The McCain Campaign is touting a list 100 former ambassadors who have announced that they endorse John McCain for President. Here’s a portion of the list:
The former ambassadors endorsing McCain are Weston Adams, Malawi; Thomas H. Anderson, Barbados; Leonore Annenberg, chief of protocol; Cresencio Arcos Jr., Honduras; George Argyros, Spain; Catherine Todd Bailey, Latvia; Howard H. Baker Jr., Japan; Douglas H. Barclay, El Salvador; Stuart A. Bernstein, Denmark; Everett E. Bierman, New Guinea; Julia Chang Bloch, Nepal; Stephen F. Brauer, Belgium; Keith Lapham Brown, Lesotho and Denmark; Richard R. Burt, Germany; George H.W. Bush, United Nations and U.S. Liaison Office (Beijing); William J. Cabaniss Jr., Czech Republic; Richard G. Capen Jr., Spain; Richard W. Carlson, Seychelles; Frank C. Carlucci III, Portugal; Bruce Chapman, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Sue McCourt Cobb, Jamaica; Charles E. Cobb Jr., Iceland.
Note one of the names above — I’ve highlighted it in bold — LEONORE ANNENBERG. Yes, the same Leonore Annenberg who, as part of the Annenberg Foundation supported the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the notorious education board that hired William Ayers as a board member.
Why is the John McCain touting the endorsement of a person that put William Ayers on a charitable board? Sarah Palin should be denouncing this endorsement soon, right?
Really, this just goes to highlight the absurdity of the entire situation. For better or for worse, it’s clear that despite his deplorable past, William Ayers has become well-integrated into the mainstream political scene in Chicago–not just the far left scene–and has worked alongside members of both parties. As Seth Wells notes:
As a former Republican representative in Illinois told NPR on Monday, smearing Obama for his board association with Ayers is “nonsensical.”
“It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier … It’s ridiculous,” Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said. “There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly.”
Indeed. That the McCain campaign has latched onto this absurd guilt-by-association tactic is not only a sign of desperation, it’s an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It’s not like there aren’t any substantive grounds that McCain can attack Obama on. A McCain ad which compared Obama’s trade policy in the midst of an economic crisis to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs during the Great Depression would be both devastating AND contain a real critique of Obama’s bad policy on free trade. Why not hit on the issues? It’s not like there aren’t any to hit on.
