John McCain Hates Dungeons & Dragons?
A series of posts on the website for Republican presidential candidate John McCain has gamers up in arms, and has earned attention from some high-profile media outlets for the strange decision to target Dungeons & Dragons players, of all things.
In an August 1 post on the official McCain campaign website, spokesperson Michael Goldfarb said of a recent New York Times blog post:
… in their new role as bloggers, the paper’s editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother’s basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons.
While this mention didn’t generate much commotion at the time, it was Goldfarb’s decision to negatively namecheck D&D a second time just a few weeks later — a day after the end of the popular gaming convention Gen Con — that had everyone (including online culture blog BoingBoing) wondering whether the McCain staffer has some longstanding issues with the popular role-playing game and its fans.
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 sounds to me like someone could never find enough friends to form a party… or maybe he was never allowed to be Dungeon Master. Either way, I can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the decision to make an anti-D&D stance a theme in McCain’s presidential campaign.
Considering that I've played D&D with members from all branches of the service, people who have had the distinction of serving in Vietnam and Gulf War 1, from Navy SEALs to USAF Comm Lts in BCGs, and have never had any trouble getting a game together at the rec center on any base I have been on from Lackland to Lakenheath, I would figure having a staffer insulting part of a prime voting block you are counting on (the US Military) would not only be counter productive, but would be down right stupid. (and I know that was a horrible run on sentence)
All right, all you indoctrinated soldier boys, just head back to your shack and clean up those guns, or whatever it is you do when not out slaughtering innocents and bombing hospitals. Now for all the rest of you sickly delusional elf-boys and fairy-girls, go out, meet some people (no, no, not those tiny friends that live in your computer), explore, breathe a little. Crazy deranged intellectually challenged bastards!
And…uhm, what's wrong with Mom's basement? It's nice and cool down here. Mock D&D all you want, but when you start to mock "motherhood," that's where I draw the line! Besides, I have a Charisma Medallion that makes me +6 against taunts, barbs, snipes and double-dog dares. So there!Let's see Michael Goldfarb make a saving throw against that.
From what I can see of his writing, he seems to be trotting out the old "trapped in their parents' basement" cliche for internet posters, specifically Daily Kos, and simply attaching DnD onto it for the sake of adding punch to it. The bigger question is how Daily Kos and Dungeons and Dragons are even related!
McCain's toady is just sucking up to the Religious Right – D&D is debbil-spawn, ya' know. It's anti-Christian. God knows, the Russians probably played it before they went to Georgia.
McCain's just jealous of wargamers who have a better understanding of military strategy and know how to win wars better than he does. (Which is to say: the vast majority of wargamers.)
I served 4-years in the Army with one of those on deployment to Iraq. Oh, and I play Dungeons & Dragons too. McCain was shot down and was a prisoner. That's a crappy situation but it doesn't make him a hero.
As a mom (who's basement I would never subject anyone to live in) who plays D&D and who actually has voted Republican in the past….I really resent the disparagement of the McCain campaign towards gamers. I was leaning towards Obama and this only pushed me a little bit more to his side. Heck, I bet Obama would be a killer Cleric.
I think it's great that someone that high up the food chain even knows what D&D is. Getting annoyed by this (or, better yet, letting it affect your vote) only shows how on the mark the comment was.Oh, and wargamers are about as likely to "win a war" as D&D players are to win a sword fight.
Someone better tell the U.S. Army that wargamers are unlikely to win wars… the winner of the U.S. Army's 1941 Louisiana War Games was a basement dweller named George Patton. Better not put him in charge of anything important.And the members of my local SCA group, DnD players all, are quite good with thier swords.
The more I learn about Michael Goldfarb the more I see that he is a real "peach" of a guy. Goldfarb worked for the "Project for the New American Century." This was the neo-conservative think-tank that created the blueprint for our entanglement in Iraq! In May 2007, Goldfarb was awarded a $25,000 part-time journalism fellowship by the Phillips Foundation. Goldfarb’s funded project is entitled "The Upside of Global Warming." Oofda and oy!http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michae…
C'mon. If anyone even brought up D&D around McCain, he'd have ZERO idea what you were talking about. Obama MIGHT. But I don't see him for a player, either.
http://www.cafepress.com/curiosityink/5897777
"Oh, and wargamers are about as likely to "win a war" as D&D players are to win a sword fight."I was in the army for a decade and you better believe military strategists do play tactical strategy games. They are called "warfighter exercises." The principles of strategy/tactical games are the same — whether on a board or through military computerized simulation. The military just have better (and more expensive) dice.
It seems McCain and Company are way too elitist to even consider D&D or other hobbies.I wonder what other leisure persuits make us not good enough for the McCain crowd? Is sitting in the back yard and talking about comic books ok? How about drinking beer and playing the guitar? We already know McCain and the Republicans think they are too good to lower themselves to such lower-class activities like inflating your own tires (guess that means pumping your own gas is out too).In the rarified air of McCain's world, you only matter if you play polo and take your jet plane to one of your ten+ houses.
Goldfarb's comments are just the usual Conservative appeal to people's prejudices, this time at the expense of gamers. These sorts of things are usually at the expense of immigrants or gays.
Ya know, I've been a dedicated gamer for twenty years. I've been a dedicated Republican for about 14. I'm certainly more likely to identify myself as a gamer than a Republican. I've never liked John McCain, but would have voted for him just to vote against Obama. But given that not only do I not like him, but that his staff is obviously made up of ignorant socially stunted people, I think I'm going to go register Libertarian in the morning.
Obama = Paladin of Hieronius