McCain/Palin, ACORN, Obama and the Election Of The Century

[Robert Howard]

McCain/Palin, Obama, ACORN and the Election of the Century.

Imagine a football game with your favorite team, the Blue team ahead 21-17 and less than three minutes left in the game. Your team is on offense and driving but still hasn't reached the end zone, to put the game away. Since playing not to lose, is a textbook example of how teams that should have won, lose; you decide to play to win......On the next play you call a pass, albeit one of the safer variety; a deep sideline pass with the primary reciever, and another wide reciever to his right, to prevent an interception, by the Red team. Seemingly a no lose situation right? Wrong.....

Although only an analogy, imagine the following takes place on the next play.....

The QB goes back to pass, the play is being executed as planned, and the target reciever is wide open! "Yes", the QB thinks, "all I have to do is complete the pass, and it's all over."

He throws to the reciever on the left sideline, the other wideout, who is also a blocker sees a safety coming up full steam ahead....The safety slams into the WR, while a cornerback plows into the primary reciever before the ball has landed in his hands. He proceeds to intercept the ball, runs it back all the way for a touchdown.

The score is about to be, Red Team 23-21, over the Blue Team, and with the extra point your heroes will be down a field goal with less than 3 minutes to play.

The Blue Team coach appeals to the referees, stating "that was the most blatant pass interference, I have ever seen in my life, how can you let that stand?"

The Referees huddle together and emerge after a conference stating. "The pass was intercepted by the defense and returned for a TD, after studying the replay, it is ruled there was no interference on the play. The play therefore stands as a Touchdown."

The Blue team goes on to lose the game; unable to score in the remaining time left.

So what does all of this have to do with Presidential politics? A parable of sorts, to be exact.

The game is the 2008 Election, the Blue Team, the Democrats and the Red Team; the Republican's.

The, less than three minutes, represent the less than three weeks left in the election, and the play on which the Red team stole a victory is the looming ACORN "scandal."

Today is October 18, 2008. In 17 days, Barrack Obama could be the first African-American President in the history of the United States of America.

Many are excited about the prospects of, not only a change in parties in the White House, but the populist message of Barrack Obama and his genuine compassion for the same disenfranchised Americans that have borne the brunt of the economic policies of the Bush Administration. It is an established fact that the ominous cloud of global economic meltdown has shifted the tone of the Election of 2008 from debate about Iraq and The War On Terror, to an issue which is the economy, pure and simple.

And obviously, an economic meltdown of global proportions, is a very big issue in this election.

In 1992 economics or, at least the articulation of an economic policy is thought to have played a large part in George H W Bush's loss to Bill Clinton.

The elder Bush is considered to have lost a fairly simple opportunity to be re-elected, because the American voters felt he did not have a economic strategy to contend with an economy that was stagnating. Some might remember the quote, "It's the economy stupid." And Bill Clinton, to a great degree, utilized that issue into a Democratic win.

Sixteen years later, the American voter faces a similar dynamic, with regard to who will be the next President of the United States, albeit fraught with more than the seemingly simple issue of a bruised economy.

Sixteen years later, America is faced with a situation, both foreign policy wise and domestically, that is seemingly without parallel.

We are in the last part of a decade that witnessed the attacks on the Twin-Towers, the sinister face of Al-Qaeda, and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush doctrine of pre-emption, was a major component in part, of how "the case for invasion," with regards to Iraq, came to be.

In the last few months, the world has witnessed a scene that is eerily evocative of the beginning of the Great Depression, with the exception of a most telling feature, that in the year 2008 we are in the era of Globalization, with each country, in effect, part of the worldwide chain of financially intertwined entities. The responsibility of the G-8, the International Monetary Fund and the global village of the investment banking and financial entities, "must work," it would seem, to secure that what is feared, a global financial meltdown does not take place. It is an issue that cannot be underestimated, in terms of the seriousness of the issue it evokes, the line from the movie Apollo 13, “failure is not an option.”

Which brings us back to the 2008 election here in America. Republican "shenanigans" of the "dirty tricks" variety seem to have disappeared from our collective national memory, as well as the mainstream media. And that is what will be discussed in the following sentences.

Well, for the sake of length, the question is, where do we begin?

Republicans are prone to start their historical chronology on the topic of political scandals with the FDR Administration, with the Allied triumvirate of the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States in a war for civilization as we remember it, against the Axis Powers. An unenviable position for Franklin D. Roosevelt, but one that historians consider the decision that made victory over the Axis Powers a viable reality, to begin with.

Republican amnesia over pre-FDR history is quite understandable really, when you consider the era of Teapot-Dome or, historical recollections of the calls for a dictator to takeover America that took place in social circles as the Great Depression really sank into the national consciousness.

See

There is also the domestic "fascist-coup d'etat" that would have seemingly resulted in a a fascist government in the land of the free, were it not for the efforts of an obscure General named Smedley Butler.

[see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=s...+butler&aq=]

But, of course that is a forgotten episode in most individuals American History 101, unless you are in high school, or studying at your local college, or University.

So, with a clear acknowledgement that Landslide Lyndon Johnson, is not being currently considered to be added onto Mount Rushmore, we will begin in the Era of Richard Nixon. A hallmark of his quest for the Presidency in 1968, in part was a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War, after his election, it was discovered there never had been such a plan.

Approaching the year of Watergate in the summer of 1972 a bizarre event took place where Edmund Muskie who was, at the time the Democrat's "lightning in a jar," broke down crying in a public appearance that was later found to have possibly involved either CIA spooks, or the Republican National Committee. Either way, the event relegated Muskie to the end of the line, as a Democratic candidate for President in 1972, and George McGovern, who, at the time many felt was to the left of center of mainstream America was humiliated by Richard Nixon, who himself, would be gone from office before his term ended as President.

There is the still contentious issue of Pres. Gerald Ford's issuance of a "blanket pardon" for any and all crimes which took place in his administration. An administration that featured such hawks as the current Vice President Richard "Dick" Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The 1976 Election of Jimmy Carter seemed to promise a new beginning, and a break from the past for the Democrats. While in many minds, it was an end to a string of corrupt Republican occupancy of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Carter also faced his personal experience with international terrorism, in the face of the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt and the storming of the American Embassy in Iraq in 1979, and the subsequent beginning of a "hostage crisis," that would not end until he was no longer the President.

Here history splits into two version's of what happened next. Journalist Gary Sick and others, including former government officials alleged that the "real" reason the hostages were not released until the day President Reagan was sworn in as the successor to President Carter, was that then candidate George H.W.Bush, met with representatives of the Iranian government in Paris that quashed a deal in the planning stages by the Carter Administration for the hostages. In Gary Sick’s account of these events, the Reagan/Bush campaign cut a deal with the government of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomenie that the hostages would not be released until after the election; in return the Reagan administration would provide tow-missiles, anti-tank weaponry and other various and sundry arms and ammunition to cinch the deal. This charge is met with a chorus of denials to this day, even though the only other posssibility seems to be that all of the individual persons included in their “on the record” accounts, are simply "enemies of America." A familiar refrain these day’s.

Whatever happened, and something did happen, when the subsequent Iran-Contra Scandal broke in the second term of President Reagan, it left him in "lame duck status," accompanied by the attempted suicide of Robert "Bud" McFarland, who was then Pres. Reagan’s National Security Advisor.

In the Iran-Contra scandal, American's first learned of Rex-84, which was described by Oliver North as a contingency plan for martial law in the United States. Martial law has been declared in individual areas of the lower 48 states, such as during World War II, but Americans have never had to experience the loss of Constitutional Freedom, and one would hope that consensus on the sanctity of constitutional freedom, never becomes a tool of the politically corrupt. Although under the right conditions, martial law could be declared in America tommorrow, in the event of either a terrorist attack, or a event which is catastrophic in its severity.

The last case to be cited of the Republican dirty tricks issue again concerns the 1992 election, this time regarding the Strange Case of Ross Perot.

Ross Perot was unique as an American candidate for the ultimate political office in America, and his campaign also featured some of the strangest episodes in recent memory.

Once his name was on the ballot in that election, and there was, at least a possibility, that he “could win;”

there were news stories and rumblings that a attempt was going to be made to crash his daughters wedding with some type of incident of a tawdry nature and the remark which was for all practical purposes his death knell as a candidate. Although most American’s probably remember Perot for antics during the debate involving his VP selection of retired USN Rear-Admiral Stockdale and Perot’s selection of words when addressing an audience of members of the NAACP as "you people." The following, is in the minds of many what officially dropped him into "stick a fork in him, he's done" status. It was a statement made to the effect, that he was being targeted for assassination, by a "Cuban hit-team."

The story was covered in a manner which made Perot seem like a nutcase, and in a case of retrospect one wonders, if his promises to clean-up Washington of the spectacle of institutionalized lobbyists and special interests groups may have had something to do with his "self-destruction."

An then there's Monica-Gate; her dress is at the Smithsonian Institute and the political demagoguery on both sides of the pro and con's for impeachment is not an episode that, looking back, speaks well of Washington D.C. on either side of the fence, whether one is a Democrat, or Republican. But it does seem interesting in retrospect that the person of Linda Tripp before being immersed in the Monica Lewinsky Scandal, had in the years 1987 to 1989 the following areas of employment in her resume:

* Department of the Army, Army Intelligence Command, Classified unit (administrative assistant), Fort Meade, Maryland 1987

* Department of the Army, Classified Assignment (Operations Assistant), Fort Bragg, North Carolina 1988 to 1989

See

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/06/29/tripp.bio/

It would be important to note that most Americans were not aware of the above factoid, when “Monicagate” was actually taking place.

No one can feel good about the office of the Presidency, being associated with scandal, of any kind, whether of a personal nature, or scandal involving using the office to facilitate such crimes as an illegal and unconstitutional invesion of Cambodia, [see Richard Nixon] or withholding information from Congress regarding illegal arms shipments to Latin America [Reagan Administration 1987].

But the question should be asked, if a President is successful in implementing foreign and domestic policy and carrying on the day to day functioning of the Government succesfully, but has a scandal regarding his or her personal morality, is that worse for the country than an administration, such as the Nixon and Reagan and Bush administrations, which were associated respectively with scandals of astronomical consequences, such as The use of CIA agents to commit domestic crimes, with regard to the Nixon Administration as well as the illegal and secret invasion of Cambodia, the incredible scandal of the Reagan administration taking secret financial profits from the sale of arms to Iran and then diverting those funds to finance the contras in Nicaragua, without the knowledge of Congress, to an election in which duplicity was used in the balloting process in Florida, coupled with a very supportive Supreme Court in “deciding,” practically the hour the “decision was made” to stop counting the overseas ballots that would have more than likely made Al Gore the President in the year 2000?

And now with less than three weeks until what might be, the single most important election in our lifetime, we are being told by the McCain/Palin campaign that ACORN and Barrack Obama are partners in crime, of such a nature that it raises “serious doubts” as to whether the Democratic candidate with practically a double-digit lead as of Saturday October 18, 2008, should even be the next President.

The response on my part is that if anyone is not allowing the possibility that the fingerprints of the Republican National Committee and/or any other “right-wing” groups or individuals even within the government are not beneath this big mess they are not only extremely naive about Presidential politics, but might need to seek psychological help, an admonishment that is also extended to the national press corps covering the election. In Vincent Bugliosi’s book The Betrayal of America, he wrote “The right wing of the Republican Party, of course, is the group that always likes to loudly proclaim its patriotism. But if they had a patriotic bone in their body, which they do not, then, for example they would want the President of The U.S., even though he is a Democrat to do well. Why? because if the president does well, the entire country does well, But they only want the country to do well if one of their own people is in office. If not, they’ll do everything, to destroy the president, whether he’s Clinton or any other Democrat.”

page 19, The Betrayal of America: How The Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President - Vincent Bugliosi - Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books 2001

I would only add, that in the case of Barrack Obama, they know that the eventual truth will not confirm their allegations, but that is not the point. They are simply doing what the Bush Administration and many Republicans have been doing ever since the aftermath of 9-11, which is pushing the fear button, over and over and over. And they are really good at it.

Edited October 18, 2008 by Robert Howard

[John Simkin]

Members of the far-right like Craig see Obama as a great threat to the "American way of life". People like him favour dirty tricks and some sort of "October Surprise". However, it is possible, that the people who really matter, the wealthy elite in the United States, are not concerned about Obama. After all, they have given him plenty of money for his presidential campaign. Obama has already shown where his loyalies lie with his support of the banking bailout.

[Robert Howard]

Members of the far-right like Craig see Obama as a great threat to the "American way of life". People like him favour dirty tricks and some sort of "October Surprise". However, it is possible, that the people who really matter, the wealthy elite in the United States, are not concerned about Obama. After all, they have given him plenty of money for his presidential campaign. Obama has already shown where his loyalies lie with his support of the banking bailout.

As of today former Sec. of State, Gen. Colin Powell has indeed endorsed Senator Obama, his comments this morning were as eloquent a statement regarding the pertinent issues of our time, as one can imagine, even free of ideological perspective. Although it is strictly an opinion, my perspective on his comments regarding the issue or non-issue of the highly controversial Mr Ayers, reflects the fact that Mr Powell is like many American's who see the future of America and the world as too profoundly important to engage in the politics of division and discord. While all candidates for President are rightly subjected to a gauntlet of sorts regarding the moral ramifications of their past associations and actions, it is quite another matter to engage in doing so, merely to inflame and divide the American people and to continue down a path that reveals an incredible indifference to sowing discord and division between American's in effect, simply to win an election.

Critics will simply bash Colin Powell for reasons that are more of the same, but those with a moral vision for the future of our planet will see someone stating a truth, that must be acknowledged if America is ever to regain its position of moral leadership in the community of nations.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Robert Howard