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    1. The Naked Novelist and the Dead Reputation
      Algis Valiunas
      September 2009
    2. Why Are Jews Liberals?—A Symposium
      David Wolpe, Jonathan D. Sarna, Michael Medved, William Kristol and Jeff Jacoby
      September 2009
    3. The Art of Obama Worship
      Michael J. Lewis
      September 2009
    4. Clyde and Bonnie Died for Nihilism
      Stephen Hunter
      July/August 2009
    5. The Path to Republican Revival
      Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson
      September 2009
  1. Why Are Jews Liberals?—A Symposium
    David Wolpe, Jonathan D. Sarna, Michael Medved, William Kristol and Jeff Jacoby
    September 2009
  2. The Naked Novelist and the Dead Reputation
    Algis Valiunas
    September 2009
  3. The Art of Obama Worship
    Michael J. Lewis
    September 2009
  4. The Path to Republican Revival
    Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson
    September 2009
  5. The Path to Republican Revival
    Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson
    September 2009

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Who’s Playing “Guilt by Association” Here?

Abe Greenwald - 10.11.2008 - 11:27 AM

If Obama supporters are upset with the guilt-by-association paradigm, they’ve picked a funny way of showing it: holding John McCain and Sarah Palin accountable for every loose nut that shows up to bark a racial slur into a crowd of thousands. It is by now axiomatic on the Left that McCain is stoking racial and religious intolerance in a last ditch effort to save a spiraling campaign. The evidence for this? Two individuals who said hateful things in the audience of two campaign events.

While McCain tries to point to real concerns about associates and partners in Obama’s past–dangerous men who have played indispensable roles in Obama’s political biography, the Left is on fire over two men McCain and Palin likely never met. Yet, they claim it is McCain’s desperation that finds him reaching so improbably for bogeymen in Obama’s history.

In today’s Washington Post, novelist Khaled Hosseini steps it up a notch and baldly lies about the McCain camp’s response to speakers who invoked Barack Obama’s middle name at recent McCain rallies. “The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin,” Hosseini writes in the piece dated October 12. Meanwhile, on October 8, the AP reported the McCain campaign issued a denouncement by email and McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay said,

We do not condone this inappropriate rhetoric which distracts from the real questions of judgment, character and expeience that voters will base their decisions on this November.

Hossieni asks, “Is inaction tantamount to consent?” Good question. Should Americans interpret the years of Obama’s inaction while serving alongside a known terrorists in two different bodies as consent? Actually, we don’t have to bother with interpretation: Obama endorsed Bill Ayers book, so we know he’s a fan. Okay, should Americans interpret Obama’s inaction for two decades sitting in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church as consent? Oh yeah, there again we know the answer: Obama told us he could not disown Wright. In Obama’s case, it’s nothing short of guilt-by-endorsement.

So, the question really needs to be put to the electorate. What might you be endorsing if you elect Barack Obama?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 11:27 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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