Nixon-Agnew 2008

From Bill Ayers' column on being smeared by the McCainiacs;
The police lieutenant who came to copy down those threats deadpanned that he hoped the guy who was going to shoot me got there before the guy who was going to water-board me, since it would be most foul to be tortured and then shot.

And wow, reading that, it makes me want to pal around with both Ayers and the cop who said it. But the whole attack on Ayers was absurd and I'm glad he has a sense of humor about the whole thing. And for as much as the attacks were vile, they were idiotic for the very reasons Ayers pointed out. The 60's are over. For a lot of people, the 60's are nothing but a mythical creation of the past. But they don't hold a real bond or message anymore. Even for the people who were there, it was forty years ago. Focusing on the events of 1968 to guide us is like people in that year focusing on the events of 1928 to guide them. It's absurd. It's laughable. It's stupid. And it was a large part of McCain's argument for why he should be president. What an idiot!

And the worst part for McCain wasn't that it made him look like somebody living in the past, but that it was the best he had and it was absurd. If they had anything better, they would have used it. But they didn't have a terrorist past of Obama's to attack. Or an association with active terrorists. No, they had a weak association with a respectable professor who did bad things before I was born. And that's the best attack they had. But the worst part is that the accusation against Obama just sounded stupid. The accusation was so startling, few would believe such a thing. And by the time you've explained the whole thing, it still sounds stupid. It's one thing to make a believable accusation that falls apart under investigation, but the Ayers attacks were giant turds from start to finish. The only people who could believe it were the ones who were desperate to find some rational reason for opposing Obama. But it wouldn't convert a nonbeliever.

And I tried to explain this to the folks at RedState a few times, before they cut-off my account, but they just didn't understand. But they should have. It wasn't difficult. Because, for as much as they felt it was unbelievable that a dude who "pals" around with terrorists could win the presidency, it was unbelievable. It was just a dumb attack and they should have gone with something new. But McCain's campaign was always mired in the same past his base was stuck in, so the whole thing sounded genius to them. It's not that John McCain or conservatives are stuck in 1968, it's just that they haven't learned any new tricks since then. And all those scary hippies just don't look so scary anymore.