CHANGE YOU CAN DECEIVE IN

One of the great lines (there weren't that many) in the Republican primary debates was by John McCain in derisively addressing Mitt Romney. Referencing to the truth, that Romney had changed his position on taxes, energy, pro-choice and many other hot (push?) button issues, McCain quipped (to Romney) "You are indeed the agent of change." So why then would the McCain folks have Mr. Romney representing them on the national talk show circuit, most recently the center stage on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos?" Why indeed. Well, possibly because Senator John McCain in an election year where the mantra is on "change" has in fact done the most changing of all, not from the current administration with which he is a in knee jerk reflex but from himself. That's right, John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" with regular access available to reporters across the spectrum has become the "Straight Talk Digress." Consider the "Straight Talk" 2000 and after version of John McCain trying to insulate (as opposed to emulate) the nation from George W. Bush. He opposed Bush's tax plan as unfairly tilted to the rich (maybe he hadn't seen Cindy McCain's actual financials) and was against, strongly (then) the "agents of intolerance" of the religious right. Today, all that's changed. He stood against the lobbyists who ran Republican policy, but his he's hired many of them to run his campaign now. In 2003 he was all approving of the Iraq war and only after the insurgency showed the mess we had "accomplished," as in "mission" (not), did he take a stand against the Bush Bunch's approaches.

Thanks to Frank Rich for pointing out that 4 in 10 Americans feel they don't know John McCain well enough. Also the story that the McCain campaign has received "strong" support financially from a "group tied closely to Al Qaeda" was broken by Mr. Rich this past Sunday. The source of this information interestingly is Jerome Corsi who has produced works to smear John Kerry, "Draft to Command" and Barack Obama "The Obama Nation." The web site (again, a right wing bastion) which has broken the news on Mr. McCain's financial Al Qaeda ties is www.worldnetdaily.com.

And hey there Mitt Romney, when you were campaigning and your five healthy sons were headed around our nation, but nowhere near Iraq, you explained they were defending this country by getting you elected president. Now that you're no longer running, how many have enlisted so far?

AS TO THE LEGACY OF HENRY FORD THE GOP SHOULD KEEP ITS MITTS OFF

Once upon a time there lived a man named Henry Ford. He was called (because he actually was) an innovator, inventor, and business genius, and his implementation of the assembly line was the foreplay of the American romance with the automobile. He was also labeled (again because it was true) one of the most virulent and influential anti-Semites in history. Using radio broadcasts, periodicals and his economic strength he spread his contamination of fair-mindedness far and wide. We can I suppose be thankful for small favors in that Ford got to live just long enough to see his hero Adolph Hitler eat it in the bunker, but such venom (from both Hitler and Ford) always tends to outlast the life span of they who spun it.
A brief fast forward from Henry Ford's time is in order, as regards the present day influence of the Ford Foundation. In 2001 at a UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, Israel was "it" in the game of racist tag. The respected JTA reports that "many of the anti-Israeli activists were egged on by Ford-backed pro-Palestinian groups." When they got the unwelcome attention they deserved, the Foundation packed off and pledged to be better. The fact that they did and do direct millions of dollars to pro-Palestinian NGO's which still beat the drums to an "Israeli racist, apartheid state" best is undeniable and regrettably symbolic given the legacy of Henry Ford.
So what do such insidious acts have to do with John McCain, and the Republican quest for the presidency, not much, maybe. Although as the great friend of Israel he claims to be he might have known about the Ford Foundation and the Palestinians, if he chooses Mitt Romney as his VP choice, and we predict he will, there we're on record, he will have to know. That's because Mr. Romney opened his own presidential campaign for the Republican nomination at of all places, the Henry Ford Museum. Hey, if he needed a "Ford" in Michigan there was the Gerald Ford Library, and it's difficult to believe the Harvard-educated Mr. Romney didn't know the Ford anti-Semitic history.
If this is not code to those who under the surface do not wish Jews or Israel well, it's a pretty good imitation. And on the subject of predictions, in addition to being convinced Mr. Romney will be Mr. McCain's choice, we're just as convinced that he'll calculatingly, deliberately avoid addressing any concerns to the fair-minded Jews who've a right to have wished Mr. Romney kept his mitts off the Ford "tradition" in Jewish relations. Could there be a groundswell of pressure, maybe, but we also predict virtually every right wing apologetic in the media, including many Jews, will do the heavy lifting to keep the pressure off. Consider their (the right wing Jews) history; they apologized for Nixon (the Yom Kippur War among other things), Reagan (after Bitburg), and George Bush (after he threatened Israel’s solvency) during the first Gulf War, so we're sure their "honor" will be "up" to the task of providing cover for the Mitt Romney-Henry Ford link. Somewhere the ghosts of Capos from the Camps must be watching.