Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A response

A guy I used to work with, who I like a lot mostly except once every four years, keeps forwarding me anti-Obama emails. Today it was about ACORN. I sent him back a link from Momocrats about McCain having his own ties to ACORN. So he said, yeah but it's not apples to apples. So I sent back this:

... Just sayin' that if we start throwing mud around because of who the candidates have worked with or done speeches with, we're gonna have a mighty messy country.
F'rinstance: Obama and Ayers. Fine. McCain and G. Gordon Liddy and Paul Schenk. Okay? So we've got BOTH candidates "associating" with militant domestic terrorists. And while G. Gordon Liddy has moved into the mainstream, so has Ayers.

ACORN may be overzealous in getting people registered, I don't know. I haven't particularly paid attention to them, being more interested in trying to help come up with new ways to make a 20% funding cut in the budget of the board I'm on not mean that we're going to have to stop serving some of the mentally ill or intellectually disabled in [my county]. What I do know, is that there are partisans on the Republican side who are just as overzealous in scaring vulnerable voters away from the polls. Again, neither side is covering themselves with glory.

Let's stick to what our candidates are actually doing and saying. Neither looks great if we go back 20 years (Obama: "Of course I inhaled, that was the point" and McCain in trouble with the Keating Five, and leaving his crippled first wife for a younger, richer one). Neither has exactly been quick to disavow the rhetoric of their ministers.
Both have visions of where they want the country to go and how they'd like us to get there. That is what I would really like to talk about with you. All the rest is just crap.


HT to Cecily, Momocrats, and the folks they linked to.

5 comments:

Magpie said...

I hope he "hears" you.

Gary said...

Like you, I'm really tired of attempts by both sides to "disqualify" the other's candidates. Why can't we just assume, since each side chose their nominees, that everybody is qualified? Then we can argue about who has the better ideas and plans for the next four years.

Thanks for fighting the good fight, Liz. It seems to be working.

kathy a. said...

liddy did prison time, no? everyone on earth heard about that, didn't they?

bleah, i get so tired.

paul battaglia said...

The problem with this whole political system here is there are too many people making lots of $$$$ spinning the truth and too few people just telling the absolute truth. I hate to generalize and say "they're all crooks" but unfortunately the shoe seems to fitting very well lately!!

purple_kangaroo said...

Yeah, the candidates on both sides definitely have their flaws. I wish we could cut to the chase and focus on direct issues about things like where they stand on issues, what their plans are, past records for how they voted and managed things, etc. rather than the peripheral stuff.