The radio alarm began this morning with harsh words for McCain for repudiating the remarks of radio talker Bill Cunningham, who introduced him at a rally yesterday. They played it, and a few posts in the blogosphere have as well, as if McCain was being too squeamish 'cause all the guy did was use Obama's middle name.
As it happens, the emergency room we were waiting in last night played CNN's Situation Room, and Wolf Blitzer let us listen to the whole rant (which, come to think of it, tells you something. Would CNN have played an entire speech highly favorable to McCain? I think they let him run on precisely because they sensed it would harm him). You can see part of it here. It seems tamer to me in 2 inch size than it did yesterday on a huge plasma screen. Yesterday afternoon, loud and in widescreen, this came off extremely hostile and cheap (think Michael Savage, not Rush Limbaugh). Everyone in the waiting room was talking about it --angrily-- and I heard more than one person say they would never vote for McCain now. I was embarrassed for the GOP, listening --it felt like the guy just went on and on and on. The use of the middle name Hussein (which I do think is a cheap shot, we know what's being implied) was the least of it -- it was the assertion that with that middle name he was going to "saddle up to Hezbollah and have a cookies and cream party" --or something like that. There was no argument in favor of McCain, just vitriol and disrespect for Obama, and McCain is right not to be associated with that.
Plus, it's not as if McCain can run on his middle name, which is Sidney.
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