But, Cheri, Obama did not get a pass on these things. They have been scrutinized in the media ad nauseam. The RNC has spent thousands of dollars investigating these relationships trying to find evidence and proof to bring him down because of it. The only thing anybody has been able to find, is that there is nothing there. If anybody has received a pass from the media about palling around with criminal, terrorist, America haters it's the McCain/Palin campaign. See my posting below, and please look this stuff up for yourself.

McCain
1. McCain's campaign and advisers are allied with and/or supporting militants who have committed acts that any reasonable observer would define as TERRORISM. On July 20, while campaigning for McCain in Miami and just prior to speaking at a McCain event, Sen. Joe Lieberman met with the wife of convicted serial bomber Eduardo Arocena and promised to pursue a presidential pardon on his behalf. Arocena is the founder of the notorious Cuban exile militant group Omega 7, renowned for a string of BOMBINGS from 1975 to 1983. These men are not afraid to KILL AMERICAN CIVILIANS on US soil in the furtherance of their cause. John McCain is not afraid to associate with them, even going so far as to have cut Spanish-language radio ads for release in South Florida. John McCain has promised that, if elected, he will release Eduardo Arocena. In 1983, Arocena was arrested and charged with 42 counts pertaining to conspiracy, explosives, firearms, and destruction of foreign government property within the United States. Arocena was convicted of the 1980 MURDER of a Cuban diplomat in Manhattan. He is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison in Indiana.
His targets included:
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Madison Square Garden (he blew up an adjacent store);
JFK airport (Arocena's group planted a suitcase bomb intended for a TWA flight to Los Angeles—in protest of the airline's flights to Cuba. The plane would have exploded if not for the fact that the bomb went off on the tarmac prior to being loaded);
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Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center (causing damage to three levels of the theater and halting the performance of a music group from Cuba);
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the ticket office of the Soviet airline Aeroflot;
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and a church.
2. In 1998 G. Gordon Liddy hosted a campaign fundraiser for McCain and McCain has accepted campaign donations from Liddy over the last decade, most recently in February 2008. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis.
3. John McCain was a close personal friend of Charles Keating, McCain and his family vacationed at Keating's Bahamas mansion, Cindy McCain had investments with Keating. Charles Keating is a convicted felon.
4. McCain announced he was choosing Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican congressman from Miami, as his senior adviser and spokesman on Latin America. Rep. Diaz-Balart is a fierce hard-liner on Cuba, advocating, at various times, a blockade of the island, even military action if needed, to unseat Fidel Castro (his former uncle, once married to Diaz-Balart's aunt). He, too, has been a supporter of certain kinds of TERRORISTS who have struck on AMERICAN SOIL. Since 2000, Diaz-Balart and his colleague Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have lobbied for and helped win the release of several convicted exile terrorists from U.S. prisons. Among the most notorious were Omega 7 members Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for their roles in the 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt with a car bomb in Washington, D.C.
5. Beginning in 1981, Richard Quinn became the Executive Editor in Chief of the racist Southern Partisan Quarterly Review and as was still listed as the owner of the magazine as recently as 2005. Like McCain did originally, Quinn opposed the Martin Luther King holiday, writing it "should have been rejected because its purpose is vitriolic and profane." In 2000, People For American Way called on McCain to fire Quinn, listing his disparaging of Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist," his promotion of David Duke ("What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?") and his selling of t-shirts praising Abraham Lincoln's assassination. McCain wouldn't fire him. He rejected the guilt-by-association charge, defending the man and disavowing the publication. The Washington Post described Quinn as the "longtime adviser [who] directed the senator to a crucial victory in the Palmetto State." Politico reported that McCain paid Quinn's firms $184,000. An article that was posted on McCain's website in 2008 — that is no longer available — described Quinn as "a senior political consultant to the McCain campaign."
6. McCain spent his 70th birthday aboard Rafaello Follieri's yacht in August 2006. Follieri, who posed as Vatican chief financial officer in order to win friends and investments, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan district court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. As part of the plea, Follieri admitted to misappropriating at least $2.4 million of investor money and redirecting it to foreign personal bank accounts that were disguised as business accounts.
7. Rick Renzi, Arizona Congressman 2002-2008, is currently under indictment for conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, concealment of money laundering, transactions with criminally derived funds, extortion, insurance fraud and criminal forfeiture. Until February 2008, Renzi was co-chair of McCain's Arizona 2008 presidential campaign, member of McCain's 2008 National Leadership Team, and a personal friend. In October 2006, McCain stated, "Rick has represented the first district of Arizona with tenacity, honesty and integrity beyond reproach."
8. McCain's campaign manager served as president of a lobbying association that fought to protect Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from the sort of regulation that McCain is now proposing.
9. Aquiles Suarez, listed as an economic adviser to the McCain campaign, in a July 2007 McCain press release, was formerly the director of government and industry relations for Fannie Mae. The Senate Lobbying Database says Suarez oversaw the lending giant's $47,510,000 lobbying campaign from 2003 to 2006.
10. McCain's opposition to a 1994 law that made it a federal crime to BOMB or blockade abortion clinics or to ATTACK abortion doctors. McCain's vote against the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act put him in league with the Senate's most radical anti-abortion advocates, who split with more than two dozen anti-abortion senators who voted to crack down on clinic BOMBERS as a matter of preserving law & order.
11. McCain's several year membership on the board of the US Council for World Freedom, which The Associated Press describes as "part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing DEATH squads in Central America."
12. McCain spent more than a year actively seeking John Hagee's endorsement. In February 2008, McCain stated, "I'm very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement today." Only after public outcry did McCain repudiate Hagee.
13. McCain actively sought Rod Parsley's support to get evangelical votes. In February 2008, McCain stated, "I'm truly honored today to have one of one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide — Pastor Rod Parsley." View Video. Again, after public outrage over Parsley, McCain was forced to repudiate him.
14. John McCain tried to circumvent campaign-finance rules that he helped create. Last year, when Mr McCain's campaign appeared moribund, the senator applied to join the presidential public financing system. Under this programme Mr McCain agreed to certain spending limits and, in turn, received access to federal matching money. (Sidenote: It's a terrible system that is basically designed to keep losers in the race.)"
15. Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced that it filed a formal complaint, dated April 22, 2008, with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) related to a fundraising luncheon held at London's Spencer House to benefit Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. The venue for the event was apparently donated to the campaign by foreign nationals, in violation of federal campaign finance laws.
16. The FEC sent a letter to Sen. John McCain's campaign treasurer Sept. 30 demanding the candidate turn over more information about "contributions that appear to exceed the limits." The letter is accompanied by a nine-page list showing scores of overages from McCain's August campaign finance report, including nearly $13,000 from Texas rancher Ray R. Barrett Jr.; $9,200 from an Iraqi security consultant, H. Carter Andress; and $5,000 from Joseph F. Davolio, an executive at a major national liquor, beer and wine distributor.
17. See factcheck.org for campaign misrepresentations and downright lies (The Whoppers of 20008 is the best).
Palin
1. Her husband is a past member of the Alaska Independence Party, and she has addressed the group on several occasions. The party's goal is Alaska's secession from the United States and its founder has said "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my HATRED for the American government." The group, founded in 1973 by Joe Vogler, Vogler stated, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." "Keep up the good work," Sarah Palin told members of the Alaskan Independence Party in a videotaped speech to their 2008 convention six months ago in Fairbanks. She wished the party luck on what she called its "inspiring convention."
2. Steve Branchflower’s report on Troopergate contains four findings. The first concludes that Palin violated the state’s executive branch ethics act, which says that “each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”