To the editor:

In a weekend when so many good things happened for me and anyone else from the South Side of Chicago, I was greatly disappointed to learn the news Sunday that our very own native son, Sen. Barack Obama, is about to be Swift Boated.

In truth, I wasn't surprised. It had to happen eventually, what with Bush's political team handling Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. They knew that as long as the economy, or any other substantial issue, dominated the headlines, they were going to continue to slip in the polls.

Just like last time around, the idea is to play up minor connections or outright lies as if they were the Joe Sixpack truth. So important that Stephen Colbert invented a word for it: truthiness. Truthiness is, according to Colbert, "truth that comes from the gut, not books."
This time, it's the "judgment issue," or as Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., aptly called it, simple character assassination. They want to play up Obama's connections to three people: William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground; Tony Rezko, a sleaze in the Chicago Machine and Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor.

The problem is, we've been over this, and the American people know what McCain is trying to do. Ayers and Rezko are non-starters because the connections are highly tenuous to begin with, and as for Wright, Obama addressed this issue last spring: Attending a church does not mean one agrees with the politics being spouted from the pulpit.  Yet despite the real problems facing the country, this is what McCain wants to talk about during the last month of the campaign.

I get it: Like Hillary Clinton, McCain believed it was his turn. His national exposure gave him an edge over the other Republican candidates, and with Clinton out of the way, he figured the path was clear: Just solidify the base and make a splash by picking Palin, and the polls would follow the headlines. But then the economy and the faulty Republican philosophy that governed it for the last eight years intervened. Real consequences for everyday Americans came to the forefront. Priority No. 1 for McCain: change the subject.

And so we have the announcement that the McCain campaign was stepping up the negative personal attacks. We saw it coming. We weren't surprised. And to quote Bush, "Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - I can't get fooled again."
Let's certainly hope not.

Christopher McGeady
Senior
A&S