Ailes and the Fox News organization

In response to this:

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News

or

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/71-71/6459-roger-ailes-secret-nixon-era-blueprint-for-fox-news

Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.

The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included in a 318-page cache of documents detailing Ailes' work for both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations that we obtained from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries. Through his firms REA Productions and Ailes Communications, Inc., Ailes served as paid consultant to both presidents in the 1970s and 1990s, offering detailed and shrewd advice ranging from what ties to wear to how to keep the pressure up on Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Gulf War.


A friend sent this:

In case you missed it, Rolling Stone recently provided a fascinating look at Ailes and the Fox News organization. It's a long read, but I highly recommend it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525



Fox News also hyped Sarah Palin’s lies about “death panels” and took the smear a step further, airing a report claiming that the Department of Veterans Affairs was using a “death book” to encourage soldiers to “hurry up and die.” (Missing from the report was any indication that the end-of-life counseling materials in question had been promoted by the Bush administration.) At the height of the health care debate, more than two-thirds of Fox News viewers were convinced Obama­care would lead to a “government takeover,” provide health care to illegal immigrants, pay for abortions and let the government decide when to pull the plug on grandma. As always, the Chairman’s enforcer made sure that producers down in the Fox News basement were toeing the party line. In October 2009, as Congress weighed adding a public option to the health care law, Sammon let everyone know how Ailes expected them to cover the story. “Let’s not slip back into calling it the ‘public option,’” he warned in an e-mail. “Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance’ ... when­ever possible.” Sammon neglected to mention that the phrase he was pushing had been carefully crafted by America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s largest lobbying organization, which had determined that the wording was “the most negative language to use when describing a ‘public plan.’”

The result of this concerted campaign of disinformation is a viewership that knows almost nothing about what’s going on in the world. According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship. In fact, a study by the University of Maryland reveals, ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network. That’s because Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimization.

“What Nixon did – and what Ailes does today in the age of Obama – is unravel and rewire one of the most powerful of human emotions: shame,” says Perlstein, the author of Nixonland. “He takes the shame of people who feel that they are being looked down on, and he mobilizes it for political purposes. Roger Ailes is a direct link between the Nixonian politics of resentment and Sarah Palin’s politics of resentment. He’s the golden thread.”



What is particularly alarming is our willingness to surrender to ignorance, perhaps because of our deteriorating public education system.

Thatcher Refuses to Meet "Nuts" Palin

Margaret Thatcher to Sarah Palin: don't bother dropping by
Allies of former prime minister regard darling of Tea Party movement as a frivolous figure unworthy of an audience

Sarah Palin wants to show to the Republican right that she is the true keeper of the Ronald Reagan flame by meeting the late president's closest ally on the world stage.

A meeting with Margaret Thatcher in the centenary year of Reagan's birth would be the perfect way of launching her bid for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election.

This is what Palin told Christina Lamb in the Sunday Times:

I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.


It appears that the former prime minister has no intention of meeting the darling of the Tea Party movement. Andy McSmith reported in the Independent this morning that Palin is likely to be "thwarted" on the grounds that Thatcher, 86, rarely makes public appearances.

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher's frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:

Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.

Thatcher will show the level she punches at when she attends the unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square on Independence day on 4 July. This is what her ally told me:

Margaret is focusing on Ronald Reagan and will attend the unveiling of the statue. That is her level.

No doubt a rebuff from Thatcher will delight Andrew Sullivan, the creator of The Dish blog, who regards Palin as a dangerous lightweight.

Re-Writing History...Literally!

Palin supporters amend Wikipedia to make Palin's gaff accurate!

Truly amazing!


Editing Wikipedia to Make Palin Right About Paul Revere
By David Weigel
This is a hell of a get by Charles Johnson. Starting on Sunday, as Sarah Palin kept explaining that her version of the Paul Revere "Midnight Ride" was historically accurate, Palin fans emerged on Wikipedia to "fix" the Revere biography. Palin's taking heat for saying Revere "warned the British"? No problem: Just add the line in italics.

Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols; also, most colonial residents at the time considered themselves British as they were all legally British subjects.


That revision is deleted with the explanation "content not backed by a reliable sources (it was sarah palin interview videos)." The people who keep cleaning this up are getting sort of bored now.

- I would strongly suggest locking this page until the Palin controversy blows over and her supporters lose interest in trying to rewrite the page to conform with her erroneous version of Revere's ride.

- Wiki rules apply to Palin fans the same as anyone else; they are free to add material to the page as long as it is reliably sourced. IIRC, it does look like Palin's supporters have a published source that partially agrees with her version of events, although the concept of relating Revere's ride to gun control or 2nd Amendment rights is nonsense. However in her defense, I think Palin herself was using that as a metaphor - not a literal interpretation of this event. In any case, Palin doesn't claim to be a professional historian so her words don't belong on this page.

- If you mention Sarah Palin you're doing it wrong. This article is about Paul Revere, a historical figure who died nearly two centuries before Sarah Palin came to prominence. She has absolutely nothing to do with the article. I would expect to see contemporary sources and theories proposed by modern historians, but Sarah Palin is neither here nor there.

- Sarah Palin is intent on destroying wikipedia, isn't she? First we had huge wars over the blood libel article, now this. But Obama's supporters do not support claim that there are 57 states! Amazing!

The original video, from Channel 7, really makes it look like Palin got a historical question she wasn't expecting, and then flubbed it. The way she grits her teeth on the phrase "riding HIS HORSE THROUGH TOWN!" is agonizing, for all involved. And look, if someone asked me, on the spot, to explain exactly what happened during Paul Revere's ride, I'd struggle a bit to access my elementary school memory banks. The twist, with Palin, is that she has a bona fide army of supporters who will sic themselves on anyone and anything that threatens to damage her image. One example: Last week I looked at the new CNN poll and made a mundane point about Herman Cain's poll surge being more compelling than Palin's narrow lead. This was interpreted in the Palinverse as "Exhibit A in the Stop Palin campaign."

Sarah Palin's version of history

Yup! She sure got my vote! [but not for what you think]

Sarah Palin claims Paul Revere warned the British







Sarah Palin, if you haven't heard, is taking some of her family around the country, visiting historical U.S. landmarks, and talking to the media along the way.

Thursday her "One Nation" traveling road show stopped in Boston, where the former Alaska governor, her parents, her husband, and little Piper visited Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, and Bunker Hill. Palin posted photos of that leg of her trip on the SarahPAC blog.

One moment that you won't find posted on the blog is Palin's response to reporters when they asked her who Paul Revere was. Instead of saying, "Come on, everyone knows who Paul Revere, the silversmith and patriot is," she stammered while saying this:

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

Needless to say, the lamestream media are having a field day with that gaffe.

Politico: Palin makes Bachmann look like Longfellow

Forbes: This certainly gives us an entirely new point of view to consider when examining our nation’s founding.

Mediaite: Palin’s version wasn’t exactly the official History Channel rendition of the tale...

ABC: Perhaps this week's lesson in the annals of American history was necessary for Sarah Palin.

Fox News has the video up leading their site, but no text or commentary. Perhaps they're speechless.

All of this reminds me of a fortune cookie I once received that said, "We teach what we most need to learn." In which case, ride on, "One Nation," ride on.



So why is the lamestream media covering her?

Bill Ayers and the Presidential Campaign

Bill Ayers remained silent during the Presidential Campaign on being used as a prop by the McCain/Palin ticket, but was recently interviewed on DemocracyNow, along with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn about his actions during the '60s. The interview is worth reading in its entirety, but the quote below stood out. Unless you lived through those turbulent times, it's difficult to imagine and doesn't lend itself to sound bytes. Having known one of the unarmed students killed at Kent State puts things in perspective. Wikipedia offers a brief recap. At the bottom is an article authored by Bill Ayers and an interview in Salon.

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And what’s interesting is that it was raised up in an attempt to replay the culture wars. You know, there was this wonderful moment on Stephen Colbert where the word for the night was “the ’60s." And he has a clip of Obama saying, “Can’t we just leave the ’60s behind?” And it comes back to Colbert, in full anger, saying, “No, Senator. We can’t leave it behind. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

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And frankly, I think the fact that this may be the last time that the ’60s is raised in that kind of cultural warrior-ish way is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I think it is time to move on, and there’s a new generation. And a lot of the nostalgia for the ’60s, both the hatred of it and the love of it, is misplaced. I think it’s time to look forward. On the other hand, I think that it’s a sad thing that we’ve never really had a truth and reconciliation process about the war in Vietnam, about the black freedom movement and what happened. And that means, among other things, that we haven’t learned the lessons of invasion and occupation. We haven’t learned the lessons of what happens when people get involved in direction action and struggle, and both the advances that can be made and also the limits of those struggles. We haven’t learned the lessons that might make for a more peaceful, more just future.

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In These Times

Salon

Of the Presidential Election:

It was a moment when the American people overwhelmingly rejected the politics of fear, the politics of war and militarization, paranoia and the acceptance of the shredding of our constitutional rights. It was a sense of "let's move beyond that."

Just When You Thought ..........

A friend related a story of a friend teaching in a local school recently.
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An Elementary School student told the teacher that if Obama became President, he would give blacks jobs and all white people would become slaves.

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Since logic indicates that a child lacks the comprehension to create such a wacko fantasy, the origin seems to be the parents of this child.

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Just when you thought that that level of ignorance didn't exist, it tumbles from the mouth of a child based on racism heard at home. And just when you thought that the intellectual level that surrounded you was higher than that, you realize you were sorrowfully mistaken.

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These are the lies, hatred, fear, ignorance and racism stoked by the McCain campaign, aired repeatedly on FAUX News, come back to haunt from the innocence of a child. How pathetic!

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An Angry Old Man?

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Garrison Keillor put it in perspective:

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Will Mr. Burly vote for Obama?

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The thought of replacing the Current Occupant with the Angry Old Man of the Desert and Whoopee the Ice Queen is miserable in the extreme.

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I was messing around in Tulsa, Okla., last week and got talking with a big burly man with a McCain-Palin pin on his blue blazer who told me he was descended from yellow-dog Democrats who thought the sun rose and set over FDR and Republicans were people who wore spats and top hats and sailed off Newport. So I told him that my Republican ancestors believed that only lazy people were unemployed in the '30s. He said, "So each of us is heading back to where the other one is coming from." He found that rather amusing. I said, "If that's so, I hope you're ready to be good and poor and endure some hard Minnesota winters."

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"Poor, yes. Good, I'm not so sure about. Winter, no. No way."

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He's proud of Tulsa, which survived the exodus of Big Oil and got into telecommunications and aeronautics, proud of its Art Deco buildings from the '20s, its art museums and ballet. "Outsiders hear Tulsa and they think Dust Bowl and Oral Roberts," he says, "but that's not who we are. This town is all about change."
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I did not bother to tell him that change is exactly what the country is bursting to achieve in less than a week. Of course he knows all about it. Oklahoma seems safely red, but these days who knows? Obama looks more and more steadfast as the moment nears. The country longs for a president who can talk and think at the same time. We've been locked up with the Current Occupant for way too long and the thought of replacing him with the Angry Old Man of the Desert and Whoopee the Ice Queen is miserable in the extreme.

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Most of my Republican friends are people who are not ashamed of having worked hard and done well in school, and their party's frantic appeal to anti-intellectualism is nothing they care to sign up for. Time to nip that sucker in the bud. The party needs to reform itself around some coherent philosophy of governance and vision of the future and for that, it must take a trip to the wilderness. They are quietly supporting the skinny guy this time around. They might tell a pollster otherwise but that's what they will do. Call it the Palin Effect.

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Even Mr. Burly of Tulsa expressed sorrow over McCain's campaign, the jerkiness and desperation of it, and admiration for Barack's steadiness, his cool, his straightforward articulation and the old-fashioned story of his rise in the world. I thought about that the next day, flying to Philly and walking over to Independence Hall and riding the train to Lancaster through the little towns of old brick row houses, the red and golden trees, the trim farmyards and the fields of tan stubble, a state McCain has scrapped hard for even as he sank in the polls. I suppose he looks at that classic Rockwell landscape and those hardy German Lutheran faces and thinks those are his people and how can they possibly go for a Harvard Law graduate from the South Side of Chicago whose last name is Obama, for crying out loud?
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They can and they will. Colin Powell was right when he called the guy a transformational candidate. We walk through the door and we close it behind us and the simplicity of it is dazzling. That's how it happens. You walk aboard a plane and glance into the cockpit and there's a woman in the left-hand seat, and who these days would even think this worthy of comment? You see Latino men and women moving up whose grandparents picked row crops for a living. In Tulsa, in 1921, there was a big race riot following the arrest of a young black man who was alleged to have touched a white woman on the arm. Fighting in the streets, neighborhoods torched, the National Guard called in -- and this story seems medieval to us, a dark age almost beyond our ken. That culture is gone, gone, gone, and on Tuesday we bury it by the simple democratic process of voting for the best man even though his father was African.

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In America, a man is not held responsible for choosing his parents, only for his own life and conduct. This man promises to take us into a new era where we aren't defined by our differences, Short vs. Tall, Pale vs. Freckled, and can take a deep breath and do what's best for the country.

Anchorage Daily News Endorses Obama

The Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama and offered a thorough explanation for their choice. We can only hope that, at some future date, the lower 48 states are able to convince Alaskans of the folly of destroying their unique and valuable environment for the sake of limited oil reserves. In June 2008, Energy: Vision and Passion was posted.

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Obama for president
Palin's rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand
Alaska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.
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Alaska's founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.

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Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

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Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.
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Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis -- erratic is a kind description -- shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

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Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn't do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown's root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.

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On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

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Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn't show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.

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It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans -- not Iraqi oil -- have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.

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The unqualified endorsement of Sen. Obama by a seasoned, respected soldier and diplomat like Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican icon, should reassure all Americans that the Democratic candidate will pass muster as commander in chief.

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On a matter of parochial interest, Sen. Obama opposes the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but so does Sen. McCain. We think both are wrong, and hope a President Obama can be convinced to support environmentally responsible development of that resource.

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Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she's a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.

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Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

John McCain's Environmental Voting Record

The League of Conservation Voters assesses the recorded votes of elected officials and grades them according to their records, not their rhetoric. This is what LCV had to say:
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Candidate John McCain has spent the last 18 months declaring his support for clean energy.
But Senator John McCain doesn't want you to know that he has spent more than two decades voting against clean energy and the environment.

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We know better.
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The fact is, John McCain has spent his career voting against increased fuel efficiency standards and renewable energy, and he has supported billions in subsidies for Big Oil and other polluters.

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In these last days before the election, it is critical that we get the message out about McCain's real record. Anyone who cares about the environment needs to know that John McCain's energy plan is nothing short of a continuation of Bush-Cheney's dirty energy policies.

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And John McCain's Buzzword for Today is .....

Every time Senator John McCain's campaign wise guys come up with another Buzz Word, anonymous commenters feel the need to enlighten me.

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Most who know me realize that I have little spare time to watch television, much less watch McCain's failed campaign implode, except for the most pathetic vignettes.

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And Senator John McCain's Buzzword for Today is ............

SOCIALISM!

Please, please, spare me!

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To accept John McCain's rhetoric at this point fails to recognize that he is grasping at straws with a campaign in its death throes. Respected Republican voices are abandoning him, like General Colin Powell, who was more than generous in his comments about Senator McCain, but I won't be.

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Senator McCain is 72 years old, has had bouts of melanoma, refused to release his medical records. He has supported President Bush for the last 8 years and his platform is consistent with the Administration to appease what has become the extremist base of the Republican Party. He hasn't the vaguest notion of what caused the current economic mess, nor how to solve it. McCain/Palin are employing despicable tactics that were used against Senator McCain, including Robocalling.

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And McCain's choice of Governor Palin is ..... how can one be kind? She's a nice lady, lacking any intellectual curiosity or insight and is beauty pageant material, but incompetent as a Governor and less competent as a VP candidate.

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But to mirror McCain's comments about socialism indicates a lack of understanding of government structure or facts, reminiscent of McCarthyism and a willingness to accept meaningless rhetoric without analysis. This isn't FAUX News!

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I happened across an article in The Nation that seemed pertinent, but might also suggest a misunderstanding of the term that might be well-served by Wikipedia.

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Allow me to reiterate that blogs are not democracies and I moderate the comments for a reason. I sometimes don't review the comments for several days, sometimes and some, frankly, deviate in a direction I don't care to address. If you'd like to initiate a discussion, you might consider posting on nemasket .

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That being said, I trust most voters to have the sense to research the issues and the rhetoric and cast informed votes on November 4th.

Hate Mongering, Ignorance and Dirty Politics

Fellow blogger, Ryan Adams commented on Hate-Based Campaigning, just as I was thinking the same thing. The level of ignorance of many of the comments is truly breath-taking!

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ABC reported 'Barack Osama' Printed on Hundreds of NY Absentee Ballots

ABC News' Julia Hoppock reports: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's last name was spelled "Osama" on three hundred absentee ballots mailed out this week in Rensselaer County, New York.

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Defenders of Wildlife comments on Governor Palin: When you promote a grotesque program like Governor Sarah Palin’s Alaska wolf slaughter, you can expect gruesome results.
A startling example: In June, after gunning down 14 adult wolves from a helicopter, officials from Governor Palin’s Department of Fish and Game rounded up 14 orphaned wolf pups and methodically shot each one in the head in clear violation of a state law.

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"When John McCain picked the notoriously anti-environmental Sarah Palin as his running mate, he abdicated his once-admirable - if erratic - support for pro-environmental policies and settled once and for all the question of which ticket should be trusted with the care of our natural resources," concluded Schlickeisen.

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"Scientists and wildlife experts have consistently condemned Governor Palin's aerial wolf killing program, yet she continues to ignore sound science and promote the program," continued Schlickeisen. "Her biased approach is unnervingly familiar and is the last thing we need after eight years of President Bush's ideologically-driven approach to the stewardship of our air, land, water and wildlife, an approach that not only ignored government scientists' findings but often altered them in the public record. Palin seems quite at home with that approach."
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Is stirring up the hate mongering merely an attempt to overshadow the just released report Legislative Panel: Palin Abused Authority? Click here for 263 Page Ethics Report in pdf format

The uproar and campaign spin created by the McCain camp will overshadow Governor Palin's poor choice of replacement in the episode.

Kopp was no stranger to Palin, nor Juneau. He served on transition teams for both Governors Frank Murkowski and Palin. But he was not given the role of top cop in her administration. That only came after Palin fired Monegan.

Almost as soon as Kopp was named to the job, John Cyr of the Public Safety Employees Association says he began receiving complaints, about 10 in all, about Kopp. Even before his first day, news broke about a sexual harassment claim that was filed against him a few years earlier by a former employee. CBS

Former Republican Governor William Milliken and Senator Lincoln Chaffee are abandoning McCain as the campaign tone has disintegrated:

GRAND RAPIDS -- He endorsed John McCain in the presidential primary, but now former Republican Gov. William Milliken is expressing doubts about his party's nominee.
"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.
"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."
Milliken, a lifelong Republican, is among some past leaders from the party's moderate wing voicing reservations and, in some cases, opposition to McCain's candidacy.

During a stop in Grand Rapids on Thursday, Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island, said he's voting for Obama and urging others to do likewise.
McCain campaigned for Chafee's unsuccessful re-election bid in 2006, but Chafee said he is concerned McCain has swung to the right, a divisive strategy that could make it difficult for him to govern.
"That's not my kind of Republicanism," said Chafee, who now calls himself an independent. "I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what's happened now. In eight short years they've taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they've torn it into tatters."
As for McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate, "there's no question she's totally unqualified," Chafee said.
He had similar reservations about Obama's lack of experience, but said the Democrat's handling of the campaign convinced him he's ready to lead.
Chafee said he has spoken with several other moderate Republican leaders, and "there are a whole lot of us deserting."

Senator McCain could have done better. Republicans could have done better. America could have done better.