'Macaca' part two?
To put it bluntly, last night's debate was a snoozer. After smacking my forehead in disbelief a couple times on some really dumb answers from John McCain (it goes without saying that pretty much anything out of Barack Obama's mouth was a combination of pandering and dollar signs going off in his eyes) I got to the point of agreeing with Michelle Malkin, whose liveblogging I was following for reaction, that listening to this townhall debate was like watching paint dry.
So I was quizzical when I got a comment on the particular post which was up at that time on monoblogue simply stating, "'That One' won." I replied "That one what?" I didn't find out about the significance until I was listening to Rush today, because what McCain said just didn't register. Here's that passage from the transcript:
BROKAW: Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?
MCCAIN: I think pure research and development investment on the part of the United States government is certainly appropriate. I think once it gets into productive stages, that we ought to, obviously, turn it over to the private sector.
By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.
You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. (I believe at this moment he pointed in Obama's direction - Editor.) You know who voted against it? Me. I have fought time after time against these pork barrel -- these bills that come to the floor and they have all kinds of goodies and all kinds of things in them for everybody and they buy off the votes.
I vote against them, my friends. I vote against them. But the point is, also, on oil drilling, oil drilling offshore now is vital so that we can bridge the gap. We can bridge the gap between imported oil, which is a national security issue, as well as any other, and it will reduce the price of a barrel of oil, because when people know there's a greater supply, then the cost of that will go down.
That's fundamental economics. We've got to drill offshore, my friends, and we've got to do it now, and we can do it.
And as far as nuclear power is concerned, again, look at the record. Senator Obama has approved storage and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
And I'll stop, Tom, and you didn't even wave. Thanks.
Apparently Obama supporters took it as racist, like that same commenter who then shot back to me this morning, "I guess McCain was using ‘One’ as code for ‘Nigger’ to his racist supporters." (Since I didn't moderate comments until I got home this evening I heard the Rush reference first.) Personally I took it the same as McCain saying "that guy" or "that dude", but I guess all that does is make me guilty of being white.
Let's face facts here - Obama is going to get about 90% of the black vote. And it's not because he's black, it's because he's a Democrat. If racial unity were that great for just any black candidate, my junior Senator would be Michael Steele, they would be calling Lynn Swann the governor of Pennsylvania, and Ken Blackwell might be midway through his first successful term as Ohio's governor.
But it's that sensitivity minority voters have that makes headlines in the drive-by media. Former Senator George Allen of Virginia had his political career derailed because the word 'macaca' became a keyboard shortcut for the Washington Post, it was used so often. (And I'm still not sure why that was offensive, but I suppose it was made out to be so.) With Obamaites fanning the flames just as furiously as they can to light this spark of racism, I can tell that even if Obama wins the issue of race doesn't go away.
Of course, if Obama is unsuccessful in November you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to be attributed to racism among Republicans. No way would it be Barack's relative lack of experience, his misguided foreign policy, or his tax-and-spend liberalism. And it can't be that lack of trust in Obama among rank-and-file Democrats who swept Hillary Clinton to victories in many of the final primaries. In turn, we know that an Obama win will be considered a "mandate" even if he wins by 1 percent or, like Bill Clinton, can't get a majority of the vote in his bid for the Oval Office.
No, the bets are being hedged as quickly as possible by Obama's minions who know that the only thing that can stop Obama is his past, so they're throwing all the mud they can at John McCain while attempting to keep a lid on that bubbling cauldron that is filled with stories about Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko and other Chicago machine politicians, and all that cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In a nutshell, that's Election 2008. It's a shame we couldn't have a real debate with a decent moderator last night and that one flippant phrase is sure to become a hot issue.