Dow covers 1000 pts, McCain musters dignity

October 10, 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rolls from a low of 7883 to 8901, but ends the day only (!) down 128 points. Pretty freakish graph to be looking at after tumbling 20% on the week. It's an alarming situation to watch unfold, knowing that a complete market seizure could be right around the corner.

And while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on in the background, McCain and his running mate have been whipping up such a frenzy with the conservative base, people are actually believing that Barak Obama is a terrorist, or supports terrorism, or that he's muslim, or that he's an Arab, or at least not an American, or is unpatriotic.

Well, I'm glad to see John McCain finally putting the brakes on this insanity. It's just downright sickening to those of us who don't actually buy into these ridiculous political attacks - those of us who belong to the generation who, as David Foster Wallace put it in his book, McCain's Promise, have been marketed and spun and pitched to more relentlessly than any previous generation.

All this inane dialog about Obama being linked to terrorism and not being an American citizen is just background noise to us. We don't even think about it because the mere idea that the CIA, and Secret Service, and NSA, not to mention the Republican part, did not perform a complete background check on the man who is about to be voted into office as President two years ago, when he entered the race, is preposterous. Or how about the fact that he's already a US Senator. It's just so far beyond even passing the red face test, it doesn't register on our list of considerations. But evidently it does ring with some constituents.

The only bright spot in this whole day was to see John McCain push back against the hatred welling in his base. It was like seeing the man I have wanted to vote for for 10 years back again. A man I had given up on weeks ago, when he brought in his fear mongering "barracuda" of a running mate. A man who had lost my vote because of his allowing this Rove-esque campaign to unfold in all its fact-warping demagogic glory. He is finally back.

It feels good to see John McCain behave like the person I thought he was. Now he shows that he is in fact a maverick. He has turned his face in embarrassment from his own campaign, which is a positive move in my book. I am feeling genuine concern for Barak Obama after hearing some of the horrific things conservative voters have been shouting at these rallys. I hope the real John McCain continues to assert himself as the sincere, honest, decent person that I believe he really is. It's unlikely he'll get my vote back. I can't stand Sarah Palin. She's a Bushie through and through. But it would feel good to feel good about McCain again.

I think this segment does a good job of examining the danger of the McCain campaign's defamatory tactics: