McCain Pushes Back

Chill Out: A woman at a McCain rally in Wisconsin Friday said she was scared to death of Barack Obama because he was an Arab. "No, no," John McCain said, quickly taking the microphone from the woman. "Sen. Obama is a good, honest citizen...a good family man." Amid a chorus of boos, McCain said "I just think I would make a better president." At an earlier rally Friday, McCain found himself defending Obama among jeers of "traitor" and "treason." A riled, vengeful Republican right wing base is venting its anger triggered by a storm of negative ads and rally calls by the McCain campaign and particularly vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. In the heat of an election in which Republicans sense McCain is falling way behind Obama in the polls, chants of "liar," "terrorist," "off with his head" and "kill him" are becoming commonplace. Palin leads the attacks on Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers she calls a "domestic terrorist." McCain himself links Obama to the financial markets collapse because of financial donations and political advisory positions his campaign has received from former CEO's of bailed out financial giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The result is Godzilla. It forced McCain Friday to push back. "We want to fight," he said. "I want to fight. But we must remain respectful." At one rally, he said Obama "is a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." What we are observing is the two faces of John McCain. One is the veteran senator, a self-proclaimed maverick, who is honest and filled with integrity almost to a fault. The other is candidate McCain heeding direction from advisers who are casting him into positions of which he is extremely uncomfortable. The real John McCain stood up Friday. One must sympathize with McCain's frustration. The nation's economic meltdown is killing him and fellow Republicans down ticket. Trying to expose Obama's programs and policies, he said at the last debate, "is like trying to nail jello to a wall."

The Arab Connection: One can only guess where the woman who voiced fear Obama was an Arab where she got that impression. Perhaps, it came from the writings of Jack Wheeler. He was the author of President Reagan's strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race. He later wrote a weekly column on government intelligence activities. Here are excerpts on Obama from a recent email: "The O-Man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric of real substance." Fair enough. Then, he wallows in to the race card. "He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic percentage to people in Kenya. Only a small part of him is African black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively." Wait one moment. Since when has Obama rejected his white mother? Never. Wheeler continues: "What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is "African-American," the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners...Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah." That seems a disconnect, like saying two plus two equals five. But Wheeler is just warming to the task. "Obamamania is beyond politics and reason," he writes. "It is true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white." Now, voters who support Obama are anti-Christ. Really? "Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White," Wheeler writes. "The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed in Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him...Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior." What Wheeler is saying is that it's okay to be black but not a black slaveholder and white guilt is why white liberals support Obama, something good Christians should avoid. Sounds like Wheeler is advocating ethnic and religious cleansing.