AND LEST WE FORGET

Giuliani wanted to use the 9/11 attacks to stop the scheduled mayoral election and thus allow him to continue being mayor beyond the legal limits of his term. Imagine what he might have done had he been president.

My mother always used to say, “There’s a little bit of good in the worst of us, and a little bit of bad in the best of us.” It was her way of keeping me right sized in my judgment of others.

This is equally true for politicians, Democratic or Republican. The thing that gets me isn’t that Republicans are all bad and Democrats all good, or that they attack each other.

What I hate is the hypocrisy and the lies. Attacking John Kerry for changing his vote in the Senate about the Iraq war is perfectly legit. But attacking his heroic rescue of one of his team, while under enemy fire, for which he was awarded a medal, when members of that team all testify to having witnessed his heroics, is just plain scumbag behavior.

Attacking Hilary Clinton for having done some financial shenanigans is okay, if she has done them, but painting her with the brush of financial crimes, such as the whole Whitewater fiasco, or whatever it was called, when the most expensive and longest running investigation in the history of executive investigations turned up absolutely no illegal activity (otherwise you know the Clinton haters would have had Bill impeached on those grounds and he and Hilary would still be in prison) is jive.

When you look at the limited political power and duties the governor of Texas actually wields, Obama has no less experience, and even more on the international level as a Senator, than Bush Junior did when he ran for president, let alone got awarded the office by the Supreme Court (or as The Bowery Boys used to call it: “The Extreme Court”).

John Edwards can legitimately be attacked for getting four-hundred-dollar haircuts. I understand any man’s compulsive obsession with his hair, it’s the one thing most men are vain about if they have any, but four-hundred-dollar haircuts when running for president, especially after the attacks on Bill Clinton for his even less expensive one on the L.A. tarmac that time when he was first in office, not very smart John.

Mitt Romney can be legitimately attacked for changing his positions on just about everything, and for claiming to be a “lifelong hunter” when he’s only hunted three times in his life and all those times were recent. He can even be attacked for his religion, if you think that the beliefs in that religion are a little farfetched for any reasonable person who happens to have the power to wage war. Just like it’s legit to attack candidates who don’t believe in evolution, like those three Republicans.

And by the way, if there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the parties, how come there’re no Democrats who don’t believe in evolution? But we could go on all day about that one.

John McCain can be attacked as well for changing his positions on fundamental issues. And especially on his kissing up to Bush Junior and hiring the same people who worked for Junior when they attacked McCain in the primaries for taking positions (i.e. abortion etc.) he never took and for doing things he never did (i.e. have a child with a black woman, or as in one of the lies these people propagated against him, with a black prostitute!—rumors that were spread in pockets of South Carolina where the Klan still holds sway). McCain should be attacked for not being ashamed of himself for sacrificing his reputation as a stand-up guy to garner favor with the same rightwing Republicans who spread these kinds of lies about him in his run against Bush for the nomination almost eight years ago.

The point is, wouldn’t it be great if all the political ads we’re about to start seeing on TV every second addressed the aspects of a candidate’s record that are true and can be legitimately attacked and not made up shit or distorted shit that’s based on lies and prejudice and the worst in us.

Ma, I wish you were still with us. We could use your help.