Category: Politics

I’ve seen this elsewhere in the blogosphere and on Facebook, but I post it here because it took place in my hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa: “Pre-emptive ejection: Audience members removed at McCain rally in Cedar Falls.” Basically, McCain held a rally in Cedar Falls on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa, and before the event began, UNI security kicked out four or five people who apparently didn’t “look right” and/or who McCain staffers thought might be protesters.

By not “look right,” I believe the McCain people were thinking “under 30.” Because why would there be anyone younger than that hanging around a college campus?

There is a bit more at Talking Points Memo, including a link to some (kind of bad quality) video about the students asked to leave:

First off, I don’t really understand why McCain was in Iowa (every election map I’ve seen that has it solid blue and has had it that way for a while now), and I don’t understand why anyone would want to vote for someone to be president who thinks it is perfectly acceptable in this country to simply kick people out because they didn’t “look right.”

But beyond the McCain issues, why in the heck would the University of Northern Iowa rent a public facility to the campaign and then say they can let in/kick out whoever they want? Shouldn’t there be some kind of conditions tied to this, something along the lines of “you can limit the number of people, but you can’t kick people out because they look funny.” I mean, it would have been flat-out illegal to kick out people because they were women or Mexican-American or something like that; why isn’t this against the law too? Why would the UNI police actually follow through on that?

This article, “Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain,” by Phillip Butler, who was a former POW who kind of/sort of crossed paths with John McCain at the Naval Academy and as a POW. It’s an interesting piece in a variety of different ways, and man, talk about ethos! This is the kind of argument that could only be made by someone who always was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Interesting stuff.

I was just listening to NPR this morning, and apparently, McCain is still peddling this line about Obama associations with “terrorist” William Ayers, about how calling this guy “just my neighbor” is a lie, how this speaks to Obama’s character, etc., etc. That darn untrustworthy Obama!

Well, as luck would have it, I found a link via daily kos to this story the other day, and the tab is still open on my browser. The “Ayers is just my neighbor” thing came up originally on an ABC News moderated event between Hillary Clinton (then clawing for life to stay in this thing) and Obama. The hosts were Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos Here’s the transcript from the beginning; and here’s a link to the part of the debate that features the comments in question.

Below the “more” part, I include the whole passage so you can read it yourself, but basically, this comes up during a back and forth about patriotism and a question from someone on the internet about the whole flag lapel pin thing, and Stephanopoulos used this as a chance to turn it back to Ayers. The context here, ironically enough, was a discussion about whether or not Obama was “tough enough” to take on the Republicans when they make attacks like this one. As the full quote/passage makes clear, Obama said much more than “he’s just my neighbor,” and the context/direction of the conversation didn’t exactly lend itself to a full discussion of the Obama/Ayers relationship.

Besides the obvious and rather desperate smear McCain is trying here, a tactic that seems especially ugly given that the world economy appears to be ending, what bothers me personally is the bad freshman writing mistake that McCain is making here. I’ve seen plenty of students who take this tactic, cherry-picking quotes in order to make a point no matter what the evidence they are quoting really says. In other words, if McCain was a first year composition student and he handed in a paper about how Obama is a terrorist with this claim about Ayers, I’d probably circle that line “Obama lied about him just being my neighbor” and write something like “What is the full context of this quote, John? Do you really think that was the intent of your source? Is this the full story? It sounds like you’re twisting the words here.”

Anyway, here’s the whole thing:

Continue reading “What Obama really said about “my neighbor” (or, context is everything)”

I’m watching “the debate” while simultaneously commenting on student essays. A few random thoughs:

• I think a buzzer or a bell for time expired is in order. Poor Tom Brokaw.
• McCain seems to be shuffling around on stage quite a bit. I dunno, but he looks really really old to me in this format next to the much younger and vibrant Obama.
• And McCain keeps saying the same thing over and over again. If he says “my friends” again, I’m gonna throw something.
• If Obama was a white guy, he’d be 25 points ahead. Easy.
• Hair transplants? WTF?
• I don’t think Obama gave a good response to the the genocide question. But there is no good answer to that, really. But stop saying “my friends,” Johnny. Two in one sentence! That’s quite the drinking game….

On the whole, not much happened. No big crashes. I watched this on CNN, and their various tickers/etc. seem to have Obama as the winner, and that was my impression, biased as it is.

Okay, a little more grading….