A footnote to Howie's post (below) about blatantly illegal McCranky campaign fund-raising: Say, gang, let's play "If the shoe was on the other foot"!

[C'mon, you know the drill: Click to enlarge.]

by Ken

I was just reading Howie's post below containing some of the more squalid new revelations about the fiscal debauchery of the McCranky campaign, solidly in the tradition of the candidate's personal history of financial sleaze, and my first response was: Goddamn, the slimy son of a bitch is going to get away with it!

Not so much from a legal standpoint, though I think he'll probably get away with it that way too. You know, maybe eventually pay some paltry fines ordered by the FEC -- after he's moved into the White House. No, the sumbitch is gonna get away scot-free, because the public just doesn't care about this technical crap like campaign-finance violations.

So here we are in our little corner of the political universe, working ourselves into a lather over these vile misdeeds. The likelihood remains, though, that until some security camera catches Senator McCranky in the act of personally robbing a bank or convenience store, which isn't bloody likely given that the lovely Cindy could just put that bank or convenience store on her American Express card, the public just won't give a damn. All most voters hear is "politicians blah-blah money blah-blah improprieties," and to them it's "same old same old, they're all on the take, don't bother me."

That, as I say, was my first response. My second response was to imagine, as I imagine you too have imagined frequently since the onset of the Age of Bush:

What if the shoe was on the other foot?

From the morass of McCranky campaign finance depradations, pick out the absolutely most trivial allegation that's been raised, and then imagine that being even rumored about, say, a Democrat. Within hours the entire Right-Wing Noise Machine would be on alert, shrilling in cacaphonous unison. You know, Comedian Rush, and Billo, and the whole mangy brigade of clown-suited Fox Noisemakers. For days, or weeks, or if necessary months we would be hearing about it 24/7. Why, that quarterly report that was turned in an hour past the deadline, it would represent an immediate threat to the very existence of the United States of America -- just what we would expect from those America-hating liberals.

Are you going to sit there and tell me you can't already hear the brain-dead bellowing of that spawn of Satan Sean Hannity? The chances are awfully good that within a couple of weeks a large chunk of the American electorate would know deep in its gut that that miserable terrorist-loving (shudder) Democrat is a damned crook who'd be swinging from a gallows if there were any justice in the world.

No moral here -- unless you choose to extract one. Me, I'm just saying.

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