Read other letters about this article

• Friday, October 17, 2008 07:25 AM

  omooex

  You didn't make a big point about it, but I don't agree with your bringing it up at all. Obama is demonstrably not a terrorist, he demonstrably did not have anywhere close to a friendly relationship with Ayers, he is not a Muslim, he is an American citizen, he is not an Arab, etc. But McCain has demonstrably proven to be erratic, and there is no shortage of analysis of that fact in our media.

  I think this is incredibly naive. Technically speaking, it is true that Obama associates with an unrepentant domestic terrorist. In the strictest sense, that is not a factually false statement. It's the distorted and misleading innuendo it creates (going from "associates" to "pallin' around with" to insinuating they're similar).

  Similarly, I agree -- and have said before -- that McCain's behavior has been "erratic." But it is naive in the extreme if you deny that one of the benefits for the Obama campaign in using that word is that it plays on McCain's age and the perception among many (which all polls demonstrate) that McCain is too old to be President and, worst of all, the Bush campaign's 2000 whispering campaign that McCain's experience as a POW made him unstable and imbalanced.

  Obama strategists aren't angelic, and you don't have to claim they are in order to point out the nonetheless obvious fact that there is no equating what the two campaigns are doing.

  —GlennGreenwald Read GlennGreenwald's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel