We already know that John McCain betrayed his own campaign finance reforms by taking out loans against his broken pledge to opt in to public financing. While the DNC is suing the FEC over McCain's blatant malfeasance, some people think that that hypocrisy is forgivable. But what kind of hypocrisy is not forgivable? How about this? Yesterday, McCain took $300,000 from a fundraiser hosted by Texas Politician, Clayton Williams. He canceled his appearance at the fundraiser, because Clayton had in the past given the following advice to rape victims: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."Mr. McCain did ditch the event, but he seems to have had no problem picking up the $300 grand that the despicable Mr. Clayton raised in his name. It's not surprising. Mr. McCain has recently proven himself more than willing to allow torture, the destruction of habeus corpus, and warrant-less wiretapping in his name. If you're willing to betray the constitution who really cares about rape victims? The shameless senator has no problem taking the money, but does he agree with Mr. Clayton? Should rape victims just "lie back and enjoy it", Mr. McCain? We'll ask the question, but we're not holding our breath waiting for the answer. $300,000 is apparently the current market value for seven pieces of silver.
On the same note, outside of Texans alive and aware of the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race, how many people know who Clayton Williams is or his displays of sexism in the 1990 campaign?
If Barack Obama took $300k from someone with ties to them you'd never hear the end of it. McCain showed his disgust for William's sick humor, but was willing to take his money. That's worthy of examination at least, if not condemnation.
As for your last question... I'd say a few more know now and many more should know.
If McCain is willing to take this guy's money, it's a fair question to ask if he shares his beliefs.
Also, the $300k was from individual donors, not just Clayton Williams. Williams is limited to a $2,300 contribution, $4,600 if his wife also contributed. Williams has also donated to Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. I wonder if they share his sexist views of 18 years ago.
You realize this is 18 year old news, right?
If you really want to play these tit for tat game and keep the level of the discussion on the 1st grade level, don't bemoan how the American public eats this shit up. You can't laud Obama for being beyond petty politics of the past 100+ years of American History and then focus on these oh so superficial things. You can't laud Obama for treating the electorate like adults and then proffer this schoolyard stuff.
But then I think the electorate should focus on the issues and solutions offered. I'm an idealist in this regard. And since the electorate focuses more on the superficial than the substantial, I accept being in the minority on this.
The McCain campaign thought the issue deplorable enough to try to distance themselves from, but not deplorable enough to abstain from taking the money.
The real point here is that this is not your grandfather's John McCain. Whatever principles or values he might have once stood for are long gone.
I don't recall John McCain ever claiming that his values included kicking someone to the curb for having told a tasteless joke 18 years ago.
It's exactly the kind of pathetic 'gotcha' politics that Barack Obama is opposed to and is working to get rid of in Washington. Obama wouldn't make an attack like this and neither should we.
This is within the normal range of dumb stuff that any human being might say at some point. We shouldn't expect our leaders to be perfect, let alone expect that any candidate for public office should only have anything to do with people whose entire lives and opinions and personal histories would pass muster at every moment since birth.
I swear, keep this stuff up and you'll have people voting for McCain on general principle.
McCain was offended enough to cancel the fundraiser, but not so offended that he wouldn't take the money.
I have no interest in picking up on every little thing, but McCain flip-flops on a daily basis, and he needs to be called out.
Voting for McCain on "general principle" after what we've seen from him in the past few months is simply not possible; all of the principles were lost long ago.