The Amazing Superficial Race

Image from source, The New Republic

If there's one thing conservatives and liberals could probably agree on, is that this campaign has been amazingly superficial. Barack Obama, during the primaries, rightly called it "the silly season."

John McCain berates Obama for not visiting Iraq recently. Then when Obama does go to Iraq, McCain berates him for going. And on and on. But the problem with superficial attacks is, rebuttal doesn't take much to swat down. That would be good--in this case, for Obama--except for a couple of things. One, is the American public's frightening ability to hold on to the attack, and utterly miss the rebuttal. And the other is the popularity of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the wannabes/never weres/never gonnabes on the right who think nothing of repeating (and repeating, and repeating) the attack, long after it's been refuted. Gotta catapult the propaganda!

[Excerpt]

The Amazingly Superficial Race

So is Barack Obama's foreign trip this week a critical addition to his presidential résumé? Or is it a farce? You'd never know from listening to the GOP. Late this spring, Republicans delighted in bashing Obama for his two-plus year absence from Iraq--the implication being that Obama wouldn't merit a Situation Room seat until he'd boarded a trans-Atlantic flight. But, as Obama's itinerary has taken shape in recent weeks, suddenly the McCain campaign has soured on the idea. On Thursday, McCain spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker complained that Obama's trip would be a "first-of-its-kind campaign rally overseas." McCain himself finally settled on a tentative compromise: Obama's stops in Iraq and Afghanistan would be kosher. But, "What Senator Obama does in the other countries, whether political rallies or not, obviously would then give them a political flavor to say the least." Got that?

Read more at: The New Republic