15 Minutes

Last week a radio host I listen to on the weekends got his 15 minutes (actually much more) of national fame. James T. Harris was on just about every cable news talk show around, having to explain himself for two things. One, begging; a word he wishes he had replaced; John McCain to "take it to Obama", two, for the offense of being black and not supporting Barack Obama.

How bad did it get for him? Death threats, thousands of angry e-mails, some rather disgusting cartoons. Follow the link to the comments on his National Conversation Blog and see how he was treated.

Or, watch some of the YouTube video's of him on CNN.

Now comes Joe the Plumber's turn "in the barrel". Joe's crime was that he asked a question that Barack Obama gave the wrong answer to. Now, Joe's getting his tax records looked at, his license (or lack of) checked out by the media.

Everyone is focusing on Joe. There are rumors that some remenant of the Keating 5 planted him at the Obama walk around, or that Fox News had him there as a plant.

The conspiracy theories from the left are laughable. It doesn't matter if "Joe the Plumber" was planted by Keating left-overs, coached by Karl Rove, paid by Fox News, and was the love child of Rush Limbaugh, it was OBAMA who answered the question. Barack was the one who said he wanted to "spread the wealth"; through higher taxes.

No matter what Joe did or asked, he couldn't force "The One" to give that answer, unless of course there is some right wing thought machine out there that can plant those answers in Obama's head. If they had that technology, I'm sure Obama would have been on the debate claiming that Karl Marx was his idol, and that socialism is good for America.

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The Association Game

Barack Obama's campaign started showing it's game plan for the general election this weekend. One of the points they made is that the "Keating 5" scandal of the late '80's is on the table and in play.

For a few reasons I find it an odd choice of things to run out. First, if the Democrats want to get "down and dirty" with the Keating 5, they'll be reminded that 4 of the 5 were Democrats. The only one of the 5 to be officially censured by the Senate wasn't McCain, it was a Democrat (Alan Cranston).

John will probably bring out the Keating 5 special investigator, Robert Bennett, who'd recommended no charges to brought, or reprimand given to McCain. Bennett has said on many TV shows, and in his own book that McCain was charged only because the Senate Ethics Committee (chaired by Democrats) didn't want it to be a "Democrat's only" scandal.

The other thing that could cause the Keating 5 issue to backfire on Obama is the aftermath. It would be easy to see why McCain could have gotten bitter, and been a pain in the ass for Democrats after they toss him under a bus to make themselves look less bad. Instead, he spent the next 11 years working with Democrats to come up with a workable (though questionable) campaign finance reform bill.

Obama has no such story to tell. He can't tell, legislatively, where he's taken a stand on anything unpopular with his party. He can't say "Here's where I made a mistake, and this is how I worked to fix it". McCain can say that, and has the laws to prove it.

The other problem for Obama is that playing the "associate game" with McCain is probably a minefield he should stay out of. Amy Geiger-Hemmer has a nice piece up with some of the questionable characters associated with the Obama camp. I don't agree that every name on her list should be there, they are very peripheral players in the Obama world, but other should bother you when you read about them.

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