ugly end game

sorry about the drought, folks. but im back to respond to another Charles Krauthammer rant. this guy seems to inspire me. not as Gandhi might inspire you to do good, but as the Joker might inspire you to fight evil.

anyway, i just read this article in which he dredges up Obama's supposedly suspicious associations. i have addressed this issue before with Reverend Wright. my point then and now is that it is possible to come away from an association seeing the person as they are: both good and bad. and seeing who they are and what they do and have done, to filter the bad and see the good.

i worked with a superintendent who is great with architects, clients, plans, and will build a great project in the end, but he has a temper and can be a total prick to subcontractors. i watched him and saw him at his best with our cliet and architect, then, ten minutes later, berate a subcontractor. i saw what he was doing in that case was wrong. but i also saw what he did that was good. the good outweighed the bad, and i, being somewhat intelligent, was able to come away from that experience with a great idea how to deal with clients, and a great idea how not to deal with subcontractors.

is it not possible that Obama can take away frome Ayers his commitment to education, and leave behind his radicalism? or take from Reverend Wright the community service, and leave the racial rhetoric? and as far as Rezko goes, he made a mistake, and then donated all that money to charity. look, people make mistakes. the important thing is that you learn from them and move on.

look, if we want to start dredging up people's associations, im sure Senator McCain has some skeletons in his closet. we already know about his involvement in the Keating Five scandal that earned him a repremand. now i hope that John McCain, being a smart man, has learned from that experience. from it he evidently didnt learn that deregulation of banking can lead to economic catastrophe.

Krauthammer has got one thing right: its too late in the game for this. even if his associations are dubious at times, its an ugly end game, a smear campaign. these questions should have been raised as questions, not smears, and should have been raised months ago. now the economy is the issue, if McCain tries to change the focus, he is running from the the issues, and one that he is faltering on.

the long and short is that Obama is stronger on the economy, and McCain is redirecting. and i beleive, perhaps naively, that Obama is smart enough to separate the bad from good. that he is wise enough to be able to collaborate with people that he may disagree with on some issues to make progress on other issues, like education. no one is all good, or all bad, but you can learn something from all of them.