McCain tries to dial back the hate

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Why McCain chose this strategy is beyond me. The wackos were already going to vote for him anyway. The swing voters have swung away from him, and he's probably lost a lot of moderate voters that he already had in the bag before this debacle. Even after he loses the election, all those honorable years of service are going to be tainted. Has the man changed, or are we finally seeing him for who he is?

[Harlowe]

from one of the conservative sites I frequent

From Culture11
http://www.culture11.com/article/32850?page_view=1

Hate Talk Express
How the McCain campaign's outrageous tactics make America less safe.

But the McCain campaign's distortions are more than dishonest; they are dangerous, as are any misleading invocations of terrorism used to advance political ends. The attacker, if elected, diminishes the credibility he'll need should an actual threat arise. Even should he be defeated, the country is less able to assess the threat of terrorism in a clear-headed way. So ignore, if you must, that the McCain campaign's attacks are misleading, that they rile up the worst passions of the most bigoted voters, and that they are deeply destructive to the right's credibility.

The foremost reason to oppose them is that they make us less safe. That is why every Republican who hasn't denounced them already ought to do so. To tweak that awful phrase, partisan loyalty is not a suicide pact.

[Harlowe]

Too bad he felt he needed to step down - though he’s certainly not the first or last conservative that will be demonized for supporting Obama.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008 ... al-review/

Buckley’s Son Leaves National Review
By Patricia Cohen
Christopher Buckley, the author and son of the late conservative mainstay William F. Buckley, said in a telephone interview that he has resigned from the National Review, the political journal his father founded in 1955.

Mr. Buckley said he had “been effectively fatwahed by the conservative movement” after endorsing Barack Obama in a blog posting on TheDailyBeast.com; since then, he said he has been blanketed with hate mail at the blog and at the National Review, where he has written a column.

As a result, he wrote to Richard Lowry, the editor of the National Review, and its publisher, Jack Fowler, offering to resign, and “this offer was rather briskly accepted,” Mr. Buckley said.

Mr. Buckley said he did not understand the sense of betrayal that some of his conservative colleagues felt, but said that the fury and ugly comments his endorsement generated is “part of the calcification of modern discourse. It’s so angry.” Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s quote about the Democrats, Mr. Buckley added, “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.”