America Needs A Compassionate Leader

Twenty years ago, A 31-year-old newlywed faced an jerk at the airline check-in counter who wouldn't let her take her life's possessions on the plane when she emigrated to join her husband. But 27-year-old Barack Obama was standing in line behind her....

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Why is Being Called an Arab a Smear?

Image via WikipediaI'm watching the weekend news shows and catching up on my political blogs and one thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of coverage of a McCain rally where McCain corrects a woman's comment about Obama. Her comment was that she feared Obama because he was an Arab.

The media tagline of this event was that the woman "attacked" or smeared Obama. Why is being called an Arab or a Muslim a smear and not simply a mis-characterization? Why would this be newsworthy? Would we be saying an Muslim candidate who was mis-characterized as a Christian was being smeared? Probably not.


Early in the campaign, during the primaries, chain emails filled in boxes with rumors that Obama was an Arab, a Muslim, or that he secretly conspired with Muslims to destroy the US. We (informed) Americans know these are far from the truth, so why are media pundits and bloggers pounding on this old issue? It is time to not let ridiculous statements like this get anymore national attention.


McCain's response to the crowd after he took the mic back from the woman was to say that Obama is actually a good guy. Is that to say if one is an Arab they cannot be a good guy? McCain should have said that no, Obama is not an Arab, and that there is nothing to fear from Arabs, that he knows Arabs and has worked with many Arabs in Washington D.C. including Sen. George Mitchell.

The response from people should be akin to Sinfield's now famous quote, no..."not that there is anything wrong with that." There is nothing wrong with being Muslim or Arab in America.

I do not remember these outragous statements being made about presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who really is Arab (his family is Lebanese Catholic, which is ethnically Arab). The real reason we are seeing these attacks re-surface is because the McCain camp and McCain supporters are out of juice. They have nothing to cling to but hate and scapgoating.

Why aren't we talking about the Keating Five?

I don't understand why we are not talking more about McCain's involvement in the Keating Five.

The Keating Five scandal was part of the larger Savings and Loan Crisis of the time. The Savings and Loan Crisis seems to mirror the current crisis, albeit in miniature (nearly 1/10th miniature).

During this crisis John McCain was involved in the Keating five Scandal. This is an influence peddling scandal where five senators, including John McCain, were accused of improperly aiding Charles Keating, of Lincoln Savings and Loan, in avoiding investigation in return for campaign donations.

John McCain was found by the ethics committee to have committed no real impropriety, but was said to have exercised "poor judgment". Now we are considering making this "poor judgment" president in the midst of a similar crisis which is nearly 10-fold larger.

I also must point out that the chair of the ethics committee at the time was none other than the notorious Ted Stevens, currently on trial for his own ethical violations. And, only the two who had a history as American Heroes were cleared of wrongdoing in the Keating Five Scandal, mostly due to "insufficient evidence". John Glenn, as the first American to orbit the Earth, and John McCain as a Vietnam Veteran and Prisoner of War.

Lastly, of the five senators in the Keating Five Scandal, McCain was the closest socially to Charles Keating. If the McCain campaign is going to try to exploit an old and weak link of Obama's to William Ayers, the Obama Campaign needs to talk loudly and incessantly about McCain's close relationship and poor judgment in relation to Charles Keating.