1
1
1
If the media digs into Obama, then they better dig into Palin and McCain too. You say Ayers, I say G. Gordon Liddy. You say Wright. I say Hagee. You say political corruption in Chicago, I say Keating Five. You say 'elitist', I say McCain's a failure, and has been all his natural born life.
McCain: Veteran, yes. Tortured veteran, yes. But, why was he tortured? Because they caught him. 894th out of 899 in his class. Crashed 5 planes. Caught behind enemy lines. Navy cover-ups, saving his political future. Keating Five. Gordon Liddy. Absolute, complete, fundamental flip-flop on his ideology for this campaign. Commited adultery and abandoned his wife and children for a wealthy Busch heiress. Lied and Lied and Lied.
10/28/08, 1:40 am EST
This Ted Stevens fiasco is baggage of the McCain camp's own choosing. Before they added Sarah Palin to the ticket, Alaska was anything but Main Street America. Under the old rules, Steven's corruption scandal could well have blown over as a parochial scandal of the great, oily North.
But since picking Palin, McCain & Co. have staked out Alaska as the living, beating heart of American authenticity. And so, today, Ted Steven's felonious betrayal of the public trust is going to allow Democrats to campaign like it's 2006--against the Republican "culture of corruption" that proved so electorally toxic to the GOP two years ago.
Let's remember that the McCain camp knew in late July that Stevens was under indictment and demanding a speedy trial that would put Alaska's frontier ethics front-and-center in the days before the election.
And yet, thanks to a vetting free Veepstakes, in August the campaign chose Palin, who not only owes her governorship to Stevens' throaty endorsement, but as recently as 2005 served as the director of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service" 527 group.
As usual, the intrepid Anchorage Daily News offers the go-to coverage of the Stevens/Palin entanglements. This adn.com video offers a glimpse of their buddy-buddy relationship:
Watch the video here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2008/10/28/ted-stevens-palin-mentor/
At minute 1:13 you can see the last-minute 2006 campaign commercial in which Stevens passes the baton to Palin's "new generation" of leadership, asking his fellow Alaskans to "help Sarah become governor, which we all want to see."
Half way through, we see Palin and Stevens joshing around together at a press conference from this past July--post the FBI raid of Stevens' home, but just prior to his indictment. Stevens chummily calls it "The Sarah and Ted Show."
Minute 3:39
Stevens: Hell, I don't know if you know it but when Frank Murkowski was first elected this lady and I traveled around the state for two weeks. We've known each other a long time. Worked together a long time.
Minute 4:12
1 | 2
