WillPatching.com

So, Palin’s decided to ‘take the gloves off’ and attack Obama personally with another dreadful smear, accusing him of “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country” – a grotesque yet effective soundbite cynically designed to stir up yet more antipathy from those who believe the lies about Obama’s so called Muslim sympathies.

McCain and Palin are huffing and puffing, trying to blow Obama’s house down with lies…

For those who care to investigate further it becomes clear that Palin’s vicious and unfounded attack relates to Obama serving on a charity board with Illinois University Professor Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground – a 1960’s anti-war movement that undertook violent protests against US military intervention in Laos and Vietnam.

Defining terrorism

But was Ayers really a terrorist?

He had this to say in his book ‘Fugitive Days’: “Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we’re not terrorists.” The Weather Underground were never found guilty of injuring a single person in their entire campaign, though they did damage (mostly) government property.

Palin’s blatant attempt to wed Obama to terrorism through such a tenuous link is pure political character assassination and gives us yet another glimpse into her vile personality. Unpardonable though Palin’s evil slur is, Democrats can at least take comfort in the fact that her desperation tactics are a symptom of McCain’s campaign struggling as Obama’s lead widens.

Ignorant and naive on foreign affairs

This latest poisonous outburst does not merely expose Palin’s true nature but yet again demonstrates her ignorance and naivety: how can a candidate for such high office be unaware of how shifts in political thinking can redefine relationships with people who have, in the past, been labeled terrorists?

Perhaps she can be forgiven for having no knowledge of Nelson Mandela - we are all painfully aware that she rarely reads newspapers and Africa is pretty irrelevant as you can’t see it from Alaska anyway - but surely her religious fervor and constantly repeated love of Israel must have given her some insight into how the definition of terrorism can shift. Such an ardent Zionist is surely familiar with the history of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon… a man once labeled a terrorist and subject to a US State Department bulletin demanding he be brought to account for his part in leading the Q’Biya massacre of 66 Palestinian civilians in 1953.

Well, maybe not.

Closer to home

Palin’s self-acknowledged lack of foreign affairs expertise is one thing, but even domestic current affairs seem to have passed her by. She apparently missed the fact that President Bush welcomed a convicted terrorist to the White House as recently as December 2007, and even shook hands with him for a photo-call.

Bush’s honored guest was once described as ‘Britain’s number one terrorist’, though the super efficient and ever vigilant US security services were a little tardy updating their records: in March 2006 he was detained at Washington’s Reagan National Airport as his name still appeared on a terrorist watch list… even though his organization was de-designated from terrorist status by the State Department in 1994.

The man’s name? Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister for the Northern Ireland Executive, Member of Parliament representing Sinn Fein, and former Chief of Staff for the Irish Republican Army.

Republican terrorist connection…

Not only was Bush “palling around” with this convicted terrorist and self-confessed leader of the IRA, but McCain is also a great fan. In September Palin’s benefactor attended a rally of Irish Americans, toadying up to them by praising terrorist McGuinness as some sort of political savior for Northern Ireland. He had this to say: “When in May of last year the world saw images of a devolved government in Belfast, restored under the stewardship of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, it captured a political courage the previous generation could have scarcely imagined.”

Political courage? Some might say McCain was complimenting those who supported Irish-nationalist terrorism…

McGuinness is hardly a poster child for advocating democracy either. He led a violent organization determined to grab power in Northern Ireland “…with a ballot box in one hand and an Armalite (rifle) in the other.” Mind you, some of us see the IRA’s guns and bombs terror tactics as similar to Bush’s approach to ‘promoting’ democracy in the Middle East - something akin to Torquemada ‘promoting’ the Christian message of peace and love through the Spanish Inquisition.

Thanks to Palin, the gloves are off, so let’s hope Obama’s aides fight back and highlight her colleague’s hypocrisy and the ‘amazing’ Republican Terror Connection…

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