. Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him.
Barack Obama is the least-examined Presidential candidate in American history. Partly this may be due to the fact that he has a paper-thin resume and few accomplishments. However, he does have a record and past (he is, after all, approaching 50 years old). An informed electorate is the foundation of American democracy — a principle which Senator Obama has ignored. The mainstream media — with a few courageous exceptions (the pages of National Review, Weekly Standard, ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper) — have aided and abetted Barack Obama’s quest to change history retroactively by immunizing him from any serious examination. Meanwhile they send the journalistic equivalent of the dogs of war to create their own history of Governor Sarah Palin (notably by pulling journalists off the terrorism “beat” to cover Palin’s record in Alaska).
He accuses people who scrutiny his record of being engaged in distractions or pulls the race card out and slurs them as racists. At times, he has all but accused people who inquire about his record as being stupid. He imperiously declares some areas of his life as being “off limits”.
For a man who constantly trumpeted the importance of transparency he seems to be adverse from applying that principle to his own life. He owes the voters a clear accounting of his past.
Why have journalists allowed Barack Obama to avoid scrutiny? The media has been called the Fourth Estate for its crucial role in ensuring that democracy thrives. When journalists abdicate their role, we all suffer. What is Barack Obama afraid of regarding his past? What do journalist fear to find?
When they rely on Barack Obama’s version of his life to become their stories they become nothing more than campaign workers laboring away for free.
Come to think of it, this does not seem so far from the truth.
Comment by Vince P — September 14, 2008 @ 1:30 am - September 14, 2008
This is utterly ridiculous. If Stephen Hawking can use a computer, so can John McCain. This is just BS to cover for his lack of this critical 21st century skill.
Computers are perhaps the most empowering technology for people with handicaps. We really only know who Stephen Hawking is BECAUSE he can use a computer. I have worked with people with MS before that were confined to wheelchairs, who could barely move their arms at all … and they knew how to use computers.
McCain’s own words are that he is ‘illiterate’. Not that he is ‘incapable’ and indeed there is plenty of video out there of him doing things with the same motor skills he would use to operate a computer.
Comment by pcupp