"The first example of McCain injecting ugly racists overtones into the campaign was his now infamous ad 'Celeb.'  As we pointed out at the time, the ad was a racially tinged attack that attempted to appeal to racist sentiments that all churchgoing Americans secretly harbor by juxtaposing Obama with white women. In response to criticism from the Times and other media, McCain announced that the only whites that would appear in any ads in which Obama appeared would be male. The Times and our media comrades quickly pounced on that one, pointing out that this was sexist to boot and was
clearly intended to appeal to homophobic sentiments that all
Republicans harbor by implying that Obama is gay."

"All the News That's Fit to Fabricate"

EDITORIAL

This Time, McCain Offends the Hearing Impaired

Published: August 30, 2008

John McCain's increasingly desperate campaign for U.S. President took another ugly turn yesterday.  The McCain team announced that it would run no more television ads for the duration of the campaign, instead relying on a radio-only ad campaign that is deeply offensive to the millions of Americans who are deaf or hearing impaired.

For those of you who have not followed the election closely, let's recap the mean-spirited spectacle that is the McCain campaign, which we have dubbed the "Low Road Express."

We were pretty much laying off McCain before he aggressively started to engage Obama.  But when the Straight Talk Express got stuck in the gutter, we quickly realized the threat this posed to the Obama campaign and sprung into action.

The first example of McCain injecting ugly racists overtones into the campaign was his now infamous ad "Celeb."  As we pointed out at the time, the ad was a racially tinged attack that attempted to appeal to racist sentiments that all churchgoing Americans secretly harbor by juxtaposing Obama with white women.

In response to criticism from the Times and other media, McCain announced that the only whites that would appear in any ads in which Obama appeared would be male.  The Times and our media comrades quickly pounced on that one, pointing out that this was sexist to boot and was clearly intended to appeal to homophobic sentiments that all Republicans harbor by implying that Obama is gay.

So, in a fruitless attempt to please the media, McCain announced that the only people who would appear in ads featuring Obama would be African-Americans.  Well, we didn't let him get away with that either. We pointed out how that was a clear attempt to appeal to racist sentiments that all Southerners harbor by highlighting the fact that Obama is African-American, in case you didn't know.

So now McCain has turned to the radio to try to appease us. No-no. McCain's ad campaign is inherently lacking in diversity, hateful, and mean-spirited as it excludes every American (and undocumented immigrant for that matter) who cannot enjoy the radio because she is hearing impaired or deaf.

And as Bill Press correctly argues, besides telling physically challenged Americans that they are not welcome under the Republican SMALL tent, another goal of this radio-only ad campaign is to send a subliminal message to all his right-winger friends that he intends to repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We urge John McCain to turn away from his divisiveness and finally find an appropriate way to communicate.  We're not sure what that is at this point, maybe smoke signals, although we would surely accuse McCain of advocating genocide against our Native American brothers if he did that.

Anyway, that's McCain's problem, not ours.