The true enemies of McCarthyism were always liberals, not Communists. The neo-McCarthyite smears you posted are completely within that tradition.

Are you aware that you’re laying it on a little thick when you portray the entire city of Chicago as some sort of evil empire? With respect to this Ayers guy: he’s has been described by prominent Chicago rabbi who lives in the same neighborhood (Hyde Park) as a “toothless former radical”. For God’s sake, Ayers is a professor at the University of Chicago and the board he was on with Obama was sponsored by a Republican who was a prominent Reagan supporter (Annenberg) and includes many Republicans. When you (and worse, the McCain campaign) talk about Ayers like he’s bin Laden, it just sounds wacky. Why do you (or anyone) think this should be the most prominent part of a presidential campaign?

While you are anonymous and can post freely without repercussions, I am amazed that serious politicians and columnists have bought into this smear campaign and repeated scurrilous charges largely originating with charlatans. They should know better. It would be in their interest and in the public interest as well for them to correct the record. Why should we waste our time debating BS when there are real issues requiring real debate. We all share the responsibility to frame that debate properly, regardless of who ultimately wins the election.

P.

Because if you squint really hard then you’ll see a “reality” that allows you to find reasons not to support Mr Obama. You might be indeed be a Democrat and a liberal but you seem to be viewing the thing through the prism of an unrelenting and deep-seated aversion to Obama that is more common to the extremist right.

Your portrayal of the Kenyan political situation (where, let us remember an election was blatantly rigged for reasons of tribalism and corruption) is an utter travesty. And yet you seem utterly fixated on the chimera of Odinga as some sort of Islamist neo-Nazi (which is itself a not very subtle way of smearing Obama by association). For crying out loud, Odinga was associated with Liberal International rather than the far-right.

http://www.liberal-international.org/newsletter.asp?ia_id=1464#anchor1075

If you’ve been misled, I suggest you look into some more balanced accounts of what happened there (and I apologise if my tone seems a little brusque); if you are trying to mislead others, you probably want to make your talking points at least vaguely plausible (and I’m being far more polite than you deserve).

I’d also guess that Obama moved to Chicago to teach at the really rather well known school law school there rather than because he was dying to rub shoulders with a bunch of shady Democratic politicians.

As for his association with Ayers – it seems pretty tenuous unless you are desperate to pin some sort of dirt, anything, on Obama. Which leaves us with Wright. There’s questions to be asked there, for sure, but I’m afraid someone who is either badly misinformed, or trying to peddle a noxious sort of misinformation, is not the person to ask them.

Or dribble???

I’ve met Kammo and can confirm that on that occasion he did neither, although to be fair I was quite modestly dressed, and who knows what might have happened if I was showing a bit of leg?

I don’t think that the way they dress has any real bearing on their decisions Alec.</blockquote<

When they play the fauxialist by night attacking real Leftists online, and then dress as a highly paid corporate headhunter by day, yes it does.

Ah.

But does Oliver Kamm leer????

Or dribble???