Overall, I'm skeptical of guilt by association arguments.

Of course McCain is responsible for those he appoints, and of course we should use those appointments to make judgments about him, and how he will behave should he achieve the White House.

This is not "guilt by association." That would be a matter of assuming that if he were photographed with Tony Rezko, he had taken huge bribes from the man, or he shared Rezko's taste for possible criminality.

McCain hired the guy - whether he's paying him isn't the issue - Hernandez is working for him, with McCain's approval.

To say that McCain doesn't approve of Hernandez, or that his hiring somehow is no reflection on McCain is, frankly, unreasonable.

And saying that "nobody" is holding Hillary accountable for some of her hires, well, she could hire Herr Goebbels as her outreach coordinator, and nobody in the MSM would raise a peep.

But somebody should.

I'm not saying that his hiring somehow is no reflection on McCain. Nor that a judgment shouldn't be made about the propriety of his hiring Hernandez or anyone hiring anyone else; only that his views are not necessarily those of McCain.

As another example, Justin Hart, an officer of the Lighted Candle Society, was was appointed to Governor Romney's Faith and Values Committee:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/10/post_475.html

Lighted Candle advocates the following:

*Supporting civil litigation against producers and distributors of pornography
*Financing scientific research into the addictive nature of the disease
*Publishing information revealing the sources and effects of the scourge
*Providing help to those who have been harmed by the addiction or caught in its vice even now.

But Romney was a Marriott exec, and Marriott is accused of selling p0rn to hotel customers.

So, am I to judge Romney by the opinions of Hart, or by the actions of the Marriott?

I think it's better to ask Romney.

Having worked for the Marriott Corporation in various capacities for more than ten years, I can tell you that bringing them up is meaningless. Marriott is a corporation operated by a Mormon family, but it also serves coffee and has cigarette machines in its lounges, where alcohol is served in copious quantities. IE, using the corporate policies of the Marriott as some sort of indicator of Romney's beliefs is, um, irrelevant.

Keep in mind: Romney worked for the corporation. But Justin Hart (who spams me regularly) works for Romney. If Romney was not comfortable with Hart's views, he would not have hired him or, if ignorant of his views on hiring him, would fire him upon discovering the incompatibility of his views.

Let's move right to the lifeboat example: If Romney hired Goebbels to manage PR, would you claim that Romney did not share Geobbel's beliefs, even if he said he did not?

How would you logically justify that, then?

I think Goebbels is heinous enough that hiring him speaks for itself -- and if done for the purposes of "Nazi outreach" such outreach is inappropriate. It would not matter whether Romney shared Goebbels' views.

However, I still wouldn't assume Romney shared Goebbels' views, but I would think his judgment was awful. (Which McCain's may well be in hiring Hernandez -- but that still does not mean he shares his views.)

I think it is very possible -- even likely -- that Romney does not share the views of Hart, but only hired him to get the anti-p0rn crowd to vote for him. That may be sneaky and underhanded, but it still does not necessarily tell me what Romney thinks about p0rn.

In politics, many of these guys are cynical enough to hire activists in order to wrangle constituency votes.

Suppose a candidate hired a PETA staffer to do vegetarian/Vegan/AR outreach. Would that make him a Vegan? I don't think so. But if I felt strongly enough about PETA, I might be fully justified in rejecting the candidate.

I think these things depend on the egregriousness of the person involved, and just as I don't think Hernandez is as bad as Yzaguirre, I don't think McCain is as bad as Hillary.

I admit, this can get frustrating for me. I can't stand a certain online news web site I consider bigoted and will not mention; it's one of my pet peeves. If you started writing for them, I might start to think less of your blog, even though I would know it was irrational and it would not be fair, for I can't charge you with responsibility for anything you don't say yourself.

(But OTOH, what if someone I respected suddenly declared he was a Scientologist? There is no absolute rule, which is why I am trying to stick with McCain and Hillary here.)

I think you are missing the point.

McCain has been extraordinarily weak on border security issues for the past decade. He has only recently claimed to have "learned his lesson". We have only his word on this... there is no body of legislative votes to back up this new claim. He then goes out and hires an open-border advocate as his Hispanic outreach coordinator, thereby immediately undercutting his new found immigration position!

It would be different if he had a long track record of strong support for tight border security, then this hire could be seen as a sort of "olive branch" to the Hispanic activists; but with his long history of amnesty support, that assertion rings false.

Its not a matter of guilt by association... its a case of birds of a feather.

Face it. He is squarely in the corner of the multinational corporations and their desire for a nearly borderless world.

http://hagglethelibs.blogspot.com/

Eric, turn it around. Hernandez is a committed "one North America" amnesty-open borders advocate.

Why would he work for McCain? What do you think he believes McCain's policies and positions will be?

I don't know whether Hernandez thinks McCain agrees with him or not, but he strikes me as a bit of a self-aggrandizing huckster who may be in it for himself. It's possible that he thinks McCain agrees with him (and it's possible McCain does even though he denies it). He may also think that if the election is close and McCain wins, he'll be able to claim that he did it by winning over Hispanics who'd otherwise have voted for Hillary. Then (depending on his core motivations) Hernandez could escalate his ideological demands or make a pitch for more power.

It's pure speculation on my part. McCain may have told him that he agrees with him. Then again, he might not have. Or he might be letting surrogates like his daughter drop hints.

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