Palin Becoming McCain’s Hit Person

John McCain, who has claimed he would conduct a decent campain, is apparently using Sarah Palin to do the dirty work he originally said wouldn’t be a part of his quest for the presidency.  For example, during a town hall meeting in Louisiana in July, McCain, while trying to get Obama to join him in town hall meetings, proclaimed: 

Senator Obama, truly has the opportunity to embrace a new kind of politics, by committing to participate in these history making meetings. And join in the higher level of discourse that Americans obviously would clearly prefer. My friends, we’re the world’s leader. And leaders don’t hide from history, they make history.

 
But if we’re going to lead, we have to begin by reforming the tenor of political discussion in our campaigns. Only then, will the American people trust that we can reform a government, that as you know, lost its ability to do so.

However, both in the debate with Joe Biden and in a subsequent interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameron, Palin pushed the idea that Barack Obama’s comments on the war in Afghanistan should disqualify him from seeking the presidency. 

“Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may – in my world- disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief.” Palin said, “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly- just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That’s reckless.

This is what Obama said in August, 2007 in Nashua, NH:

“We’ve got to get the job done there. And that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.”

What’s being ignored here is that at the time of Obama’s remark  (a) There had been more civilian casualties caused by western forces than by insurgents and (b) President Bush concurred with what Obama said, expessing concerns about these civilian deaths.

As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can’t be attributed to one party.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed his concern about the civilian deaths during a meeting last week with President Bush.

Bush said he understands the agony that Afghans feel over the loss of innocent lives and that he is doing everything he can to protect them. He said the Taliban are using civilians as human shields and have no regard for their lives.

“The president rightly expressed his concerns about civilian casualty,” Bush said of Karzai. “And I assured him that we share those concerns.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.