{"id":1089,"date":"2008-09-13T06:07:53","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T11:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/wp\/?p=1089"},"modified":"2008-09-13T06:07:53","modified_gmt":"2008-09-13T11:07:53","slug":"despicable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=1089","title":{"rendered":"Despicable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Without knowing the background behind it, just hearing about the Obama campaign&#8217;s cheap shot at John McCain &#8211; that McCain doesn&#8217;t know how to use a computer &#8211; was enough to raise my hackles.<\/p><p><!--more--><br \/>\nIt brought back years of ugly memories of the ageist\/sexist discrimination in IT departments, that hardest and meanest of glass ceilings.<br \/>\nIt ignores the fact that McCain, who is Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee, is regarded as the Senate&#8217;s &#8220;savviest technologist&#8221;, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/asap\/2000\/0529\/053_print.html\" target=\"_blank\">Forbes<\/a>.<br \/>\nIn other words, as in so many IT departments, it rationalizes its prejudices and confuses gimmicks and keyboard tricks with actual technical competence.<br \/>\nAs offensive as this latest bit of adolescent drivel from the smug, spoiled, $400 million Obama camp is, I didn&#8217;t realize how truly low his campaign could go until this morning.<br \/>\nNamely, that their mocking John McCain is really is a slap at all handicapped people who physically cannot use a keyboard:  the reason McCain cannot type is because his fingers were so badly broken by his torturers in VietNam.<br \/>\nIt would be equivalent to denegrating New York Governor David Patterson&#8217;s ability to tackle transportation problems because he can&#8217;t drive a car: Governor Patterson is blind.<br \/>\nThis, in the same week that Joe Biden asked wheelchair-bound Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham to stand up at a campaign rally.<br \/>\nIf you doubt that any national political campaign, or their apologists, could actually do anything this stupid, check out both the <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/technology\/2008\/09\/obama-slams-mcc.html\" target=\"_blank\">ad<\/a> itself <strong>and<\/strong> the following unbelievable rationale from one of the Obama spokespersons:<br \/>\n<i>The ad goes directly at the fundamental issue in this race: John McCain is out of touch with the American people and unable to address the challenges facing the country in the 21st century. It delivers the message in a <strong>light-hearted, humorous<\/strong> way that Americans can relate to. <\/i><br \/>\nYeah, making fun of a man crippled in wartime is a real knee-slapper, most people&#8217;s idea of light-hearted and humorous.<br \/>\nLest you mistakenly believe that Obama&#8217;s surrogates are distancing themselves from his campaign&#8217;s unbelievable crassness and bigotry, also check out this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jBgP7lJaDO8\" target=\"_blank\">playback<\/a> from the smirking Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann&#8217;s protege on MSNBC.<br \/>\nI hope this latest bit of smart-aleck, adolescent stupidity from the Obama camp blows up in their faces.<br \/>\nI hope this convinces the majority of undecided voters how disastrous an Obama presidency would be &#8211; an administration in which arrogance and conceit mean never having to say you&#8217;re sorry.<br \/>\nIn true Democrat fashion, the Obama campaign is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.<br \/>\nHe could have focused his arguments on economics rather than vague &#8220;Bush 2&#8221; accusations.<br \/>\nHe could have picked out specific, key policy issues instead of allowing the vague notion of &#8220;change&#8221; to be turned into a pun and, ultimately, co-opted by McCain\/Palin.<br \/>\nHe could have selected Hillary as his running mate, thus solidifying the Democratic base.<br \/>\nInstead, his campaign has degenerated into the worst kind of adolescent name-calling, lacking cohesiveness and message at best, and becoming a snarky, mean-spirited attack on a distinguished war veteran at worst.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a disgraceful display, and at age 47, Barack Obama is old enough to know better.  Or he should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Without knowing the background behind it, just hearing about the Obama campaign&#8217;s cheap shot at John McCain &#8211; that McCain doesn&#8217;t know how to use a computer &#8211; was enough to raise my hackles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}