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ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- The gloves are off, the heels are on, and the presidential race is dredging up infamous events from 20, 30, even 40 years ago.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin defended her claim Sunday that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" because of his association with a 1960s radical.
Democrats denounced the charge and warned that it would trigger reexaminations of Republican presidential nominee John McCain's past. Sure enough, Obama's campaign released a Web video and a letter about McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal from the early 1990s.
McCain "does not want to play guilt-by-association, or this thing could blow up in his face," Democratic strategist Paul Begala said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The names being bandied about -- Bill Ayers and Charles Keating -- are unfamiliar to millions of Americans, and their wrongdoings occurred decades ago. But political operatives dredged them up over the weekend, and they could play a prominent role in the campaign's final month.
Palin, the Alaska governor, defended her earlier comments about Obama and Ayers, in which she said the Democratic nominee is "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
Ayers was a founder of the violent Weather Underground group during the Vietnam era. Its members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was a child. Obama has denounced Ayers' radical views and activities.
The two men live in the same Chicago neighborhood and once worked on the same charity board. Ayers hosted a small meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, early in his political career. Obama strategist David Axelrod has said the two men are "friendly."
On Sunday, Palin told reporters in California that her comments were about "an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about. I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room."
In fact, Obama was questioned about Ayers during a prime-time Democratic debate against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton before April's Pennsylvania primary.
"The heels are on, the gloves are off," Palin said of her campaign strategy.
Obama, speaking Sunday to thousands at an outdoor event in Asheville, N.C., fired back. He said McCain and his aides "are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance."
He described the criticisms as "Swiftboat-style attacks on me," a reference to the unsubstantiated allegations about 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry's military record in Vietnam.
Other Democrats rushed to Obama's defense. Veteran party activist Hillary Rosen, on CNN's "Late Edition," said, "If they throw mud like that, then you go back to Charles Keating, you go back to Sarah Palin's investigation." She was referring to inquiries into the firing of Alaska's top police official.
"You know, I just don't think that John McCain wants to take this nuclear strategy," Rosen said.
Just months into his Senate career, in the late 1980s, McCain made what he has called "the worst mistake of my life." He participated in two meetings with banking regulators on behalf of Keating, a friend, campaign contributor and savings and loan owner who was later convicted of securities fraud.
The Senate ethics committee investigated five senators relationships with Keating. The panel cited McCain for a lesser role than the others but faulted his "poor judgment."
Obama's new Web video, being e-mailed to millions of his supporters, summarizes a 13-minute Web "documentary" that the campaign plans to distribute today.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement, "McCain's Keating history is relevant, and voters deserve to know the facts."
On Sunday, Obama also unveiled a TV ad on the economy that describes McCain was "erratic in a crisis." Some see that as a reminder of McCain's age, 72.
Posted by benman99 on October 6, 2008 at 9:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
savings and loan bad guy vs. domestic terrorist bad guy
Posted by donny on October 6, 2008 at 9:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Except there is no real connection to the terrorist bad guy.
Posted by tcat on October 6, 2008 at 2:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Do the voters know that Jeremiah Wright wasn't Obama's first radical mentor? As a young man in Hawaii, Obama had a quasi-filial relationship with radical Frank Marshall Davis - an avowed member of the Communist Party of the USA. In fact, in his memoirs, Obama concedes that he attended "socialist conferences" and encountered Marxist literature. (Now imagine the outcry if a Republican presidential candidate had such ties to a Nazi).
Do the voters know that the People's Weekly World - the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the USA - has rhapsodized about Obama's presidential campaign, calling it a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term"? (Think about how the press would react if a fascist newspaper heaped such praise on McCain.)
Posted by whatif on October 6, 2008 at 3:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nazi and communist all in one package? Really, really reaching aren't you tcat?
Posted by up_in_here on October 6, 2008 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
so the official newspaper of the communist party of the USA is a fascist newspaper also???? Did you attend highschool? Did you pay attention in history class? Did you get your GED?
got any other scary words which you dont understand the meaning of that you can throw out there?
Posted by tcat on October 6, 2008 at 4:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I thought it was a requirement for one to be able to read in order to post, but apparently not.
Posted by Reagan_Bush08 on October 6, 2008 at 4:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
whatif/up_in_here - put crack pipe down and read slower. Comparisons are a good thing when read and thought through properly. Tcat was simply comparing Obama (socialist) and the coverage he has received in the media to a hypothetical situation (which means it hasn't happened but pretend it has) of McCain (Obama's opponent) having ties to a nazi group (similar ties Obama has to communist/marxist folks) and how the press and people of the country would react. I hope this clears the fog over your thoughts. Unfortunately, your response has revealed more than your aptitude it also reveals your candidate. I wonder if a line can be drawn between common sense and candidate choice?
Posted by whatif on October 6, 2008 at 5:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
R_B08 that was some beautiful BS, almost as good as the BS coming out of the white house. The only fog or crack smoking going on is from you candidate who just can't see what is happening around him. How's it going for you? Keep blowing hard you just might start up another storm to hide behind and not talk about the real issues most people want to hear about. Your swift boat isn't working. Just repeat after me, "It's the economy stupid".
Posted by whatif on October 6, 2008 at 5:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
By the way.. you don't know who I will vote for because I don't know myself. That's the reason I'm flying into town just to make up my mind and vote. I'm pretty sure it won't be for your guy, he's just about ready to go ballistic and show his true colors. Too bad he doesn't have a Willie Horton...
Posted by whatif on October 6, 2008 at 5:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
tcat, keep repeating that phrase, I'm sure you are going to convert a lot of people. They can always take that to the bank. We can all throw out loose information, for instance; the Russian KGB says they have information that Mclame collaborated with the Vietcong. I have read this several times, do I believe it? Nope, that would not stop me from voting for him, but his economic policy would.
Posted by saltydog on October 6, 2008 at 6:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I guess McCain collaborated with the Vietcong while they had his man parts wired up to 120 volts and were breaking his bones.
John McCain is a true hero.
Obama is a socialist radical.
Posted by saltydog on October 6, 2008 at 6:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The economic blame lies with the corrupt lenders.
Posted by topo97 on October 6, 2008 at 7:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just keep repeating that and it will all go away.
Posted by JarHead on October 6, 2008 at 7:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
McCain, a hero?? Not so much.
1974:
At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation's capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs....
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.
There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap.....
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.
"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."
"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.
"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.
"Why? Where are you going to, John?"
"Oh, I'm going to Rio."
"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
"I got a better chance of getting laid."
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in." http://www.rollingstone.com/news/stor...
Posted by whatif on October 6, 2008 at 9:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
McCain prone to mishaps as Navy pilot: LAT report
LOS ANGELES: US presidential hopeful John McCain was prone to mistakes during his time as a Navy pilot, and if today’s standards were applied, his career may have ended in a hard landing, according to a report yesterday by The Los Angeles Times.
The newspaper said that when McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider in Texas in 1960, he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane’s wings.
In his autobiography, McCain said the crash had occurred because “the engine quit,” but an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure, the report said.
Instead investigators concluded that the 23-year-old junior lieutenant was not paying attention and erred in using “a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn.”
The crash was one of three early in McCain’s aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials, The Times said.
In another incident, McCain was “clowning” around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout in the area, the paper noted.
In 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia, and after he was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967, the report said.
Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner.
The Times said it had interviewed men who served with McCain and located the 1960s-era accident reports and professional evaluations.
“This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits,” the paper concluded.
It reminded that in today’s military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot’s career.
Posted by up_in_here on October 7, 2008 at 7:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Reagan_Bush08
"the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the USA"
"would react if a fascist newspaper"
You can go back to school also since you think the words communist and fascist are the same.
Posted by Reagan_Bush08 on October 7, 2008 at 8:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Do the voters know that the People's Weekly World - the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the USA - has rhapsodized about Obama's presidential campaign, calling it a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term"? (Think about how the press would react if a fascist newspaper heaped such praise on McCain.)"
Ok up_out_there - Let's parse this for you. In the first part tcat talks about the People's Weekly World being the official newspaper of the Communist party. In the second part tcat talks about a hypothetical situation (again this is something that hasn't happened and is in no way connected to the first thought). It's separate from the first thought. They don't go together at all....none....nada. The only way they are connected is as a comparison. There you go. Tcat wasn't trying to say that communism and fascism are one and the same. You are trying to read what you want it to say so your mind that has been warped by all the kool-aid does this automatically. Don't worry about it though, you aren't the only one who suffers from this "disease" we call liberalism.
Posted by checkingn on October 7, 2008 at 10:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Let the debates begin!!!! lol
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