No one respects the person, or persons, who continually play the Casper Milquetoast role, let others walk all over them. And to be blunt, as much as I loathe the GOP and its overarching “me, me, me — I got mine, screw you — power, power, power: it’s all that counts” mentality, I’m beginning to disrespect the Democratic Party, with equal intensity, but for the reason noted in the preceding sentence.

The Obama campaign is getting creamed! Here’s why.

Let me put this in the form of an analogy of a foot race between the two contestants. Both weigh the same, however one of them, John McCain, is burdened by carrying a couple hundred pounds of extra baggage. If the best Obama can do, under these circumstances, is to be a little bit ahead it is completely impossible to suppose the race is close. No it’s not!

The proudest, most positive, perhaps the only proud, positive moment in the Kerry campaign of 2004 occurred when he thought he was off-mike. Under his breath, Kerry uttered, “They’re all a bunch of crooks.” They, the Republicans and the administration were all “a bunch of crooks.” So why off-mike? What was Kerry and his campaign staff so afraid of: that they’d make the GOP angry, that he’d upset them, by having the (shock of all shock) audacity to openly call them on their mal- and misfeasance?

Senator John McCain is an unabashed liar. If someone asked him the time of day, and McCain said, “It’s 2:30,” the person who made the inquiry would be well advised to secure confirmation from additional sources.

The Arizonan has conflated anecdotes of his POW experience. One was how he used the Green Bay Packers, his “favorite” team, lineup to distract his captors, but while in Pittsburg, recently the favorite team became the Steelers, and the lineup became that of the famed Steel Curtain. At Saddleback Church this past Sunday, at 15:33 minutes into the interview, McCain claimed a cross in the dirt moment between a “gun guard” and himself that just happened to be lifted straight from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago.

McCain does not support the troops, active or veterans, as he claims. He never has. The truth is, however he has missed 59.2 percent of votes, more than any other senator, more even than Tim Johnson who was out 10 months, recovering from a near-fatal brain hemorrhage, of the bills and amendments John McCain did cast a vote on since 2002, every single one that was to better equip or serve the men and women heading into combat or to enhance veterans’ health and education benefits, John voted “nay.” Not merely a “nay” here, or there. If the bill or amendment would have proved a benefit to those who serve or served, on EVERY ONE the response was “nay.” At a recent campaign stop, McCain told a veteran who was challenging his claimed “support,” the senator responded, “WE recently got a strong veterans bill through . . .” The truth? McCain strongly opposed the bill . . . on the premise it would detract from reenlistment.

When it comes to other realms, whether it’s the international stage or the Constitution or economics, John McCain’s glaring fumbling and overall ignorance make George Bush appear as a Rhode’s scholar or Nobel laureate. McCain doesn’t know Shia from Sunni from who, including al Qaeda, is where in Iran or Iraq, or where they’re headed. He doesn’t know an Article 1, Section 9 Constitutional case from a 5^th Amendment issue. On the energy front, McCain’s answer is to send his supporters tire-pressure gauges, build 49 nuclear power plants (disregarding the fact there exist in the country no adequate supply of water to cool the plants and no adequate supply of private financial interest), keep the Bush tax-cuts and policies that have proven disastrous to the economy and led to the collapse of the dollar, and so much more that’s just plain idiocy.        

It isn’t as if the opportunities to hang the presumptive GOP candidate from his own petard have been scant. Spokespersons for the campaign have repeatedly had the Sunday talk shows and any number of press briefings and releases. What we’ve been getting from the Obama camp, however, are polite and tragically bland, vague recitations of “policy differences,” along with invitations to “go to the website.” It’s good having the details there, especially in comparison to the paucity of same at McCain’s. But all that’s just so “yawn” and exceedingly naïve, to believe and act as if that’s how presidential campaigns in general, and this one in particular, can be won. Ask John Kerry.       

This isn’t some backyard badminton game we’re talking about. It’s the very future of the United States of America. Our military is shot. Russia is poking us in the eye, daring us, laughing at us, because they can, and they and everyone else knows they can. Additionally, given the track we’re on, and the track China is on, very highly regarded economists have forecast that by 2035 (JUST ONE GENERATION HENCE!!!) China will be the predominant player on the world stage, and America but a second-rate footnote.

Obama is getting creamed. And I, for one, am angry. The stakes are too high for anyone to pretend otherwise. I don’t want polite. Polite just will not cut it. I want the gloves to come off. That doesn’t mean engaging smear tactics. That doesn’t mean lowering standards or campaign high-road intentions. It just means shoving it in their face, loudly and as often as possible. It means fighting as if the stakes truly were high, and Barack Obama and his staff cared.

— Ed Tubbs

     Reno, NV

PS — Of course I welcome responses, those that disagree as well as those that agree. But I’ve got to insist that only those retaining the courage of their convictions to include their real name and the city where they reside, exactly as they would for any letter to the editor, will be read or responded to. Now is the time for all of us to live up to the words and sentiments in our National Anthem.