Michael Goldfarb, an aide to John McCain, recently wrote a blog post about the flap over whether or not McCain stole his “cross in the dirt” anecdote from legendary author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. While trying to make his point that the similarities between the stories are perfectly plausible, he writes:
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.
It’s not, it seems, the first time Goldfarb has reached for this cheap swipe. The first time, he compared the editors of the New York Times to gamers. According to Politco.com blogger Ben Smith:
But fear not: Goldfarb, in fact, has pre-emptively apologized, in the form of his response to the (narrow, but intense) outrage last time he did this, earlier this month:
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.
And by that, Goldfarb makes promises for McCain that he can’t possibly keep. In keeping with the seriousness of the apology, Kevin Poulsen of Wired magazine commented on this dust-up and asked readers to come up with Dungeons & Dragons stats for McCain. He writes:
If John McCain were a D&D character, what kind would he be?
Poulsen gets some pretty funny answers. The sad part is that the graphic for the Wired post shows McCain as a 3E monster called McCainculus.
I mean, Third Edition? Come on! That’s so 2000 AD. Not the comic, the year. The same year the last time McCain ran for president.
I suppose McCain really is behind the times.
