The Trouble with Guilt by Association

Signs of a dying campaign, McCain has resorted to playing the guilt-by-association game by bringing up Obama's past associations with Bill Ayers and others, in a desperate attempt to distract voters from the economy, which continues to wreck McCain's presidential hopes.

Here's a little problem: McCain's VP candidate, the one and only Sarah Palin, has ties to a group that wants to secede from the U.S. How patriotic. I submit the following:

- The Alaskan Independence Party is a political organization with the central goal of getting Alaska to secede from the United States
- Joe Vogler, founder of the AIP, had this to say about the U.S. in 1991: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag." He also called for Alaskans to revoke their allegiance to the United States
- Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, joined the AIP in 1995 and was a member for about seven years
- Sarah Palin attended the AIP's convention in 1994 and 2000
- Sarah Palin spoke at the AIP convention in 2006 and addressed the convention this year!


*From www.jedreport.com

So, if we are to play the guilt-by-association game, we must conclude that Sarah Palin has condoned Joe Vogler's statements that Alaskans should secede from the United States and that the U.S. is worth such hatred as Vogler clearly expressed. Hmmm, shouldn't we think twice about electing a vice president who would have one of its states secede from the country? Should we elect a person so unpatriotic that she would speak at a secessionist party's conventions multiple times, in which the founder of the party stated that he would not even be buried under the American flag?

This is how low the McCain campaign has stooped to distract the nation from McCain's ineptitude at leadership. He is a man of no honor and no integrity.