While I sympathize with the editorial goals of Yoshi Tsurumi in his Aug. 28 article, "McCain aims to win by pandering to bigotry" -- about U.S. Sen. John McCain's attacks on Sen. Barack Obama -- I feel that Tsurumi crosses the line from legitimate complaint and analysis into hysterical and inaccurate lamenting.
Some of the things that Tsurumi claims just don't make sense -- for example, that "Anti-Semitic whispering among Southern white Christians spread the vicious lie that Obama is an anti-Christ Muslim." While there have been plenty of ludicrous claims about Obama's religion, such claims cannot, by definition, be "anti-Semitic." An anti-Semite by the commonly accepted definition used today is someone who is bigoted against Jewish people. To link the claim that Obama is Muslim (as opposed to Christian) with anti-Semitism is fallacious.
I also dispute Tsurumi's claim that the McCain campaign's ad invoking the images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is intended to appeal to "deep-seated" prejudices among white males. The image put forth by Spears and Hilton are those of "train-wreck" celebrities, whose antics produce little if anything of value and who seem famous only because they contribute to the paparazzi pages. The ad draws on this image; it does not play on racism or deep-seated prejudice.
While I do support Tsurumi's goals of an Obama White House, Tsurumi should learn to temper his fire for his candidate with a healthy dose of critical analysis and restraint. To throw emotionally charged fallacious claims against Obama's opponent is to do nothing but engage in the same type of action that he accuses McCain of supporting.
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