Homer Simpson, your job's on the line

Wonkette says it looks like the McCain campaign is trying to play the dope card again, and they've got one out there speaking for them, too:

John McCain gave a speech at the NAACP convention today and, to publicize the event, his campaign authorized Dr. Ada Fisher, a Republican running for the House in North Carolina’s 12th district, to speak as an official surrogate to journalists covering it. That may not have been the best decision, however, as she offered some pretty inflammatory thoughts about how Barack Obama’s admitted past drug use should disqualify him from the presidency. According to Tampa’s WMNF radio — which sent Wonkette a partial transcription of its interview with Fisher, which they will air tonight — Fisher said, among other things, “We cannot have a nation high on drugs and have the President… as an example.” Thanks, Ada! Now we have to deal with this again.

Here’s the rest of WMNF’s partial transcript:

AF: “…Obama in his book about his father talked about his use of drugs. And I think it’s disingenuous of people to vote for somebody for President when you won’t allow a drug user in any secure or nuclear facility. Yet we as a nation, are willing to consider making somebody President of the United States I think that speaks very poorly…Bill Clinton said he smoked but he didn’t inhale…But he didn’t come out and flagrantly say he used drugs…and if that’s going to be our standard God helps us in nuclear facilities and secure facilities who have this kind of history..and this nation must be very careful when it lowers the bar on who and what it will accept.

MP: Well Dr. Fisher, let me pick up on that…you mention Bill Clinton did not deny inhaling…or I guess he did deny inhaling, but that did come up in his campaign.

George Bush there were many rumors about cocaine that he never really dismissed, so isn’t that unfair to criticize Senator Obama for being forthright and honest about this, uh admitting in his youth?….

AF: See, if you admit it, it should disqualify you. Otherwise, we’ll have to let all those people who …applied for jobs in these facilities…There is a reason that those rules are there. I was a detox director for 16 counties in North Carolina , so I have a great understanding about what drugs and what they do to people. And I know that in moments of weakness, people tend to revert those things that they’ve used in the past. I don’t think it’s disingenuous, I don’t think its fair. If I ran for President of the U.S. and I had that history, I would expect people to look at that very carefully. We cannot have a nation high on drugs and have the President… as an example. I’m sorry I disagree with that.

Exactly. We much prefer the politicians who lie about the drugs they obviously did decades earlier in their lives over the ones who mention it in a single line of a book written forever ago.

Here's Dr. Fisher- in a photo from her campaign web site- with one of the nation's greatest opponents of women's rights, civil rights, and public health.

In an interview with North Carolina Conservative, she said, "I have been a Republican for over 30 years. I have caught hell for it not just in the black community but also among contemporaries. It was with a sense of horror that folks looked at me as if I were a leper when I supported Senator Helms in the 70's. I didn't have to agree with everything he said, but I believed then as now that he and Sam Irvin were the best articulators of North Carolina's promise. Were it not for Senator Helm's help to tobacco farmers, our economy would have suffered more earlier, for that crop at one time accounted for 35% of our economy."

Seems like the ability to square that circle raises some questions about disqualifying her for office.