Speaking of Unrepentant Radicals

In 1995, Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer announced to a group of her supporters that she was stepping down to run for the United States Congress. She gathered these supporters at the home of Bill Ayers, an unrepentant radical from the Vietnam War era. One of the invitees was Barack Obama, the man that Palmer was endorsing for the seat she was vacating. This gathering has given rise to the assertion that Obama launched his career in Ayers living room.

In November 2007 John McCain appeared on the radio show of unrepentant Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. McCain has appeared on that show many times before and since. While Obama has repudiated Ayers radical activities, McCain says of Liddy, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family. It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

As Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune asked:

Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break
into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and
photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war
activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The
ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly
newspaper columnist?

Talk about palling around with terrorists.

Clueless Republicans

From an interview with Phil Gramm, former Senator and John McCain's current economics adviser in Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

Most of his former colleagues probably can't fathom why Wall Street bankers make
tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses each year. How would he
justify these fat pay days? "It's simple," he lectures, sounding very much like
the Texas A&M economics professor that he was in the 1970s: "In economics,
we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value
product. I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a
$158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American
history because he took Southwestern Bell, which was the smallest of the former
Bell companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His
severance package should have been billions."

Barack Obama may have a hard time connecting with white working class Americans, but it is hard for me to believe that they are a going to vote for McCain whose economic policies are going to be driven by a guy who thinks that CEO's are the most exploited workers in the America.