I'm not ready to count McPalin out yet.

It seems that the Obama spike in the polls is related to the perception that the economy is in big trouble and that he's the one who can fix it.

It's not hard to imagine a scenario where the stock markets recover back to where they were, gas prices stay down around 3 bucks, and Americans get fooled into thinking that "the economy" is no longer an issue. Meanwhile, the incessant background noise about Obama's being a terrorist Muslim America hater is eroding people's confidence in him.... to the point where it all comes down to race.

Not that far fetched, methinks. I'd hope we are more informed than that, but there is so much mis-information and deliberate propaganda and lies it's hard to predict how it will go. I wonder if this is how Germany was in the late 20s.

-Wexler

It sounds more like the Hillary underdog speeches.

It seems to me that fighting is partly to blame for what has us in this mess in the first place. Between a war we shouldn't have taken on and a presidential office that looked to pad it's cronies pockets with war dollars coupled with domestic battles on the economic front, when do we get to stop fighting and fix the problems!

To me it sounds like a sad, tired old man watching the world pass him by. The country doesn't need a dying old man fighting his past demons, fighting his "if only's", fighting to matter in a world that's moving on.

Part of the problem is that John McCain and the Republicans have framed this as an election about John McCain (its past time to give him his due, we owe it to him). The thin policy stands are designed to nothing but prop him up. His debate performances! "My friends, I do that!" "I get it." Even "That one!" was dismissive in a self absorbed way.

Reguardless of his back-story, we don't owe him anything.

Even my staunch right-wing "Always voted Republican - loved Ronald Reagan" neighbor admits McCain has gotten embarassing. He can't bring himself to vote for Obama, so he says he'll leave his presidential vote blank. When I mentioned that will help Obama he didn't say anything - just shrugged his shoulders.

What better indicator of McCain's inability to lead us than the fact that his campaign staff is flailing? He can't even lead THEM. Repeating the word "fight"??? Wake up and smell the economy, McCain people!

McCain sure is a fighter - he is a bellicose twerp of a man who was in a lot of fights as a youth, pushing people around and acting like Napoleon. He even fights with women, being charged with public profanity for screaming obscenities at a woman who rejected his clumsy romantic advances. He earned the nicknames "McNasty" as a result. He almost was kicked out of the U.S. Naval Academy for his belligerent behavior.

He has also shoved around colleagues in the Senate, like Chuck Grassley from Iowa, despite the fact the Senate is supposedly a collegial body. Thad Cochran, a fellow Republican Senator, says "he cannot imagine McCain as Commander in Chief", given his fiery temper and nast disposition.

Look, this is a stupid, belligerent little weenie of a man who is constantly trying to prove how tough he is. I wouldn't trust him to behave civilly if he were in charge of the pony rides at the circus, let alone as president of the United States! The fact he is nothing but a "fighter" makes him unqualified for the job.

Why on earth would McCain say he knows what homelessness is? I understand he was a POW decades ago, but that's not homelessness. And the man has eight freaking houses now. Why make people bring that up again?

Oops. :)

I read "hopelessness" and "homelessness."

All we need - a President bent on picking a fight with the world. Have we learned nothing from 8 years of George Bush? I hope and pray we Americans are better than the Republicans think we are.

Really..it's gotten absurd. I don't know enough about McCain's record as a senator to have any opinion about his former abilities to "get things done", but the tenor of his campaign is enough to tell me that he's totally, utterly out of control. And by that, I mean without a rudder.

I'm not one of those on the left who sees Obama as the second coming, but his campaign has smartly maintained it's cool while McPalin and company have fueled anger, then tried to calm it, repeated strange claims like, "I know where (bin Laden) is, and I'll get him" (perhaps the most insane comment to come out of the last debate), and now this meaningless, unspecific crap about "fighting for...uh...whatever you got".

The fact is, McCain undid McCain, by being more ambitious for power than he was for his once refreshingly bold, across-the-aisle issues and agenda. He's given up everything he stood for and so now he stands anywhere he can. It's a sad and telling means for acquiring the White House and it has soured me permanently on the man. I'm guessing that I'm not alone.

Precisely!

I hope that, unlike so many phrases uttered on the right, that "fight" is not another one of their damned code words. Okay, taking off my tinfoil hat now....

In the sorry old world performance of the Bush League Circus, we watched as the Ringmaster John McCain lost it, and we are seeing the last performance in the public arena of the bearbaiting strong man in an ill fitting suit with moth holes.

All that McCain supporters
have to do is relay the
Goldman Sachs-IRS link.
People, for the most part,
are familiar with the new and
improved collection powers
granted to GS/IRS through
this latest bailout.
And note that GS/IRS has
contributed 690 thousand to
Obama's campain. Hmm.
No wonder GS stocks rose 30%
today!

Indeed he is a fighter. First he fought the Vietnamese (soldiers AND citizens)who were trying to defend their countrys' sovereignty, then he fought for Charles Keating's right to fleece citizens who parked their money at his bank, then he fought the families of MIAs and POWs who wanted to get their loved ones back, fights for the military industrial complex, big oil, big pharma, corporate globalization of our countrys'job base, he's fought hard for Bush and his policies these last 4 years, fights hard for the monied elite, now he fights an opponent who seeks to change our overall direction.

John McCain never did have any HONOR. He's always been a liar and a cheat. He only got into the Naval Academy because he was the son/grandson of Admirals and his Daddy bought him a place in spite of a horrible academic record. His GOAL during his time in the academy was to break every rule in the book. He was sited for insubordination over and over again and his Daddy made DEALS to keep him from being courtmartialed. He was a hot shot show off who crashed 5 planes due to his arrogance, playing around and showing off in the cockpit. He crashed one into some power lines in France and caused a major blackout for miles around. He caused the deaths of over 170 men and the wounding of over a hundred more on the USS Forrestal and never has shown even an iota of remorse. After his plane was shot down over Hanoi, he collaborated with the enemy for extra coffee and cigarettes. He TALKS about HONOR and DUTY and PUTTING AMERICA FIRST, but TALK IS CHEAP. When it mattered most, he's ALWAYS put McCain first and to hell with America. The "Straight Talk Express" has ALWAYS been the BS Express. He's the worst kind of coward. He sends the Pit Bull out to incite violence against a man just because he's smarter and is winning over him and his Pit Bull. Hiding behind a woman's skirts when he doesn't have the courage to say what he thinks himself. That way he thinks he doesn't have to take ownership of the filth that comes out of his own campaign. And he doesn't have the guts to even look Obama in the face, let alone ever admit he's wrong. The "family values" Republican who abandoned his wife and children for money, power and an heiress. If he hadn't been the son/grandson of Admirals, he would have been forgotten within MONTHS of returning home from the war just as the other THOUSANDS were. AND, if he hadn't single handedly shut down the investigations of MIA/POWs left behind, TO COVER UP HIS OWN DIRTY RECORDS, many more would have come home too.
There's a special place in HELL waiting for John McSame and Failin' Palin if their rabid followers harm Obama or his wife or children. And THAT'S what they are aiming FOR.

Yes, this is exactly what Germany was like in the late 20's.

If Johnnie boy would work harder at getting his head out of his butt, he wouldn't have to "fight" to see the light !

Laura, I do not say this to many but...what in the hell do you know? Your words are that of ignorance. Progressive, liberal and open minded my foot! What you spouted is no different than the right calling BO a muslim. Add an ounce of sugar to the sour lefty juice, will ya'.

Laura Nason - you should be ashamed of yourself for spreading the terrible lie that McCain caused the Fire on the USS Forrestal - this is simply not true! What you said is at least as bad as the McCain B.S. that Obama hands with terrorists.

This is exactly the divisive B.S. that is leading our great country down the crapper.

Unfortunately for America - the rest of what you said is mostly true.

Please - let's all try and take the high road!

Well stated, Laura!

A campaign on its last leg...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KzbJtG9V2E

I think Mr. McCain suffers from senility. He reminds me of my stepfather. The language he uses is often diseased logic.

I think Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, should run for President becuz he truly knows what being a Pack Leader means! He says that any candidate for Pres. should have to pass the test for walking a large, attack type dog, to see what he's made of & if he can, in fact, LEAD?! Yes, i would love to see McCain try that manly task - i would bet my last dime that it would confirm Laura's negative character assessment of Mr. Pain McCain.

Cesar also points out that we 'humans' are the ONLY SPECIES in the whole animal kingdom that will FOLLOW an UNBALANCED LEADER = UNSTABLE PACK = the crash of th

Well said, Mr. Whiteman. You just can't fool all the people all the time.

Why not Cesar Milan. He's already more qualified than Sarah Pailin for my money. (Only a hearbeat away!)

I believe Mc Cain is a fighter, but I do not think he knows what it is he is fighting for, America or his last chance to be like Daddy and Grampa who were successful fighters.McCain says America first, but it is really just his ego that is first. He is still fighting the Vietnam Police action, because he did not get to win.

So here we go again, another attempt by Sen. McCain and his inept campaign to try and "turn the page" on the actual issues that Americans face on a daily basis. Yes, he's a "war hero", we've all heard this many times, too many if you want the honest truth about it. And yes, he was a POW, but that certainly doesn't mean he KNOWS how we feel about the way things are going when he isn't even sure how many houses he owns, how many cars he owns, or even how much he's paying the staff to take care of all these homes.

Over the weekend the McCain campaign rolled out a number of surrogates to speak on behalf of the campaign. Each of them were told to talk about how McCain would be unveiling his "new" economic plan (as if he's actually had one to date, other than suspending his campaign to show-boat for the media). And then on Monday morning his campaign says, "No, he'll be releasing details tomorrow." And then by late in the day suddenly these surrogates that were given talking points were wrong, McCain has no plans to release any major plans, that he now wants to wait and see what everyone else does first.

Now I ask this; is that leadership? Or is that just proof again that McCain is an "empty shirt"? Someone who can't find a policy and stick with it. I mean he can't even manage his own campaign, how can we expect him to manage an entire country? Especially when he has had his hands deep in the mud that has created these problems over the past 30 years. His 26 years in the Senate clearly has proven one thing, he's in the pocket of lobbyists, and will sell his services to the highest bidder.

And lets be honest, we all know that being down 6 points, (according to the McCain campaign's incorrect polling data), sound cheerier than acknowledging that in reality their campaign is now behind by more than 10 points in actual polling. Clearly it's time to send this man to retirement, and send his running mate back to play with the polar bears.

Screw McGoofy. After a talk like that, I'm voting for the Power Rangers! Can't you see the Old Guy out there swinging a sword at the Socialists? We don't need someone with a pace-maker on the front lines of the Repuglican Permanent Revolution. We need the Yellow and Purple Rangers, confronting evil with flying kicks, bricks, and pastel smoke bombs!

In this age when we can actually see our enemies (hint: they "pal around" with terrorists) we need crusaders who won't balk at shooting random liberals from helicopters ("Call them a radical, first!"). We need people like the Wolf Mother, who could put lipstick on a radical socialist godless liberal moose -- and then shoot it with a .3006 and stew it up.

We need people who can heartlessly take a list of those who've been kicked out of their homes in this foreclosure crisis -- take that list to balloting places, to keep those same people from voting. A kind of icing on the cake, as it were, of being suddenly homeless. Lose your home; lose your vote.

So fight! Fight for the right of big business to take critical risks every day with our money, and demand rescue when they lose it all. Fight, so that CEO's can continue to defy the wishes of stockholders, to run their companies as Unitary Fiefs, and private cash-boxes. Fight, for more and more years of blustering foreign policy, and wars without strategy. For a continuing teetery relationship to other nations, that reflects the increasingly teetery living and employment conditions in this country.

Fight for a return to Saint Reagan's Dream: Morning In America, and the star-spangled orbits of "defensive" missile "shields." Remember, the best "defense" is an offense, or at the very least a credible threat of one. Which means talking tough -- and meaning it.

McGoofy's hero is Teddy Roosevelt. By Gad, Teddy knew what a war was good for. Wars build character, he said -- and he wanted more of them, for that reason. McGoofy wants to build America's character.

Drill Baby Drill.

I expect that the debate on Wed. will contain reference from McCain to his POW experience. How he has fought for America. He hinted @ this with the last debate, implying that he is entitled to the Presidency. Having earned it through his years of service. The reason he is so fixated on Ayers has more to do with his own unresolved emotional issues due to his feelings of shame & guilt over his internment & loss of the Vietnam War. He is angry & bitter & Ayrers represents all the people he believes did not appreciate all he sacrificed during the war. To make matters worse the very man who my beat him for the presidency, Obama has a superficial conection to Ayers. This is all about McCain's inability to get over Vietnam. So I expect to see all this brought into the debate.

HEY,my friend MR. MCcain is not one thing you said about
him.He served his country most probbly while you were a baby.I was in the NAVY with MCcane the USNC part it at least you should show some RESPECT you cry baby, grow up
join the service you might learn something!!

As a Fight, I'm very impressed that McCain is willing to Fight, but what is he Fighting for? This Fight thinks McCain is still Fighting the Vietnam War and the demons of the past, and does not know how to Fight the Fight of the Future. McCain should instead consider Fighting against the forces impelling him to Fight the Fights of the past and Fight against the demons preventing him from Fighting the Fight of the Future. And as a Fight, I'll support anyone who wants to Fight a man incapable of Fighting this Fight, because if he is elected, he will spend all his time Fighting all and sundry.

McCain sounds a bit like the Black Knight in the Monty Python movie, doesn't he, still cussing at King Arthur even though he has no arms or legs. But here's his real problem - McCain was never a "fighter pilot" fighting other fighter pilots. He was a bomber pilot ("Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran") on his 23rd mission dropping bombs on Vietnamese. He never had to look his opponent (or Obama) in the eye, until he was shot down by ground fire. Now that introduces a whole other problem, if you follow the analogy into the debate circle. According to his jailer and the guy who "tortured" him, he never had his arms and legs broken again and again like his memoir says. They had strong political debates (read the NY Times article in September). Now that may seem like torture for McCain, but for the rest of the world it's how you really solve problems. You'd think he'd have learned something after five years as a POW in a war we lost and never should have been fighting. What he did back then was certainly not for our freedom. But he has a history of being erratic, in order to fabricate some kind of heroic identity based on fictional characters he's seen in the movies (Marlon Brando). His town hall meeting style of huffing and puffing about 99% scar tissue like an old featherless fighting cock needs to shift from "I've been a greater patriotic heroic victim than you" and joke telling and lying about his opponent to real debating where the issues are discussed and solutions are deconstructed and reconstructed without losing our sight on the future of where we want to be as a civilization on earth. Now let's see if he has caught onto that this Wednesday night.

I hope he will lose, lose, lose.

My friends, I couda been ah contenda!

Moving right along.....

When we do stop fighting things that we never had to fight and address what is needed here in this country? McCain is a bitter and angry little man. According to the families of MIA-POW's he has done nothing to assist them, in fact has done just the opposite. All he wants is what a spoiled child wants...his way! We have endured nearly 8 yrs. of that kind of 'governing' and I know I do not need or want that for this country or myself ever again! McCain will give us what we have had, and I say "Thanks, but not again".

Laura Nason :
Thanks, It's a great post & I can't say it any better.

The REAL John McCain

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

nick is right,
this is straight out of hillary's playbook. when she did well she kept saying i will fightfightfight. now if he simply lists the people he will fight for: teachers, cops, waitresses and combines that with his being whiteness, he can turn this thing around. you yup, folks are that gullible.

McCain is fighting the wrong people-He needs to take on his real enemies Bush and Cheney and Paulson! If he did an all out attack on Bush and Cheney for going to War for profit, and Paulson for deliberately causing a run on Wallstreet, everyone would be cheering him on!

Remember that being a fighter and "fighting" as the underdog are exactly the themes that Hillary Clinton used as she fell behind in the Democratic Primary. Sounds like McCain is ripping a page from her textbook, given that those themes played well for her in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

McCain: 3 Decades of Putting Country Last

Google the words "McCain POW MIA" —there's a litany of the most callous and treasonous acts committed by McCain against powerless POW families.

Why does no one speak up and stand with the broken families of POW/MIAs left in the wake of McCain's ambitions? Is Sydney Schanberg--pulitzer prize-winning author--the only journalist brave and patriotic enough in all our media? Did Schanberg and countless Vets and family members of POWs make all this up? For 30 years?

Why has even our ‘liberal’ media chosen to hide McCain’s (documented and self-disclosed) POW history of extensively collaborating with the Vietcong? How many servicemen were left behind as a result of his wishing to conceal his past?

PLEASE INVESTIGATE MCCAIN’s war & senate record: how he vilified, bullied, manhandled and broke down the families of MIAs and POWs for 30 yrs. Ask them to come forward, so Americans learn the truth about McCain's real character, and where exactly he places Country.

To all Journalists: I know you like your jobs, but what's the point if it costs you your country.

To all Americans: Investigate the truth for yourselves, instead of just wiping the mud away.

I can visualize a political cartoon that would depict McCain & Palin perfectly - an angry, confused Chihuahua with a gun (as big as he is) strapped to his back, running around frantically, barking up the wrong (dead) tree, then digging at the buried head of an Ostrich. when he finally gets the Ostrich to stand up, it will have glasses & lipstick on & a stupid look on it's face. she'll look around bewildered & exclaim, 'Don't worry, i know what to do, i've been watching the Russians all along!' lol (i wish it were funny!)

Jackie, looks like YOU & all the other McPain supporters who have served in the military didn't learn anything from the service you put in & i doubt seriously any of the people you're addressing in your brilliant post, would get the same 'message' you did, if we were to go.

After viewing how little respect McPain has for anyone but himself, i am really surprized & disappointed that ANYONE, especially those who have been in the service, could RESPECT McCain &/or his policies (or lack thereof), having 'been there done that'. You should be the very ones calling his bluff & sharing the truth, so i am beginning to wonder just what being in the military does do to the brain???

The Reverend Jesse Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

It's not even new. He did the whole fight, fight, fight routine in his acceptance speech at the RNC. Heaven forbid the guy should think, think, think or learn, learn, learn!

Laura,

"He was a hot shot show off who crashed 5 planes due to his arrogance, playing around and showing off in the cockpit. He crashed one into some power lines in France and caused a major blackout for miles around."

It's called factcheck.org, look it up. It will play down your ignorance.

Randy, please make that speech to the McCain campaign. I'm so put off by the nonsense being said out there - to flat out say that Obama hangs with terrorists is just way over the top. When the guy was involved in that stuff, Obama was 8 years old. The man is now a respected college professor, people change. I'm not defending Ayer's involvement with the Weathermen, never will, but times were very different then. The climate we see in this country now is beginning to rise to the level of anger and frustration we saw in the 60's and that's very scary. McCain & Palin need to be cautious about putting some of this nonsense out there, I'm afraid some over-zealous fanatic will make it their mission to remove the competition. I lived through all those assinations, we don't want to go there again - ever!

It'll be a huge mistake if McCain brings that up during the debate. He's acting and looking desperate. The man is definitely a bully but I didn't think he go as low as this campaign has gone, it's disappointing given his long service.

Laura, I have an older friend who was serving on the USS Forrestal when that horrible tragedy took place. McCain was on deck but did not directly cause the fire. An electrical arc from one of the planes sparked some old ammo that was stored on the flight deck - that is what caused the explosion.

BRAVO Liberella! Well said, thanks for the tip on getting information.

JungleJane, you should shop that cartoon idea to some news outlets, that would be a hit.

"The man is now a respected college professor, people change. I'm not defending Ayer's involvement with the Weathermen, never will, but times were very different then." - IrishEyes

There can be NO respect for an admitted terrorist with NO regret and a statement that he wished he could have done more. He IS an enemy of the state.

There is more current history to that relationship. Take off your shaded glasses, they are obviously fogged.

Just saying...

Jimmy, you don't remember the sixties, do you? It was crazy.

When you are faced with a government that shoots students to rout non-violent campus protests, the game changes a bit, from the mall routine you are likely more familiar with.

The shootings in Ohio were an active suppression of free speech by lethal means. That caught the attention of the successful broad-based student movement that had mobilized to protest the war. I suppose it must also have caught Mr Ayer's attention.

Is it really that much of a stretch, to see the violent protests of Mr Ayer's erstwhile group as they saw them? In their eyes, they may have seen the "establishment" as such a monster of momentum that it would not, could not, change; except under provocation. To wit, they saw an "evil empire."

Now let's be clear about one thing; when an American citizen is faced with an Evil Empire (like, say, 16th century England), the creed is clear and to the point. An Evil Empire must be opposed -- even if it is our own. The core of our national identity rests on the rightness of having opposing England's sovereignty over us. We have rebellion and saying "no" in our cultural genes.

The Vietnam War drug on like the Iraq War has, while the protests seemed to have no effect. The strife "tore the country apart," and yet the juggernaut of war marched on. While the press was not nearly as inattentive to protests as they are these days, the message didn't seem to percolate to Congress or the President, who kept up a litany of promises and domino theories, with an occasional token withdrawal of troops. Mr. Ayer's group certainly wasn't alone, in thinking that the government needed a bit of a shove to do the right thing.

Kind of like now, in fact.

While I like to think that violence shouldn't be necessary in dealing with one's government, it has nevertheless occurred to me, that if the next president doesn't take some dramatic action to reign in the evolving Corporatist Utopia, the world will get hotter and hotter; while life, for most of us, will get much colder.

There is a limit to what a free person can (or should) take, Jimmy -- before that person takes action of his own. I personally think that time should come sometime BEFORE a President Palin sends paratroopers into the Caucasus, or missles into Moskow. I don't think patriotism requires me to stand and watch my government destroy the world.

This, I think, was the mindset of many in the sixties. No wonder some of them who did something, don't feel like they did enough.

It's the same buzzword mentality that was polished by Newt Gingrich. The main problem is that the McCain campaign can't stick to any one or even a steady handful of buzzwords. They're flailing in the wind. It will be sad if this wins the election for them.

I got the below comment from a comment board from the Anchorage, Alaska newspaper and I didn't know exactly where to post it at so I suppose here is as good as any place. I found it quite interesting. The part about Hugo Chavez was really good and how he provides heating oil to the natives. WHERE IS THE GOVENOR AND ALL HER ENERGY EXPERTISE ???

cecilrhodes wrote on 10/19/2008 09:15:50 AM:
Why havent our good friends at BP and Conoco stepped up and given fuel oil to the villages? BP and Conoco's tv adds tell us how magnanimus they are to the state of Alaska, yet only Chavez gives freely to the natives. I guess they only help out the "natives" with the big corps. The amount of money wasted through negligence and greed on the slope by BP could supply the whole state with fuel oil for years!!

"I wonder if this is how Germany was in the late 20s."

Geeze Wexler, I've been thinking the same thing for a while now! Kinda scary. I think you may have a point. In the 1930's the KKK had a huge following, I think it was around 30,000-ish. They used to sponsor big family picnics with cross burnings. They were kind of like Kiwanis or Elks.

My point is; America- not as smart/enlightened/sane/not- racist as we would like to think we are.

Palin's appeal to her glowering supporters is evidence of the America that is always lurking in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to hate someone for no particular reason.

So, if McPalin weasel their way in, how far away should I move to be safe? I was thinking Canada but maybe New Zealand would be better?

McCain at the Potomac

I cannot claim to know the validity of Sun Tzu's The Art of War but I feel that the following quote is applicable in regards to McCain.

Sun Tzu said: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

In our war it is not good enough to merely know what terrorism does or how it works but rather one must properly comprehend the threats that exist and the nature of the threat. The nature of the threat can only be understood through an understanding of who we are, while comprehending the threats that exist, means to know the nature of our enemy. If we know ourselves we may well comprehend how we ourselves might go about planning various terrorist actions—thus our means to a defense, but since we do not know our enemy we will most likely fail to stop him some of the time or we may well get them but sometimes they’ll get us too. Still this assumes we know ourselves. I do not think we can say this of our present leadership or of John McCain.

If we consider Iraq we ought to realize the nature of this war has nothing to do with the alleged enemy but rather with the nature of those who lead the nation. Consequently we must evaluate the nature of our enemies and just as importantly the very definition of that against which we fight. At this moment in time there is no definition of “terrorist”, “terror” or “terrorism” and yet we are at war with this ambiguous enemy.

If we follow Sun Tzu we must admit that we cannot win unless we know the enemy. But we cannot even define the enemy ergo we cannot know the enemy—thus every victory gained will also mean we will suffer a defeat. At home this inability to define the enemy has created a new one—the counterproductive legislation produced to “protect” us from this non-defined enemy. If we do not know who or what we are fighting then must assume that this legislation is not designed to protect us because the effect of the legislation undermines one of the greatest strengths of the nation. By not defining our enemy we divide our strength by destroying our unity as a people.

When President Bush wrote his National Security Strategy for the United States of America back in September of 2002 he makes certain things explicit in regards to that which we are fighting for and that which we are fighting against. Yet if anything becomes clear in this security doctrine, it is that it is a contradiction in terms. That contradiction serves the terrorist cause because it weakens us from within. It is for this reason we must first and foremost know who we ourselves are and that for which we stand.

Why is it a contradiction in terms? Because it undermines the very democracy that it purports to protect. A seamless structure of intelligence agencies challenges the very meaning of due process and civil rights—destroy the foundation of civil rights and the terrorists have won. It is the idea that we have rights as individuals that make every citizen count in relation to the law. It is the belief that each citizen counts that makes us strong. Replace these rights with police state conditions and we live in a state of tyranny. What is worse is that the security strategy offers us a sort of power that undermines the only means to achieving a structure of international law. If we desire a world in which all nations agree to uphold a system of common laws then to say we have a special right to break these laws out of self interest then there is no law and we proceed down the historic avenue that might makes right when the entire history of civilization is a history of where might makes wrong! Thus again we are in contradiction because we are said to “erect democracies” while we in effect create tyranny through unjust and inhuman action. That is what Iraq represents. When the UN Security Council said no to the US in regards to taking military action against Iraq it was because the evidence failed to convince the world of the immediate threat posed by Iraq in regards to their alleged WMD. The failure to follow the will of the world is by definition the implementation of tyranny; because it was there democratic principles were discarded in favor of unilateral belligerence. Thus the security doctrine of 2002 transforms us into that which we claim to fight against.

It is because we do not know the enemy that we have allowed ourselves to be suckered into a war in Iraq—we owe this situation to the incompetency of the Bush administration but also to our own incompetency in choosing acceptable leaders to run the government. McCain is not George Bush but he desires to follow the same path of ignorance, even though we today stand in bankruptcy and have nothing in either Iraq or Afghanistan to show for our trillion dollar efforts but a fragile truce in Iraq. We have allowed the war to spread into a new country, Pakistan, and where our actions in Iraq could easily lead us into a new war with Iran, while we have allowed our friend and partner Israel to undermine and destroy the first real democracy to arise in the Middle East during the Bush presidency. The president ought to have intervened on behalf of the two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner and attempted to broker a deal that would have preserved the Lebanese authority and thus reinforced his commitment towards establishing democracy in the Middle East. In general we have failed to abide by the concept of regional stability the world over as the overriding guide to global security and the consequence has become global instability.

Apparently John McCain cannot see this incompetency because he lacked and still lacks incite in regards to the Vietnam War to comprehend that Vietnam was a consequence of poor leadership—we found ourselves engaged in Vietnam because the very design of our government failed to contain the president. To contain either LBJ or Richard Nixon was not easy given the character and political prowess of these two charismatic individuals, yet both failed as leaders due to their abuse of power. Thus the very principles of the balance of power between the branches of government didn't work as it was designed to; Even in the aftermath of the Vietnam War the legislature failed to redesign the government with safeguards that might prevent that this sort of travesty could occur again. It is due to this failure of legislature that we find ourselves once again enmeshed in a war that undermines the security of the nation while the argument for our actions is “the security of the nation”. This places the very idea of “knowing who we are” in question.

What is worse is that the true strength of the nation in geopolitical terms is our economy. It is because of our economy that the arguments for our forward deployment of the military have always been based, yet this has been recklessly abandoned by President Bush thus challenging whether the nature of those that define our national security no longer envision this nation as a nation of trade but rather one that is built upon militarism. It is in this sense we stand at the edge of the Rubicon. We have not yet crossed it. We remain at this instant in time a true democracy but should we sway but a little we will fail our entire national heritage and surrender the aspirations of government by the people to government by the few and thus succumb to the very nature of our enemy—Tyranny itself.

One cannot help but believe that John McCain is such a representative—someone who believes solely in the military because he has even stated publicly that he knows nothing of economic matters (which means he does not understand the foundation of our national security) and that he has further implied in his “advertising” for the presidency that the economy is second in importance to the Iraq War and the Afghan War. I consider these statements to stand as proof that this man does not know who we the American people are and just as he did not know who our enemy was in Vietnam, McCain in my opinion tends towards the 3rd category of Sun Tzu—“If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Still we must reflect upon where it is that McCain's claim to fame comes from. Ironically the symbol of his fame is the very meaning of defeat, because McCain in the White House means to glorify defeat and reward it with the greatest position of responsibility in our nation's system of government. It would seem that 5 years at the Hanoi Hilton did not teach McCain much about his enemy but rather it taught McCain that he desired political power as opposed to military service. He states that his driving motivation to become president is political power, while his message is military victory via military supremacy.

McCain, like many of us, is essentially a product of McCarthyism. Because of this he saw the nature of our enemy in Vietnam through the goggles of McCarthyism. Uncle Joe's war on communism is not cemented in some concrete form of realism or the political ideas found in interdependence but rather it was a witch hunt, taken right out of the Inquisition and consequently it meant a destruction of democratic principles. Because of the dogma of McCarthyism we were incapable of seeing our international relations clearly, most likely out of fear of being stereotyped by the “thought police” as a communist sympathizer. Still the fact will remain that the war fought by the enemy in Vietnam was a war for their independence—to be free of all forms of colonialism. It was a war of the right to self determination—thus while their ideology may well have been communistic their cause was in many ways similar to ours own war for independence. If we think about McCain’s desire to obtain political power as his ambition in life it seems to me that he does not understand what power is (this is equally true of the Bush administration too)—because this is in essence the flaw of McCarthyism.

McCarthyism analyzes the ideology of people and determines them to be enemies in light of their “thoughts” just like the Church did with religion throughout much of its history. Thus McCarthyism never understood world states in terms of their power and self interests or in light of our interdependence with “enemies” or theirs with us but rather in terms of their ideology. Communism as an ideology never overcame the power and self interests of the states who adopted it. No sooner was communist North Vietnam free of our military presence when they again found themselves facing off against a new powerhouse of a nation—Red China. That communist Vietnam was at war with Communist China proved that McCarthyism was fundamentally flawed and lacked the necessary nuances to differentiate real threats from dogmatic delusions—that communistic countries did not have a common ideological ground that united them together but rather they were self interested state’s first and ideologists second. The call of our nation in regards to the obligations and responsibly of the state is not bound by “ideology” but rather is always constrained by the principles of human rights, which are defined by law or implied by a sense of conscience or through the inner nature of a categorical imperative. It is on the principles of the rights of the individual that our declaration of independence was founded. In this sense McCarthyism was an abomination against that for which the founding father had fought and the very nature of what they deemed to be freedom itself. This means that the war against terrorism cannot be won by military power alone. It can only be won by example.

It is obvious to me the consequences of placing in the White House men who are unfit for the job. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have shown us beyond all shadow of doubt what it means to give men who are neither responsible nor competent the job of running this nation. These individuals never comprehended that we lost in Vietnam because we should have never been there in the 1st place. The failure to recognize that Vietnam was a failure of government as well as a failure of judgment is why we find ourselves again immersed in equally stupid wars today.

This is why for me McCain’s claim that he’ll win the War on Terrorism is nothing more than a hollow cliché! To defeat terrorism means to know one’s self first and by nature of that understanding knowledge of the enemy comes of itself.

fight degrade,fight,heckle,fight,degrade somemore hey if we beat everybody with mudslinging there wouldent be any dems independants or greens only bitter untrusting foul mouthed republicans! neo conservatives!
there are only a few "republicans left in usa today but none in any position of power? do i see a sign here
VOTE ANYWAY BUT NEOCON REPUBLICAN see the stupidity they put our country into yet? well hell look in your investments? and try that foreign word freedom

Laura your comment is brilliant. You saw right through the true colours of McCain.