Let's end this silliness

I'm fed up.

I'm just plain sick to death of these right-wing pundits and their parrots with their empty, meaingless, cutesy-pie little labels and playground name-calling.  It sucks coming from any direction, but it seems to come from one direction much more than the other.

I don't claim that the perfidy is limited to one side, only that in my experience the people who claim to support conservative, religious, or republican positions seem to engage in a great deal more of it than their counterparts on the other end of the political spectrum.

Of course, one can get involved in twisting definitions and pedantry if one chooses, as well.  After all, if a supporter of the Republican party refers to Obama as "Osama Obama" and the Democratic party as "DemonRats," and a supporter of the Democratic party refers to John McCain as a dissembling sellout perpetrating the second-biggest political fraud of the last eight years, they're both 'name-calling,' right?  

Of course, the reference to McCain, while an opinion, actually has some substance that could be addressed.  What is the fraud, what is the sellout, what are the events or positions that support the characterization of McCain in this manner?  Whereas "DemonRats" and "Osama Obama"....I mean, you could *ask* what the positions of events are that support a point of view like that, but do you really expect to get a meaningful response?  I mean, doesn't stooping to that level in the first place pretty well guarantee that the speaker is not particularly interested in a serious discussion?

But in the Machiavellian world of right-wing pundits and their cheerleaders, these events are equal.  Even though anyone with a modicum of intelligence could clearly see they're nothing of the sort, the right-wing spin machine will crank up.  Indeed, they do it on a daily basis.  I have to love the latest bit of dissembling - criticizing McCain's lack of computer literacy is now "ageism," or if you listen to Karl Rove making the rounds last Sunday morning, it's an attack on the handicapped.  Patently ridiculous, of course; it's an attack on the man being out of touch with today's society.  Heck, my folks both manage to send e-mail, and they're nearly McCain's age and my mom's arthritis makes doing anything with her hands quite difficult, but let's just ignore the facts and cruise on along with the accusations and mud-slinging, right?

Because the facts don't matter.  It doesn't matter that STEPHEN F'N HAWKING manages to use a computer in much worse condition than Mr. McCain; nor does it matter that millions of people older than he manage to use them, and use them competently.  Any questioning of his inability to leverage technology is ageism and discrimination against the differently-abled.  

It doesn't matter that Sarah Palin has, for her entire political career, done everything in her power to restrict sex education, restrict a woman's right to choose, and infuse her various offices with fundamentalist right-wing proselytizing that makes Jerry Falwell look like a flaming liberal, the fact that her 'family values' ended in a pregnant 17 year old daughter is OMGOFFLIMITS!  Because after all, if you point out that maybe if the daughter had been raised in an environment where sex education consisted of more than teaching the kid to lie to her parents and leaving her utterly unprepared for the normal biological imperatives of adolescence, maybe she wouldn't BE pregnant...well, now you're a heartless lowlife attacking an innocent teenage girl!  How DARE you, sir!

I have to say, though, I got a GIGANTIC kick out of watching the same fundamentalist right-wing conservatives who get the vapors any time you say the word 'sex' jumping up to declare that teen pregnancy 'really isn't that big a deal.'  Boy, isn't THAT a message you want your daughter to hear?

I digress.  Some of us make a decision to believe what is convenient for them to maintain their opinions without going through the difficult intellectual exercise of actually examining them.  Others prefer to get their own facts, from multiple sources, and consider them carefully before making a decision.

For the former, there is McCain-Palin.  For the latter, there is Obama.  No independent analyst yet has had anything worse to say about Obama's platform than "gee...rich people are gonna pay taxes, and that whole '100 years war' thing was kinda not what McCain said."  (You'll notice that Obama dropped the line as soon as he was called on it; contract that to Palin's STILL insisting that she said 'thanks but no thanks,' or to McCain's insisting to this very minute that his ad claiming Obama endorses comprehensive sex education for five year olds is not a lie.)

For some of us, the time for playing stupid games with our nation's government is long past.  No party or ideology is perfect; there is no group that I wholeheartedly agree with on every issue.  But the Obama's platform, his record, his decisions, his stated positions, and his conduct in this campaign have come far closer to what I would choose to see in a leader than McCain's, or indeed anyone else's in my political memory.  Here is lifting people up and bringing them together, rather than putting them down and driving them apart.  Here is a firm commitment to keep the focus on the issues, rather than on the personalities.  Here is honor, integrity, grace, and most importantly LEADERSHIP.  

I do not find those things in the McCain campaign, I do not find them in his choice of running mate, and I do not find them in his party.  With all due respect to Senator McCain's service, I really don't care that he was a prisoner of war forty years ago, in the context of this race.  The presidency is not a gold star for the greatest act of patriotism one can point to in their past, it is a job that requires leadership, integrity, public trust, solid judgment, understanding of current issues and perspectives...and I just don't see that in the McCain campaign.  Furthermore, whatever lingering respect I might have had for his once-reasonable 'maverick' position - after he nuked it by reversing course on Bob Jones University - is long dissolved.  Simply put, the McCain-Palin campaign no longer has any meaningful defense of their assertion that they represent some major change in Washington politics, especially not after ripping page after page directly from the Rove playbook in the conduct of this campaign.

In this crucial election cycle, I implore anyone reading - liberal or conservative - to leave the silly nicknames and lackluster attempts at 'wit' behind, and let's get serious about the real issues.  No more "Osama Obama" and "John McLame," let's focus on economy, education, foreign policy, health care, and energy policy.  Just once in my lifetime, let's try to decide an election on the issues, rather than who comes up with the most groan-inducing attempt at a pun.