Daylight on racism at the McCain and Palin town hall meetings and rallies

You can call it whatever you need to - but latent racism or ignorance is coming out of the closet. And it is not a proud moment. The world is watching and some can loudly say that they don't care what the rest of the world thinks of us. But you know that saying about the chickens come home to roost? We can choose not to care. But even today GW Bush said the world needs to cooperate and work together.

How does that work exactly? We choose not to care what the rest of the world thinks of us then we ask them to care what our President says to them.

Here is an article from Great Britain on our Presidential race:

Viewpoint: The impetuous John McCain

By Jamie Stiehm
Political commentator, Washington DC

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7663091.stm

Senator John McCain's personal charms are in danger of turning into a liability as the former Navy fighter pilot looms large in the American sky.

In private the impetuous, nearly manic nature of the Republican running for president is exhilarating - in public it's beginning to look like volatility, a cause for alarm among friends and foes alike.

Aside from an unfortunate reference to his opponent as "that one", McCain gave a rather restrained performance on Tuesday in the debate at Nashville, Tennessee.

It was a strategy to show voters he had, as he put it, "a steady hand at the tiller".

But contrast the mellow McCain of Nashville to the warrior of the first debate in Oxford, Mississippi, where he gripped the podium with an expression of suppressed fury, and seemed on the verge of swinging a fist at Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Viewers could easily draw the conclusion that the candidate is dominated by his passing moods.

Collective crush

When I covered Congress as a reporter years ago, I lunched with the senator and his press secretary in the Senate dining room.

VIEWPOINTS

Jamie Stiehm is a political journalist based in Washington DC, whose essays on the 2008 presidential campaign have appeared in the liberal, pro-Obama Huffington Post. This is one of a series of comment and opinion pieces that the BBC website will publish before the election.

There McCain showed me how he communicated with other prisoners of war in Vietnam, by tapping in Morse code on the table.

In a winning way, he also mockingly threatened to thrash author Michael Lewis, who had just cracked my heart. This light-hearted McCain "never met a stranger", as they say.

It's no secret the media had a collective crush on the straight-talking, disarming Republican when he ran for president and lost to George W Bush in 2000. For he was an honourable man, we felt.

One of his finer moments in the Clinton years was reaching out to a junior Democratic senator, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, to pass a co-authored campaign finance reform bill.

At 72, the snow-topped senator knows this is his last try.

The first sign that his temperament may be "erratic" - as Mr Obama now puts it - was when he cancelled the first night of the National Republican Convention up north in Minnesota for fear of a hurricane down south.

Some thought McCain needed a reason to keep President Bush (who was scheduled to speak) from showing up at the party. But this sort of thing is just not done - it's never happened before.

Unpredictable

Then, when McCain suspended his campaign during the financial crisis and headed for the halls of Congress, his move shocked observers on both sides of the party aisle.

He ran the risk of missing the first debate, an odd form of political suicide.

In Oxford, his dark side showed up. Obama, he insisted over and over, does not understand Iraq, Army General David Petraeus and the like.

In fact, McCain has curiously made the "surge" general a personal issue: either you accept his word as gospel and ask to meet him or you don't understand war and peace in the Middle East.

(That kind of public deference to a commander, by the way, is counter to the American civil-military code, and points to something deep in McCain's way of seeing the world.)

Casting the unschooled Governor Sarah Palin in an understudy role was McCain's most spectacularly unpredictable decision. Impetuous? You betcha, the woman from Wasilla might say in her downhome way.

The larger picture is that a sobered-up American public wants to look and listen to determine if candidates have clear-cut answers to their questions and worries about a frail economy.

'Brawling traditions'

But few know what McCain is going to do next on the national stage, which could make voters uneasy in these troubled times.

The next question: if he does show up, which side of McCain are we going to see?

A minor variation on this theme is McCain's last-minute decision to stand up the popular late-night CBS talk show host, David Letterman - who took umbrage and has not let millions forget the slight.

Letterman claims McCain told him he had to rush back to Washington, but stayed in New York to be interviewed by Katie Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Former Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has described McCain's character as molded by the "brawling traditions of the United States Navy". There is something to that.

McCain boasts of his checkered record at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he graduated perilously close to the bottom of his class.

By his own admission, he was a hotheaded and privileged young man who narrowly avoided expulsion. Later, as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, the lesson he seems to have learned over long years is to never give up the fight, even when the war is lost.

The son and grandson of admirals, McCain still has a swagger in his step and a permanent air of defiance. It's part of his appeal, but it may sink his ship in this rough political sea.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7663091.stm
Published: 2008/10/10

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Here is a website dedicated to

Watching America

The following text is from their About Us page

Watching America reflects global opinion about the United States, helping Americans and non-Americans alike understand what the world thinks of current issues that involve the U.S. This is done by providing news and views about the United States published in other countries.

It is not our purpose to find favorable or unfavorable content, but to reflect as accurately as possible how others perceive the richest and most powerful country in the world. We have no political agenda.

Watching America makes available in English articles written about the U.S. by foreigners, often for foreign audiences, and often in other languages. Since Watchin gAmerica offers its own translations, regular users of our site will enjoy articles not available in English anywhere else. We are a unique window into world opinion.

End of borrowed text

Here is one article from their archive page:

US Election: Why top Tories are turning their backs on John McCain

By Iain Dale

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/10/2008

All my adult life I have supported Republican candidates in American presidential elections. Like most Tory MPs and activists, I have wanted to be impressed by John McCain. I went to see him speak at the Tory conference in 2006, expecting to be wowed. Like most others, I left profoundly disappointed by his speech, which was pedestrian and devoid of inspiration. Maybe he was having an off day, I thought.

I felt McCain - as a maverick - could distance himself from the ideological zealots in his party who have done so much to turn it from a political party into a narrow sect. Many of us thought Sarah Palin could give his ticket the "wow" factor Barack Obama had given the Democrats. We were wrong on both counts.

Many Conservative MPs have travelled a similar journey over the past few months - a journey most of us thought we could never make, and a journey that has resulted in a decision to break the habit of a lifetime and declare our support for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.

Tory MP Richard Spring, who doubles as David Cameron's envoy to the City of London, is one of many who have always supported the Republicans, but are now backing Obama. "It's important for America's reputation in the world to be improved and Obama can be instrumental in bringing this about," he says. "He sends out a signal of change."

Spring's colleague Andrew Tyrie agrees: "I have always been a Republican, but Bush has done so much damage to the project of the family of western nations that I feel only an Obama presidency can rectify it. We need something that is demonstrably a huge change."

Richard Spring estimates that at least half the Conservative Parliamentary Party would vote for Obama given the chance, something that would have been unthinkable in the pre-George W. Bush era.

Many shadow ministers remain publicly coy about their leanings, but it's remarkable how few, even privately, express any enthusiasm for the McCain-Palin ticket. Senior whip Simon Burns and the shadow business secretary, Alan Duncan, have both outed themselves as Democrat supporters, but few others are willing to go on the record.

One shadow cabinet member is a signed-up member of the Obama fan club, yet believes if he were to admit to it publicly, it would damage his status within the party. He likens it to the reluctance of so many Tory MPs to sign up to David Cameron's leadership campaign in the early days. "We thought people would think we had taken leave of our senses," he tells me. "Cameron and Obama are both agents of change, in a way that their opponents never could be." He adds: "The Conservative Party is always suspicious of change - until it has been proved to work."

Few Obama-supporting Tories seem remotely bothered by his extremely liberal voting record in the Senate. Simon Burns says: "Obama is like any true compassionate Conservative. He is focusing on helping the vulnerable and the middle classes." Another former Republican-supporting Tory MP, Ben Wallace, thinks an Obama victory is necessary to give the Republicans a much-needed jolt. "Young people on the centre-Right don't have a home to go to," he complains. "The religious Right has taken over the Republicans." He cites the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, who believe in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, as the reason British Conservatives can feel comfortable about supporting Obama.

While Cameron remains a fan of McCain, he has been very careful to demonstrate even-handedness, as he knows only too well that Obama is closer to many of his own ideas and goals. Cameron's trusted adviser, Steve Hilton, has wisely been given the task of developing closer relations with Obama's entourage during his six-month stay in California. Could it be that the Tory leader himself is a closet Obama backer?

Original source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Additional links from Watching America

The Gulf Times of Qatar: McCain Contempt is No Laughing Matter:

...the most cringe-worthy viewing came when McCain tackled America’s bogeyman of yesteryear and reemerging cause for concern, Russia. Recounting a time that he met with Vladimir Putin, McCain said: “I looked in Mr Putin’s eyes and I saw three letters – a K, a G and a B.” This coming from a man who hopes to be the lead diplomat of one of the most powerful countries in the world...

The Independent of Great Britain: McCain is Deluding Himself

La Repubblica translated from Italian ~ Science, Environment and Stem cells: Obama vs. McCain

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