McCain Campaign Bashes Gamers, Reminds Me Of High School Bullies
From GayGamer: On an article posted to John McCain's website yesterday in response to plagiarism charges from the liberal blogosphere, McCain's campaign bashes gamers in a venomous ad hominem attack tucked into the last paragraph:
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.
Right - because gamers can't quite possibly understand the sacrifice our troops make to keep us safe. Good job, ignorant and bitter McCain campaign staffer; you've shown the same amount of savvy that a typical High School bully shows as he kicks around the little guy in the classroom.
In that one sentence you've not only insulted gamers like me who have utter respect for our troops, but you've insulted those members of the military who themselves enjoy rolling the dice and dungeon crawling as an enjoyable hobby. There are at least three members of my regular gaming group who are service members, and you just insulted every single one of them.
Way to go.
Smears the Left Can Fight For [McCain]
Den Den Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Tabletop Gaming on 19 August 2008
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: gaming, McCain, politics, smear
That's just bizarre.
Hmmm... digging a little deeper to be fair to McCain's campaign they did make this pretty clever apology;
If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.
--Michael Goldfarb
http://ace.new.mu.nu/apology_from_mccains_campaign_blogger
Holy crap, I can't believe someone running for PRESIDENT would directly (or indirectly) support a statement that ostracized ANYone for the hobbies that entertain them.
Ignorantly enough, no research must have been done concerning the D&D gamers serving in the US Army for that matter, many of which who have written into Dragon and Dungeon Magazine voicing their utmost support for the hobby and the fact that it's many of their pass-times.
Thanks for finding this news. I'm not American (I'm Canadian) but I can appreciate common sense and good will... neither of which is coming out of the McCain political front with this example.
@DrOct: Although I can actually chuckle at the humour in the Ability score jest, I can't help feel that it's yet another high school bully kidney jab at after the fact :).
It appears that the apology was actually for a previous blasting of the D&D community... and that they simply went ahead and did it again afterwards.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13128.html
Interesting. I'm not excusing the jab, it would appear that this McCain blogger has disparaged the D&D crowd before, but I thought in all fairness it should be pointed out that at least at one point out that they did make a somewhat clever apology.
All of that being said I stand by my original statement: "That's just bizarre."
Who is this guy? A bully from 1978? It's just a strange thing to say. Does this sort of thing resonate with McCain's base?