Stupid Attacks on McCain...

Before this cartoon caused a ton of fake outrage -
This cartoon went unnoticed - Really which one of these is more offensive? A cartoon mocking Obama's ridiculous detractors, who believe he is an American-hating, Osama-loving terrorist or a cartoon mocking the torture John McCain went through in Vietnam? For my money, I have to believe the latter is much worse. The Obama cartoon was packaged with an article trashing idiots who level baseless accusation on the Democrats Messiah, while the McCain cartoon was published on June 26th at Rollingstone.com and was packaged with an article titled "Full Metal McCain" that, just to give you a taste, begins with this paragraph -

Evening, June 3rd, in a muggy, dragonfly-beswarmed place called the Pontchartrain Center, just outside New Orleans. Half a continent away, amid yet another legacy-smashing fusillade of unsolicited invective from Bill Clinton, the excruciating Obama-Hillary mess is finally wrapping up, in a pair of anticlimactic primaries somewhere over the darkened plains of Montana and South Dakota. But here in the Big Easy, John McCain has chosen this moment to mount his first general-election attack against the Great Satanic Liberal Enemy — who, as luck would have it, turns out to be a Negro intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military. And this is supposed to be a bad year for Republicans?

The real reason I even bring this up is to talk about an interesting trend I am seeing. A trend of actual attacks on John McCain in regard to his military service. Now, contrary to popular belief, I love hearing opposing opinions, I listen to Air America (love Ed Shultz and Randi Rhodes) and and I can't believe I have been hearing the stuff about McCain that I have been hearing. So when I hear Thom Hartman asking about whether John McCain deserves his disability, then after his guest explains that of course he does and then Hartmann hedges by saying "that's why i don't bring it up" I laugh because what he just did was bring it up, without having the balls to actually bring it up.

As a talk show host, I pride myself on questioning listeners who call in with stupid crap, I feel like if I let them say "Obama is a Muslim," "Republicans are all racists" or "McCain is worse than Obama for conservatives" without questioning them or tearing them apart then I am somehow giving credence to what they say. So when on the Ed Shultz show today, with Norman Goldman was filling in, I heard a listener go on and on about how "McCain doesn't deserve his disability" and "being shot down in Vietnam doesn't make you a hero" I waited for Goldman to lay into the caller and ask "what does this have to do with his qualifications to be President." It never came. Instead Goldman, talked about a veteran who called earlier and was having trouble financially while McCain was against the new GI Bill. What does his disability have to do with the new GI Bill? Nothing, and the fact that anyone is trying to draw that line is ridiculous.

Both sides really need to stop this crap, I am all for vigorous, even nasty "attack dog politics" but they need to be grounded in relevancy and truth. Obama being a Muslim and McCain not being a hero are ridiculous non-starters and should be rejected across the board.