There’s intelligent life out there in cyberspace.
Ken Vanko is a lawyer with the Wheaton firm of Clingen Callow & McLean. He writes a column for the Aurora Beacon News and submits postings to several blogs.
(While I’m on the topic of the Aurora Beacon News, let me send a long-overdue greeting to Rick Nagel, publisher of the Beacon News, an old acquaintance who used to work for Press Publications when it was based in Elmhurst. I got to know Nagel when I was with The Beverly Review on Chicago’s Far South Side; we worked together on a committee for the Illinois Press Association. During Nagel’s tenure, Press Publications won numerous journalism awards with all the excellent writers and photographers the company assembled. Hey, Rick, I hope all is well. But I digress …)
In a posting today on his blog View From the Center, titled “The Dangers of Excessive Partisanship,” Vanko examines why political independents do not appear to be supporting U.S. Sen. John McCain in his bid for the presidency. Vanko argues that McCain really isn’t the problem — it’s the uber-partisans in the GOP who are driving independents to the Democratic Party and to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
Vanko mentions my previous postings about why the McCain campaign is foolish to criticize Obama for his association with William Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Ayers & Co. carried out a bombing campaign that targeted public buildings. Some people were injured as a result of the group’s activities, and several members of the group were killed while making bombs.
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have cited Obama’s connection to Ayers (both Obama and Ayers served on the board of a charitable group, and Ayers hosted a coffee when Obama first ran for public office in the 1990s) in questioning his judgment. Why would a sensible person associate with a domestic terrorist?
I pointed out that McCain has a problem in this area himself. He has appeared on the radio program of G. Gordon Liddy, who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. McCain has publicly praised Liddy’s “adherence to the principles that keep our nation great.” I’m not the first to spot this example of hypocrisy; columnist Steve Chapman wrote about this in the May 4, 2008, edition of the Chicago Tribune.
Dave Dierson of Wheaton, editor of the Web site GOPUSA Illinois, chastised me for “demonizing and denigrating” Liddy, who Liddy said “fought for America and against communism.”
I have repeatedly asked which of Liddy’s violent proposals (firebombing the Brookings Institute, kidnapping anti-war leaders and assassinating newspaper columnist Jack Anderson) or illegal activities (helping to plan break-ins at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist as well as the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel) reflect the conservative values that Diersen attributes to Liddy or the American principles to which McCain claims that Liddy adheres.
Vanko understands that Diersen is merely spouting Republican platitudes and not engaging in any serious discussion of important issues. On his Web site every day, Diersen affixes ridiculous “headlines” on links to stories posted on the Web sites of news organizations.
Diersen grossly simplifies how everything good happening in DuPage County is the work of Republicans and everything bad happening in DuPage County is the work of Democrats. He claims that social problems occur in DuPage County only because Democrats recruit people to live in blissful, peaceful, crime-free, conservative, Republican DuPage County; this then lowers the quality of life that DuPage County Republicans have worked so hard to create, as if Republican DuPage County were incapable of producing criminals itself (OK, except for Ayers, who grew up in Glen Ellyn).
The rationale that Diersen displays is laughable. To their credit, many DuPage County Republicans don’t take Diersen seriously. With his sloppy thinking on display each day, how he has managed to maintain the position of Milton Township GOP committeeman is beyond comprehension.
Diersen has still refused to explain what makes Liddy a noble American in his mind or point out where I promoted Ayers and Obama. He merely whines again and again about being “demonized and denigrated.”
If Diersen understood anything about the news business, he would know that journalists are supposed to challenge the kind of tortured logic he exhibits. Vanko has identified incidents like this as a key problem facing McCain and the GOP, and he’s right. Thank God someone in the blogosphere is using his brain.
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Stumble It!
Suburban Shoutout 
What does it matter, neither candidate is a good choice for America, both are trash or lower than trash.
We do not choose our president, delegates do, and we get to choose out of who they allow. And the amount of delegates were a lot lower this time due to both parties breaking party rules and getting punished into using superdelegates.
When a state holds their convention before super tuesday, they lose delegates and the head person at that states convention gets the votes and or decides who gets delegates rights, it puts power in the hands of a few instead of the right amount. This is a power play to maintain control and why Ron Paul did not have a chance at getting the needed delegates, he was robbed because state conventions broke rules intentionaly.
Just a way to keep the sorry people in power.
To sgtphoenix:
Yes, it all seems like a huge scam. And to a certain degree, it is a scam. But let me offer this. While the delegates choose the party nominees, we choose the delegates through caucuses and primaries. But I agree that we could use a better system.
— Jerry Moore