Here's a bunch of Republicans at a Palin rally saying Obama's a terrorist.
And here's McCain's new web ad calling Obama a terrorist.
One of the most idiotic parts of our political dialogue is this pretense that the Republican Party leaders are disconnected from their base, a conceit held not only by journalists but also by high level Democratic elites. While most of us get that we're playing in a partisan system, and the other side thinks our leaders are terrorists, a lot of people are 'surprised' and 'disappointed' in how John McCain has behaved. And that's the point; Republican leaders agree with their base, a large and competently organized reactionary group of global warming denying nativists. These people exist, they wear normal clothes, they shop at supermarkets, they use email to forward messages about how Democrats are terrorists, and they have cute kids. And Republican leaders are doing what politicians do; they are representing this group.
You can see this basic misconception at work all over. The 'business' lobby is not 'pro-business', it is at this point simply a conservative political network. The NRA is not in favor of second amendment rights or even 'pro-gun', it is a conservative organization seeking conservative political power. Period.
Chuck Schumer, for instance, is only now criticizing the US Chamber of Commerce for its tens of millions of dollars of ads against Democrats, calling it nothing but a partisan group. Of course it's a partisan group, in fact it's worse than that; these business groups are money laundering operations for right-wing corporate money into the electoral process, and it's been obvious for years. They even have a nickname, the 'gang of 6', and work
In the first half of last year (the latest figures available), the chamber ranked first among all organizations in lobbying expenditures, at $30 million. The chamber also contributed more than $4 million to the November Fund, a group that attacked Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry for choosing a former trial lawyer, John Edwards, as his running mate. Today, the chamber is solidly in the black, its $150 million annual budget triple what it was when Donohue took over. It also is staunchly Republican in most of its legislative positions and played a pivotal role in cutting the tax on dividends and approving free-trade pacts, among many other Bush priorities. Whenever the president or his people called, the chamber assembled coalitions of like-minded groups and contacted its 3 million member firms to step up political pressure and donate lobbying-related funds....
For the 2004 elections, the chamber dispersed 215 political operatives to 31 states, mailed 3.7 million letters to targeted voters, made 5.6 million phone calls and sent 30 million e-mails to persuade pro-business voters to go to the polls.
This is part and parcel of the Republican Party, just as McCain is returning home by calling Obama a terrorist. The whole concept that Republican leaders are different than their base exists in the minds of Democratic leaders and media elites simply because they have disdain for their base, whether that base is Democratic activists and voters or highly engaged readers with enough gall to criticize their work as journalists.
So John McCain thinks Obama is a terrorist. That's not a surprise. That's what Republicans believe, and John McCain is a Republican.
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