Diverted by Distraction

Have you heard? Obama is a Muslim. Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin. Obama used to smoke. Surely we can’t allow a Jeremiah Wright clone to occupy the White House---which after all is the premier symbol of what it means to be American.

It’s called diversion.

Focus on Obama’s race and religion and maybe we won’t remember the 4000 young Americans who have been killed in a war that is un-necessary, un-winnable and un-sustainable. Remember Jeremiah Wright’s “Goddamn America,” and we might overlook the $9,595,445,941,309 debt the Republicans have saddled upon the backs of our children and grandchildren. That’s $31,507 per American and growing at a rate of $1.82 billion per day. Call his wife un-American and perhaps “true” Americans will support another war, or two, financed by foreign loans. We might even consider unimportant the Republican deregulation policies that led to fraud in the mortgage lending business and collapse of our house values. We might even consider the torture of other human beings, without trial or legal representation, a new American value. Label Obama an elitist and we may overlook his life time commitment to uplifting the poor, the unemployed and the uninsured.

It seems obvious that the only way for McCain and the War Party to win in November and insure the prosperity of the ultra rich is to divert America’s attention away from Barrack Obama’s life time commitment to insure “liberty and justice for all,” is to focus attention on his father’s religion.

Oops, I was so busy analyzing that fist-bump between Michelle and Barack that I forgot about the lobbyist working on McCain’s staff, that our infrastructure is crumbling, our imports are unsafe and that there are many, many, many more terrorist who hate us today then ever before.

If we can become distracted by insignificant symbols, perhaps we won’t notice that John McCain has also been distracted by these same distractions and has little commitment to solving our nation’s real problems, such as; retirement security, health care, education, jobs, the environment and above all our national security. These crucial threats to America cannot be solved by cutting taxes for the most fortunate and dropping bombs on the least fortunate which seems to encompass most of John McCain’s vision for America.

Thomas Are
August 15, 2008