On McCain and smears
Regarding the talk show host who kept using “Hussein,” … when McCain distanced himself from the guy, that wasn’t good enough for Josh Marshall. This gets pretty deep into the weeds, but if you know the basic story, then follow the link to what Marshall wrote, …
then read Mark Coffey on Playing The Smear Card
What Marshall is doing here is, in fact, a smear in and of itself. By associating McCain with a tactic that he has specifically called out as inappropriate and wrong, a tactic that most smart conservatives, myself included, see as not only repugnant but tactically disastrous, Marshall is playing ‘lowest-common-denominator’ politics and covering his own head in shame.
McCain can’t control every statement made by his supporters, and he was very quick to condemn Cunningham. What more could he do? The fact that Cunningham spoke at a McCain event does not mean McCain had foreknowledge of his remarks, or even that he knew he was on the schedule. Reports that the McCain camp advised Cunningham to ‘throw out some red meat’ change nothing - presumably, red meat doesn’t mean inappropriate remarks, and that still says nothing about McCain’s knowledge of the speaker’s presence or his comments.
I agree. Marshall’s case is pretty much a “damned if he1 does, damned if he doesn’t” situations. Absent absolute 100% message control over every Republican in the country,about all McCain can do is call out the objectionable stuff when it occurs.
The other point here is self-interest. Unlike Josh Marshall, I think the country is genuinely tired of racist nonsense, and that the GOP, or some in the GOP, recognize that this is a counter-productive strategy in 2008. We’ll see.
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