Jeff Chang blogs:
I was stomping around the house, scaring the kids, yelling at the radio and the television, and generally not digesting my dinner.
Here’s why…
McCain argued last night that he has “repudiated every time someone has been out of line.” But he continues to allow his VP nominee—someone CNN’s Leslie Sanchez once said was “a vice president for the rest of us”—to insinuate Obama is not like the rest of us. He continues to flog non-stories about ACORN, a federation of community organizations working for poor people led by a woman of color, and Bill Ayers, a former Weather Underground radical who now is a respected voice in education.
It’s actually somewhat amusing to me that advocates for Sen. Obama’s candidacy are publicizing the fact that William Ayers is well-respected in the educational establishment as if that is a commendation in his favor.
The obvious answer to this is that McCain doesn’t think that raising ACORN and Ayers — which he did himself at the last debate — is “out of line.” With regard to Obama, the only things McCain has marked as being out of line are the following:
– Rev. Jeremiah Wright
– References to Obama as an Arab
– Reference to Obama as a Muslim
Almost everything else is fair game in McCain’s view. (He hasn’t specified, but he also probably would consider “out of line” speculation on whether Obama is really a native-born citizen of the U.S., though that presumably because it touches upon a weak spot for the Panama-born McCain.) He hasn’t said that speculating on Obama’s relationship to Kenyan politicians, for example, is out of line, and to the extent that such speculations are fully reported based on facts, with the Obama campaign given reasonable opportunity to respond, I wouldn’t consider them out of line either.
William Ayers is well-respected in the educational establishment as if that is a commendation in his favor.
Yes. If Obama had spent a lot of time with Maria Montessori (had she lived another 40 years and migrated to America), this also would be a commendation in her favor. Not all of us think that the respect of the educational establishment is a bad thing.
I know, right? Fucking teachers!
There’s no more hated and reviled group of people nationwide than those who dedicate their lives to education. Hang ’em all!
—Myca
And of course, the ‘association’ between Obama and Ayers is utter bullshit … total crazy-pants irrational “KKKLINTON HAD VINCE FOSTERR MURDRED WHILE RUNNING DRUGZ!!!11!” level irrationality that puts the people who advocate it on par with folks who think the moon landing was faked, water fluoridation is a mind-control plot, black UN helicopters patrol the US for signs of resistance, and that the cover of Abbey Road proved that Paul is dead.
And the really frustrating thing is that I can never tell who’s advocating it because they really believe it (stupid) or who’s advocating it because they think that somehow, hopefully, maybe, this time it’ll hurt Obama (dishonest).
—Myca
Myca, I wasn’t thinking of teachers as the “educational establishment” anymore than I think of 99% of the workers in corporate America as the “corporate establishment”.
No, I get what you’re saying Ron, but checkitout, man. Steve Benen over at the Washington Monthly had a great post today about the failure of the Ayers attacks to connect with voters much.
If you guys were winning, if the attack was working, I could understand chuckling that Ayers standing in the educational establishment is just another black mark against him … but as it stands, there’s a 23-point gap on whether or not Obama’s relationship with Ayers should even be considered a legitimate issue or not! Ayers’ standing in the educational establishment isn’t an issue because everyone thinks the whole attack is bullshit anyhow.
I think the real problem is that, on the issues, most of America just disagrees with you guys right now, which is why there’s all this talk about Ayers, secret Muslims, ‘not really black’, etc. It’s an attempt to avoid having to campaign on the positions, because in the marketplace of ideas, your ideas are losing.
—Myca
But the educational establishment pretty much is created by the approval of rank-and-file teachers. If an educational theorist’s ideas are useless, no teacher in a classroom will use them and they will sink into obscurity. In contrast, the guy working the line at GM doesn’t decide whether GM should be making fewer SUVs and try investing in hybrids — corporate management does.
Seriously, who exactly in the educational establishment is being derided here? Names some names. If I mock the idea of Palin’s having high standing in the populist conservative establishment, I can name exactly whose political opinion I consider to be more a black mark than an endorsement: Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Tom DeLay. It’s lame to say, “Oh, the educational establishment, heh heh” without even knowing whom specifically you are deriding.