While the United States and the world is on the brink of a complete monetary meltdown and we watch our pension funds and investments shrink in value with the threat of completely disappearing, the Republican Party chooses as its issue of the day to cry foul play because Newsweek magazine did not airbrush a photo of their brainless beauty queen Sarah Palin (or as I call her, “Winkie”) on this week’s cover of that magazine. It is truly mind-numbing to think that a close-up picture showing Palin’s clogged pores, and unplucked mustache and eyebrows is something that anyone should give a flying fiddle about. Talk about playing the harp while Rome burns, or in this case, the whole world.

But that is typical of the Republican Party’s track record of practicing the politics of distraction. In the past it’s worked – hence, two terms of the Bush administration. But in a world where, except for perhaps the still very wealthy, we all are in danger of losing our jobs, our pensions, our homes or our standard of living, I would have thought that even the pundits and the spin meisters would get a clue and realize that, except for the truly brainless out there, the rest of us are worried about our very survival, not on Palin’s plucking problems.

In another totally repugnant and scary example of the lack of any platform of their own to stand on, McCain and Palin have committed, what I would think is edging on criminal behavior: inciting a crowd to the point of threatening a presidential candidate’s life. I suspect that the secret service might have had a talk with McCain, which is probably why he has toned it down in the last couple of days. Their behavior – McCain and Palin’s – is beyond contemptible and reprehensible, and the media has been asleep at their jobs letting them get away with this type of conduct. They, the media, should be screaming at the top of their voices about this and not just commenting as an aside about something as potentially dangerous and scandalous as this kind of extreme sliminess in a campaign.

I am disgusted with the low-class, and in my opinion, criminal tactics which the McCain campaign has sunk to in this presidential campaign. Shame on you John McCain. You have shown yourself to be, not a hero of any sort, but a punk who will stoop to the lowest levels of decency to try and win at any cost, including putting the life of your opponent at risk. In my book that is surely not heroic behavior. Heroes win that title through acts of altruism. By that standard, you, Mr. McCain, are no hero.