In reading the NY Times this morning, Senator John McCain the Republican presidential candidate has called for Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska to step down after he was found guilty of seven charges yesterday.
According to the NY Times, “A jury on Monday found Stevens, 84, guilty on seven counts of trying to hide more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor.”
One must wonder if the disgraced senator will take this advice coming from McCain. Personally, I do think he should step down and accept whatever hand is dealt to him by our legal system.
The only reason why I feel that McCain has asked him to step down is to stem the tide of negativity directed at the Republican Party where the Republican brand has been tarnished.
But, I feel it cowardly of Senator McCain to speak out on this one case as opposed to the hate that has come from his campaign. A few weeks ago, he rebuffed a woman for calling Senator Barack Obama an Arab. First of all, what is wrong with being an Arab? Even Colin Powell in his endorsement of Barack Obama asked “So what if he is Muslim?” while stating that he was not in his “Meet the Press” interview with Tom Brokaw. Powell even reminded Americans that there are Muslim children in this country who would aspire to be the president of this country of ours.
We as a society must uplift all children and their dreams and not leave any child behind. If we do not, we might as well pack it up.
There are many law abiding citizens of this country of ours that are Arabs. In that moment, we saw a humbled McCain as well as one who was embarrassed somewhat for the racial hatred that came from his campaign. I was hoping that would be the game-changer so to speak coming from John McCain where his nasty rhetoric would be quashed and for more hopeful messages to be relayed to we the people. But, it never came.
Then we come to the Ashley Todd incident where a poor and demented woman claimed that a black man assaulted her and carved a backwards ‘B’ into her cheek.
According to TPM, “John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established” They even reported where Sarah Palin called Todd. She should have stayed out of it and let law enforcement handle it.
What I found to be duplicitous was the fact that the McCain campaign was “pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive" I have stated before that the McCain campaign was playing tinder-box politics. Add to that the economic stress most Americans are feeling and they are surely playing with fire. Do they want to destroy America? It sure seems so.
Now I find this fact to be striking in TPM's reporting, "This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn't want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a "national incident" and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster." But, they did none the less.
There has not been one word coming from either John McCain or Sarah Palin concerning this incident in the days afterwards and I find that unconscionable. They should have apologized to the American people.
Now fast forward to an incident that was reported yesterday, where two Nazi skin-heads were thankfully caught in their ill thought out plan to kill multiple African-American students in a high school along with Senator Barack Obama.
According to CBS News, “The men also sought to go on a national killing spree after the Tennessee murders, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.”
Even if there plan was not well thought out, we the American people deserve to hear from both Senator McCain and Gov. Palin concerning this incident. Their silence is deafening.
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