What I'm completely sick of

[TheCalvinator24]

The rejoinder of "Oh yeah, well your guy/gal is just as bad as, if not worse than, our guy/gal."

My guy has connections to A, B, & C? Well, what about your guys' connections to X, Y, & Z?

It's sickening.

[nitrah55]

Cal,

I do hope that your post is not a reaction to my post about David Ifshin. If it is, I want you to know that I have allowed myself to be misunderstood.

I have no problem with McCain's friendship (his word, not mine) with Ifshin; in fact, I think it is praiseworthy and evidence of a character that would do honor to the Oval Office. I also have no problem with Obama's association with Ayers.

My intent was not to play "Your Guy's Pals are Worse Than My Guy's Pals;" quite the contrary- I really think the "Association Card" is not worth playing in any event. Anyone who spends more than 20 minutes in politics is going to rub elbows with all sorts of people, so what's the point? I brought up Ifshin as an example of why that game doesn't work. I responded to D41's post because it didn't seem to me he had gotten the point, either.

Anyway, I do respect your judgement- as much as we disagree- and I hope I have not damaged our dialogue.

In any event, this will not affect your chances for repeating as QBPPC champ.

regards,

Nitrah

[TheCalvinator24]

Nitrah,

That was not aimed at you. Your post may have inspired me to put that feeling down in writing, but the guilt by association thing has bugged me.

If I were advising Senator Obama, I would tell him not to go tit for tat on "questionable associations." I would advise on Ayers to keep up the argument he's been using; i.e., that Ayers' violent activities were when he, Obama, was 8 years old. I believe that Obama has successfully deflected the Ayers issue, but if he joins the chorus of "Oh yeah, well what about your friends," I think it will backfire.

[nitrah55]

Once again, we agree. If Obama doesn't just keep saying what he's been saying, it'll cost him. Obviously, he knows that what he's been saying has been working. High ground and pragmatism don't always dovetail so well.

[VAdame]

Thank you, Cal! and Nitrah.

One of my favorite columnists, Reg Henry, wrote about this "Guilt by Association" business today -- and since Reg writes much better than I do, I'll let him tell it:

My friends, fill out the morality report
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
By Reg Henry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I am sorry to burden you, but this is fair notice that I will be sending out morality/patriotism questionnaires to all my friends. I do not want to be blindsided in the future and accused of guilt by association, which is the trendy thing this presidential campaign season.

It used to be that an American could make friends based on his (or her) assessment of someone's character without regard to what other people, including the government, thought about it. Not any more.

Before common sense fled screaming from the national stage, it was understood that you could look into a person's eyes, as President Bush famously did with Vladimir Putin, despite a sinister black cloud hovering over him, and thereby get a sense of his soul and decide that this was someone who could be dealt with on friendly terms.

(OK, it's not the best example, but Mr. Bush got the principle right and it wasn't his fault that Mr. Putin was secretly wearing those special soul-obscuring contacts that fateful day.)

The truth is all of us do personal character assessments of other people and we trust our own senses before the indictments of society, which is decent of us in a judge-not-and-be-not-judged sort of way.

That is why my own friends include scoundrels who have not always been in good odor with polite society, who have been shameless in love and reckless in finances, who have drunk too much, who have been wrong-headed, unkempt and generally obnoxious. But enough about my old pals in journalism, lovable rascals all.

I am proud to say that my circle of friendly lowlifes has extended to many walks of life, with one exception. That blessed spot is where I now make my home, the borough of Sewickley, where I can vouch everybody lives an upright life because, as Mrs. Henry has so wisely and threateningly said, "We have to live here." Even there, if I may be so daring, I have friends who have been slow in returning their library books.

It is true that none of my friends has been accused of serious crimes that involve trying to start a revolution resulting in some deaths; the shadiest of my friends have only been revolting.

And that brings us -- as you knew it would -- to former domestic terrorist William Ayers, sometime acquaintance of Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. Note that I did not say friend because I reckon friends do not get other friends to serve on community boards, as the old Weatherman did to Barack Obama. A man could die of boredom on one of those boards.

As Sen. Obama himself has said, he was 8 years old when William Ayers was making a violent ass of himself. He is a free man because the government bungled the case and he became over the years an honored member of the Chicago community.

So the decent thing for Mr. Obama to do was to shun him? So much for the Christian belief in redemption. So much for anybody's commonsensical belief that people can change and do good after doing bad.

Of course, none of Mr. Obama's critics really believes in redemption or personal growth. All principles go out the window when your candidate is behind in the polls. That's the time to bear false witness and hate your enemies.

In the same hypocritical vein, none of them is likely to remember that the Bush administration allowed Osama bin Laden's relatives to leave the country right after 9/11 -- Osama bin Laden's relatives! -- or that the Bush family has coddled Cuban terrorists opposed to Fidel Castro. After all, there are terrorists and there are terrorists and the only ones to get upset about are ancient ones, long rehabilitated if not unambiguously repentant, who had a coffee klatch for a rising young Democrat.

Of course, I wish Mr. Obama had never met William Ayers or sat in a pew of the church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but if you go out in any community where library book tardiness is not the worst crime, you meet different sorts of people if you are not prissy or elitist. Sometimes you make passing alliances with them and the only real significance is that you haven't lived an absurdly sheltered life, which is a good thing for any would-be leader in an imperfect world.

Still, I have learned my lesson, so I am sending out questionnaires about moral fitness to all my old buds. I have also decided to send one to Jesus Christ, who I am shocked to learn sat down with many unsavory sinners. The nerve of Him!

[BigDrawMan]

a friend of mine went thru rehabs 18 times whilst living in texas.
He moved back here.
I still associate with him.

though i probly wont be taking him on my next casino trip