Marco.org

squashed:

Here’s a new McCain ad. Now, Biden was a bit off script when he stated that somebody would do something to test the new American President. It’s not the most clever thing to say when you’re running for President—but it’s also a reasonable assumption that if America looks like it has a chance of resuming a leadership role in the world, somebody will want to test the new leader.

But now McCain is running this ad, which seems to suggest that if you vote for his opponent, terrorists will attack us.

It’s even more of a stretch than that. Biden’s statement doesn’t say that “someone” will test Obama. Transcript:

Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. The world is looking. We’re going to have an international crisis to test the mettle of this guy. I guarantee you it’s gonna happen.

I’m not familiar with the context, but that may not even be a reference to terrorism. “An international crisis” could be lots of things, including economic problems, trade disputes, nuclear disarmament noncompliance, natural disasters in poor countries needing relief, humanitarian issues, civil wars, oil spills, international plane crashes (not caused by terrorism), or the next Elian Gonzales PR phenomenon. I think it’s reasonable to assume that at least one of those happens every six months.

McCain’s ad is all but stating directly that if we elect Obama, we’ll be attacked by terrorists, and if we elect McCain, we won’t be.

This is beyond despicable.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they previously respected McCain, but now they’ve lost that respect because he has “become” this way during the election or “sank to this level”.

But I don’t think that’s the case. People don’t become uncivilized, mudslinging, racist liars overnight. Such massive character flaws in adults tend to be ingrained fairly permanently.

I think it’s far more likely, given much of what we’ve learned during this campaign, that McCain has always been a smug, self-entitled, impulsive asshole with a bad temper. We’re just seeing far more of him now than we ever have before, so these qualities are more apparent to more people.