The Militant Moderate

Among all the points and counterpoints, often brilliantly done, in the presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi, one poignant moment stands out in the mind of this observer.

It was Barrack Obama’s line in response to a human emotion anecdote of some length by John McCain. He told of the mother of a soldier lost in Iraq giving him a bracelet with words to the effect, “Wear this and be reminded to see that my boy did not die in vain.”

Barrack’s simple reply was, “I have a bracelet, too. It was given to me by a gold star mother who had lost a son in Iraq. She said, ‘Wear this as a reminder to let no other mother suffer what I have suffered in losing my boy needlessly in Iraq. Stop this awful war.’”

This one poignant moment topped all of the McCain warrior rhetoric about “victory,” “winning this war,” “not suffer defeat,” and “come home in honor.” The light of the glory of “the surge” was strangely dimmed.

Although McCain scored points with those who agree with his party’s positions for the last eight years, to others he seemed irascibly locked into their same party line on the economy, on the Iraq War, refusal to talk with some national leaders, tax policy, and other familiar issues. In trying to be emphatic, he often seemed just unnecessarily aggressive and angry.

McCain came across as an older, crankier version of George W. Bush, one that you would not want to have a beer with.

To his credit, Obama did not allow McCain to get by with reckless accusatory statements similar to those he has made on the campaign trail. There were frequent words like, “You know that is not true,” followed by an explanation why.

Evidently it was McCain’s debate strategy to put Obama on the defensive much of the time. If so, this strategy was essentially nullified by Obama’s counters. Nevertheless, McCain often made more quick, critical thrusts than Obama had time to note or to parry. Thus, some escaped rebuttal.

Polls indicate Obama won the debate handily. He appeared to be a Cassius Clay matched against the slow, lumbering, strong-armed champ, Sonny Liston. As Ali characterized himself, “I float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee.” The talented Obama often left the aggressive McCain stumbling, flailing, and fighting air.

However, McCain deserves credit for rallying his base. Conservative republicans should have liked what they saw. Their man was out there slugging, armed with the time-worn, individualistic, free market tenets of republican philosophy. Sure enough that hardcore 34% of the electorate polled thought that McCain won the debate.

The hope was that these points would resonate with blue collar, working class males, even though such would require ignoring their own personal and family welfare. It remains to be seen whether this happens.

McCain’s theatrics just before the debate turned everybody off. His threat not to attend the debate, and his thwarted attempt to take charge of negotiations on Capitol Hill, were ill-conceived and transparent even to political dullards. He simply frustrated those negotiating in good faith.

Lying to David Letterman was a terrible goof.

Now McCain’s own conservative editorial columnists are attacking his vice presidential choice, after her confused, dismal performance in television interviews. His party’s congressional delegation apparently considers him irrelevant, and some in his party are critical of his posturing. He did not have a good week.

Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Too many in the media, in their efforts to appear unbiased, like to paint candidates in both parties with the same tar brush. They like to criticize both campaigns of going negative. Some may deserve this criticism more than others. Some may deserve little of it.

People in the media, and thus average citizens, are blaming democrats as well as republicans for the lack of progress of good legislation through Congress. Actually, republicans have used the lack of a 60 vote democrat cloture majority in the Senate to stop votes on 90 progressive bills. Oklahoma senators have joined in this legislative obstruction.

Too many “truth squads” seize upon several outright falsehoods, made up and publicized by one camp, and equate this despicable conduct with use of direct quotes in critical statements from the opposite camp. Even when quotes lack context, there is a difference.

Too many in the media have aired repeatedly statements by Sarah Palin and by John McCain which were already checked and known to be untrue. They give free press coverage to wild accusations made by McCain, even repeatedly showing his attack ads free during news programs.

We are waiting for somebody in the media to just call “straight talk” McCain a “plain liar.” We are waiting for somebody in the media to label Sarah Palin as simply a “serial liar.”

That will be the day when the media regains respect as the fourth estate.

Jim Inhofe’s ads truthfully proclaim that he is a “hard-headed” and “stubborn” man. These omit “dumb,” “ignorant,” and “redneck.” Inhofe’s dirty attack ads against his young challenger have gone from the gutter into the sewer. How could voters keep electing such a person of low ethics?

Before voting for McCain and Inhofe, people should remember that only a short while back these two, along with Tom Coburn, were avidly supporting privatizing Social Security, turning our future over to what they now call “Wall Street casinos” for management. A number of us had their letters in answer to our protests against that. They used two pages to tell us why we were wrong and Bush was right.

Twenty-six years in the Senate as a Reaganesque anti-government, anti-regulation proponent, and with a campaign stable full of lobbyists, now John McCain wants us to believe he is a reformer and a regulator. He wants us to believe that he will go in and clean the house he has lived in for years.

Does anyone remember the “Keating Five” and McCain’s direct intrusion into government regulation of a mismanaged savings and loan in Arizona whose CEO was a principal supporter and fund raiser for McCain? Our “straight talk” guy was reprimanded by the senate for ethics violations of the very sort he now pledges to clean up.

Some of McCain’s ads against Obama have been not just negative, but gutter. When they make up something, or add to and distort a truth, it becomes a lie. We ought to say so.

McCain said that as an Illinois legislator Obama sponsored a bill which would put sex education in kindergarten. The sarcasm of the ad made its purpose more than clear. Yet they knew well that the program for young kids was about avoiding and reporting adult predators. This ad “approved by” John McCain has to be regarded as a lie.

Ms. Palin’s constant repeating of lies about her actions in Alaska have been a part of the talking points of their campaign as “mavericks” and “reformers.” “I told Congress ‘No, on the bridge to nowhere.’” This statement has been discredited by mainstream media, shown to be false, and yet she repeats it over and over. But we do have a $26 million federally funded “road to nowhere.”

This and other similar statements make Palin a “serial liar.” The fact that McCain stands by, even quotes her, makes him either a bumpkin or a serial liar as well. His outright statement to an incredulous 60 Minutes reporter that Palin was fully capable of being president indicates either untruthfulness or incompetence on his part.

McCain’s choice of the unqualified Palin to be his successor, should he pass on, was really a direct insult to the nation. They can claim the slogan “country first,” but it does not hold water. Who in their right mind thinks Palin is ready to be president? Our country deserves better.

Those who take “Forked-tongued” McCain and Pit Bull Palin inside their cloak, to their breast to cherish, will be bitten later. They will be reminded of the old admonition of the freezing serpent, “You knew what I was before you took me to the warmth of your breast.”

Yes, it would indeed be better to hear a debate about the issues than name-calling or gutter politics as usual. There are problems.

It is very difficult to campaign against a foe who keeps making dirty accusations and circulating ugly, false material. About 35% of Americans believe the oft-repeated lie that Obama is a Muslim. Another 10% aren’t sure, and slightly less than half are aware he is Christian.

Further, it is hard to campaign against a foe who keeps changing his position. From hard-core, deregulating conservative and 95% support of the Bush presidency, McCain is now and advocate of “change”and “reform.” From his past record as against government regulation, McCain is now for it.

He wanted to fire the head of the SEC for not regulating better, while in the senate he voted to gut the authority of regulators and to open up financial institutions to free market enterprise. When told he could not fire him, McCain said, “I’d find a way to make him resign. That is the kind of president I’d be.”

Even George Will, conservative columnist, calls McCain “childish” and expresses doubt about his suitability as president.

Yes, Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin, we have a good idea what kind of presidential team you’d be. We have seen that kind of stubborn, misdirected, vindictive, temperamental presidency for the last eight years. We have already seen a presidency based upon bluster, lies, and distortions.

We have seen vindictive persecution of those who fail to toe the loyalty mark, however wrong. We have seen corruption within the executive branch. We have seen a pattern of stonewalling and refusal to submit to subpoenas. We have seen secrecy in formation of policies. We have seen liars in office.

We have seen a sell-out of government to special interests. We have seen “no-bid” contracts which have lined the pockets of crooked business people at taxpayer’s expense. We have seen a lack of competency in high offices to the detriment of our people.

We have seen the subversion of our Constitution, which the presidential oath swears to uphold. We do not want to see more of these last eight years.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

This writer is not a teller of tales – claiming no talent in composing fictional plots and stories. But sometimes he demonstrates an unusual gift in foretelling alternative futures from present day events and circumstances. This writer has undertaken to exercise this gift in looking toward one of those alternative futures extracted and projected from political events of recent weeks.

Let us look at the Palin “bump,” “kick,” or whatever name is given to the surge in interest in the republican presidential ticket is called. Then let us follow the future line expecting that the nation might repeat its history of 1972. That was when Richard Nixon was re-elected in spite of earlier breaking of news stories about a role in the Watergate break-in and in the illegal raid on the psychiatrist’s office.

In this future scenario the McCain/Palin ticket is really elected, in spite her meager resume’, impetuous speech, and the legal problems lurking in her background. Then let us suppose that she is later indicted and scheduled for trial on charges of abuse of power, travel claim fraud, and perhaps other charges. She is then forced from office, either by conviction, impeachment, or shame.

This would, of course, be a replay of the Spiro Agnew story, when the Vice President of Nixon’s choice was indicted, tried, and convicted for corruption and bribery while still a governor. House Speaker Carl Albert, a democrat from eastern Oklahoma, became the first in line to replace the president. The democrats controlled Congress.

Very graciously, and to the displeasure of many in his party, Speaker Albert put aside any personal ambitions he may have had. He invited the president to choose a member of his own party as vice-president. Wisely, Nixon chose Gerald Ford, House minority leader with friends on both sides of the aisle. He was approved by the House.

We know the rest of that story. Nixon resigned in shame, and Gerald Ford became the first president never to have been voted upon in a national election.

Now, let us suppose that history repeats itself with Sarah Palin. Let us suppose that the McCain/Palin ticket, by some joust with fortune, is actually elected. Then let us suppose that Palin is followed to the vice-presidency by her political past in Alaska. Let us suppose that she is indicted, or worse, for such crimes as abuse of power, filing false travel claims, or other charges stemming from current investigations and findings there.

Now comes the nightmare. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi becomes the next in line for the presidency. And then we ask ourselves the question: “Will Speaker Pelosi, in the current hostile partisan atmosphere, acquiesce to leading a move in the House to approve a new designee of President McCain for the vice-presidency.

The answer to that question is easy: “Likely not.”

Then let us suppose that the aging McCain, a man with recurring malignancies, passes on during his first term. Who becomes president?

You’ve got it -- Speaker Pelosi becomes President Pelosi.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a republican’s worst nightmare.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate.

The McCain camp very wisely kept the ever talkative Sarah Palin under his watchful eye during the ten days following the republican convention. She only spoke her scripted stump speech, an abbreviated version of her convention appearance. Reporters were not allowed near the vice president nominee.

McCain’s handlers finally agreed upon an interview with one network reporter, ABC anchorman Charles Gibson – consistently referred to by the familiar name form of “Charlie” by Palin during the conversation. One wonders why the campaign selected “Charlie” for this privilege of the first interview. Palin seems somewhat presumptive with this familiarity, since he referred to her as “Governor.” Or, maybe he told her to call him “Charlie.” That is a small point, but a bit troublesome.

Nevertheless, Charles Gibson is an experienced professional journalist, and he was no doubt conscious that he could not be too easy with Ms. Palin and maintain respect among his peers. Yes, he threw her a lot of soft-balls, but he also threw some hard-balls as well. She was treated very kindly at times, although professionally.

Ms. Palin’s response to the first question bothered this observer. Asked how she felt when called about the vice president nomination, and when she was told she had been selected. Her response was: “I’m ready” plus other immodest, overly-confident comments.

Gibson questioned, “Doesn’t that take a lot of hubris.”

Palin answered: “No. Not really.” She repeated expressions of her confidence that she was ready for the job of being vice president and taking over if needed.

This was too, too much for many of us. Nomination for that position would give any seasoned public servant some trepidation, and it would evoke some kind of modest expression from most. Harry Truman had a “kicked by a mule” humbleness about taking over from Roosevelt.

Anyone who does not understand the gravity of the position is not qualified to hold it. The prospect should be sobering even to the most confident and experienced among us.

Although Gibson was not going for any “gotcha’s,” he did catch Palin unprepared in a few instances. In other instances, she danced around his questions. She used the old technique of answering a different question than was asked. Gibson did not push her. Most troubling was her tendency to perpetuate a false or misleading position taken earlier.

She was given ample opportunity to correct her “thanks, but no thanks” turning down the money for the “bridge to nowhere,” not admitting she was for it earlier or that she accepted and spent that ear-marked money on other Alaskan projects of interest to her. An overly courteous Gibson did not press and nail her to the wall, as most reporters might have done.

Oftentimes Gibson seemed content to let her obvious misstatements stand for the viewer to judge. Unfortunately, a lot of viewers are not that politically sophisticated.

Most of us who follow the news, national events, and public policy knew what Gibson was asking her about the “Bush Doctrine,” but she did not know. After he explained it to her, she danced around the question of whether or not she agreed with Bush. It is clear that she had been instructed be cautious about agreeing with Bush, lest the democrat charge of “four more years” stick.

She agreed with Obama on strikes at Bin Laden and Taliban inside Pakistan, thus not in agreement with McCain. She did state clearly that her personal positions against abortion in any case, other than the mother’s life, disagreed with the McCain position. To her credit, she said her personal positions should not be law necessarily.

She talked proudly of her NRA membership. She spoke against banning public possession of assault weapons, pushed by law enforcement agencies of all kinds, who must face such weapons in the hands of criminals.

Delicately phrased by Gibson, Palin addressed the issue of whether she could be a mother and also attend to the awesome duties of vice president or head of state. This is a question being raised by many women around the country, he said. She responded with the usual hubris that she did that while being mayor and governor, and therefore could surely handle it. She could have at least said it would be difficult, and full of many conflicting demands on her time, energy, and attention.

Gibson did not address many other touchy questions which have arisen, nor did he confront her with some of the more publicized discrepancies or the controversies in her background. Although he raised some, basically he treated her with kid gloves.

Governor Palin’s verbal skills and agility were quite impressive. She lacked substance and gravitas. She is being taught the party line as fast as she can learn it. She is not yet ready for prime time, nor for serious national responsibilities.


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

While democrats keep trying to make the campaign and the election about issues, the republicans keep trying to make it about personalities. Republicans are now trying to cast themselves as change agents, ignoring the fact that they have already been in power.

They are trying to re-define the persons on their ticket with newly crowned maverick status, breaking the icons of politics, when they are still employing the trash tactics of their history. They want to re-define the persons on the democrat ticket as the old Washington of profligate spenders and tax hikers. Both McCain and Palin are covering up their own records with lies and misinformation.

Will Americans fall for this republican personality strategy, covering up their party’s shortcomings, mistakes, and responsibilities for the mess in government? Will republicans get away with shucking their party responsibility for the past eight years by campaigning as mavericks bent on changing Washington?

This “war hero” personality cult is considered by some as a diversion to turn the voter’s attention away from a party’s platform positions and its past record by magnifying the personal past of its candidate. John McCain has been granted lots of free rein by the American people because of sympathy for his five years of suffering in a prison camp.

However, sympathetic we may be, that experience does not excuse him for the positions he has taken as a republican senator. It does not excuse him for his lack of specific, useful programs for meeting the country’s needs. That POW card has been played too often. It should not distract from current shortcomings.

Voters should look at McCain’s meager offerings of ideas for the betterment of citizens and the nation. His energy policy is “drill here, drill now,” then to give lip service to new technologies that neither he nor his party have ever actually supported. His solution to the economic recession is to continue and expand tax breaks to the rich and to corporations – to create jobs, he says. His solution to the health insurance crisis is to make employees health insurance premiums taxable to the employer, cause their abandonment, and then give workers a tax break on insurance premiums if they can find it.

The most recent AARP Magazine offers a forum stating the organizations position on each one and giving McCain and Obama agree and/or state their own positions. One after another – the economy, Social Security, health insurance, etc. – McCain refused to agree or disagree with the organization’s position. He chose instead to write vacuous statements without commitment on any. In every case, Obama agreed with the position of AARP, and he added explanations of his own specific proposals in that area.

On the speaker’s platform, the “gray knight” McCain has taken to telling fibs, exaggerations, and distortions. An example: “I will cut your taxes. Obama will raise them.” Another: “He will take away your freedom of choice in health care and put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor.” Then: “She sold the airplane on e-Bay and made a profit.” The man has trouble with the truth.

This campaign really needs to involve an honest presentation of positions, not distortions and accusations. News media should not let any candidate get away with lies, distortions, and misrepresentations – of one’s own or the other’s positions. They should not get away with lies and distortions of their own records or that of their opponents.

Voters should not let candidates from the party in power for the last eight years to get away with campaigning with promises to “shake up” and remedy the wrongs of Washington, as if their own candidates and party were innocent and disassociated with any of these ills. Guffaws and jeers would be more appropriate than applause and cheers.

It appears that the republican campaign machine considers the average American voter to be a “redneck,” which is the level they are casting their appeal. Or else they consider voters as too dumb or too ignorant to recognize the inconsistencies of their campaign rhetoric with reality.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

It is difficult for the Militant Moderate to be objective in his opinions and observations of the Republican convention. That party tends to be extremely militant, and not at all moderate, in the rhetoric of its speakers and in its platform.

The first day of the convention was a bust. Sympathy for those on the gulf about to be hurricane victims was the theme, although it is difficult to assuage the memories of an incompetent republican administration and the tragedies of Katrina in New Orleans. This sympathy seemed a bit maudlin.

The second day was in gear, but nothing really spectacular occurred. Speakers tried to rally the crowd without a lot of luck. On the third day, McCain’s vice presidential pick, chosen in deference to his right wing base, hit the crowd like a thunderbolt. She engendered high emotions and exuberance with her attack rhetoric.

Those republicans who wondered why McCain picked an unknown for a running mate were in part reassured, as she proceeded to set up one straw Obama man after another and then kick them over. Her strident rhetoric appealed to the party faithful, and her good looks and smile won much acclaim. Actually written by one of Bush’s writers, what her speech lacked in honesty and truth, it made up in style.

Unfortunately, Ms. Palin was inadequately vetted by candidate McCain and his people. She is virtually an unknown person, which speaks much about the wisdom of that choice in and of itself. But she is now being checked out carefully by the news media. Her former acquaintances are speaking out.

She has depicted herself as “a pit bull with lipstick,” and she brags about being nicknamed “the Barracuda.” The movies used a similar phrase, “hellion in high heels” to refer to persons such as she describes herself. That is indeed her reputation.

The picture that is emerging is one that includes a small town mayor who fired the city staff, including planner, management, and police chief. She pressured the city librarian for a “book burning” cleansing of literature she thought morally bad. She inherited a city with no debt and left it $22 million in hock, with a lightly used “money pit” sports complex but no modern sewer system. Her touted “tax cuts” were in high-value property taxes, and these were compensated with a consumer sales tax that included groceries.

Ms. Palin stretches her meager resume’ somewhat. Her claim to selling a jet plane on e-Bay was false, and it was sold privately at more than a half-million loss to the state. The pipeline for which she took credit hasn’t even been started.

As mayor she hired a lobbyist affiliated with the indicted Alaska senator and took millions in earmarks from the federal dole. As governor she was for the “bridge to nowhere” before she was against it, but she took that “pork” earmark money and spent it on her own pet projects.

Ms. Palin bragged about vetoing expenditures as governor. Most of these impetuous vetoes turned out to be for government functions she did not understand. It is said that she later signed bills for most of the same items.

Ms. Palin does not believe in human causes of global warming, and she believes in teaching creationism in science classes. She believes that sex education should be “abstinence only,” which has been proven ineffective in studies all across the country and in her own family. She has attended meetings of the Alaska Independence (Secession) party, of which her husband is a member. She thinks God is guiding the Iraq war.

Abuse of power in office showed in the 22 contacts made by her people to the public safety director seeking the firing of a former brother-in-law. The director was fired when he would not succumb to pressure. An investigation is underway. She has a lawyer. Both the commissioner and the brother-in-law are now speaking out. She and the McCain campaign camp label all this as just politics.

But does this say anything about the campaign’s touting of “change” from Bush and company? Remember the corrupted U.S. district attorney system, purging all who were not loyal enough to the party to base prosecutions on politics? Remember Scooter, who illegally exposed a CIA agent for political reprisal at the urging of White House staff and the Vice President? He was convicted, but the president commuted his sentence.

Ms. Palin attacks news media, using such names as the “eastern elite” to describe media people, as well as Obama and other detractors. McCain has himself blustered complaints of bias, intimidating news media into giving him airtime for his personal attacks on Obama during the latter’s trip to the Middle East and Europe.

Does anyone out there recall the attacks voiced by a previous vice-president on the media and the intellectual and scientific community? Does anyone remember the attack phrase: “nattering nabobs of negativism?” How about the phrase: “effete corps of impudent snobs?” Those went over big also.

For those with bad memory or of young age, these were utterances of the crooked vice president of a crooked republican president of the United States. Both eventually resigned in shame. Spiro Agnew, criminally convicted of bribery and corruption, was the attack dog on the democrats and the media for Richard Nixon, also a crook.

The McCain camp has denied press access to Sarah Palin. She will have no press conference, they say, and will not expose herself to any reporters for interviews unless chosen by the campaign staff. Of course, she does not want to answer public questions about her record, but what does this say about openness in government? Isn’t this just another Bush policy?

We question the wisdom of making enemies of media people, even if the owners are republican.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate