The Great Shrinking Johnny Mac… Bush’s Black Book
When the tallies of Campaign ’08 are finally written, it’s now certain that McCain will have won. He will have beaten out Bill and Hillary Clinton in the category of just who most belittled him or herself during this election cycle.
McCain’s latest ad is neither aggravating nor insulting. It’s just plain pathetic how someone considered so broadly to be An American Hero has so quickly converted himself in An American Schmuck. A Little, Tiny Schmuck.
The dynamic of this election — I truly believe– after a year-and-a-half and millions of words of complicated analysis will now come down to one very simple incontrovertible question: In this time of a senseless $3 trillion war, a record-busting deficit, $4 a gallon gas, crashing banks, 50 million uninsured, mass export of jobs, and a flaunting of the U.S. Constitution is it a greater liability to be the candidate of the ruling party or to be black?
Period.
Everything else is white noise. Quite literally.
************
Lots of mental onanism this past week about impeachment. What world do these folks live in? It’s about indictment, stupid. Not impeachment. Here’s my latest column on that issue.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:40 am
At this late date impeachment seems like a less and less useful option, but I’m not totally unsympathetic. No one has been standing up for the institutional prerogatives of Congress, and Congress is acting deader than a beached carp. Sure, some of that has to do with the party split in the two chambers, and some of it has to do with the go-along-to-get-along Democratic leadership. Even so, there is symbolic merit in the move. If Congress continually chooses to do nothing in the face of these lawless provocations we might as well stuff the place full of horses and give the president a purple robe.
I am deeply uneasy about the idea of politicizing impeachment despite the fact that the Republicans have already gone down this road, but someone needs to play the conservative here, and it might as well be the Democrats. Impeachment may be the conserving move here–the move that most effectively defends the Constitutional standing of Congress.
Nixon struck the early notes on the imperial presidency, and Bush has brought it to a sickening crescendo. We’ll need a period of purging after this farce which will be a disservice to the country since Congress will be spending time disgorging when it should be fixing more pressing issues. But indictment is going to have to be part of it. As is a new Church committee, and much, much more. I’m just not sure that impeachment is idiotic, and it certainly does not exclude indictments.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:57 am
Hasn’t he been turning himself into a schmuck for a while now.
What’s more sickening than that is the fact that this stuff could work, at least to the extent that it keeps the election tight. I was naive enough to believe that McCain still had a residue of that vaunted integrity, which, coupled with a changed political landscape, would keep him from running a swiftboat-style campaign. I was even more naive than that, assuming that such a campaign couldn’t resonate, wouldn’t be amplified by a willing media etc.
I think Obama’s response ad was pretty solid, cool and to the point. It sounded like the man himself, which always helps.
Can cool fend off this sort of inane demagoguery? It’ll be interesting to see.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:16 am
I saw Ben Stein last nite on TV, taunting Paul Krugman with the assertion that McCain is the one that regular folks would rather have a beer with. They’d see him as a guy who could throw a few back at the local tavern, swapping stories with them about service records etc. and that this would play big in the heartland and could well put him over the top.
Krugman, a fine economist, but kinda clunky when it comes to pure politics, remonstrated that this image is just an illusion, McCain’s practically a billionaire, he’s not even close to being a regular guy and so on.
What amazed me was that Stein (a non-barfly if ever I saw one) saw fit to trot out this line of horse manure in the first place. I figured there had to be at least a 4 year moratorium on the Elk’s club argument for electability — the freaking chutzpah was staggering.
But who knows — maybe Stein is onto something. As Sam Kinison used to say about toxic high-school social dynamics, how they continue forever, even beyond the grave, — “it never ends”.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Actually in polling on evets last “issue” – it was an invite to the BarBQ, not just a beer – Barack Obama came out ahead of McCain. What’s funny about this is that underlying the absurdity of this line of attack, McCain – a guy so hungry for celebrity that he’s appeared in “The Wedding Crashers”, 24, been the subject of a biopic, is buddies with Warren Beatty, hosted Saturday Nite Live and appeared at the MTV Awards with, yes, Britney Spears – not to mention his serial appearances on late nite talk and Comedy Central – appears to be so petulant about Obama that his own narcissism and jealousy become evident. As for “elitism” and “regular guy”, there’s this Cindy McCain quote via Jake Tappe, which makes Teresa Heinz Kerry sound like the lady down the block.
Mrs. McCain: (…explaining the purchase of a 7th or 8th house, this one a beach house) “When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, ‘Oh this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go. Then it got to the point where they used it so much I couldn’t get in the place. So I bought another one.â€
There are few times I’ve stated such, but Roper was right in his disdain of John McCain. The guy’s a phony, utterly lacking in integrity, with whatever residual “authenticity” that resides in the man crippled by ego and ambition. He’s worse than Karl Rove and George Bush because there was never any question but that they were hollow little lowlifes. McCain, in his zeal to win an election, has taken the path of destroying a man who could truly inspire other Americans. But the person he’s destroying isn’t Barack Obama, it’s the John McCain millions of “his friends” thought they knew.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:03 am
Via Atrios, those communists at Business Week have unearthed this, regarding McCain’s “didn’t visit the troops” ad:
“What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch.”
Douchebags…
July 31st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Having vented about this, the most important thing is not to whine about what douchebags the GOP consistently are, but to go on aggressive offense and send them back to Hell…
So far it looks like Team Obama are capable of doing what needs to be done.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:28 am
Bouncing around the net, I was reminded of Bill Bradley’s piece on the last John McCain ad – I’d really like to hear more from Bill on the McCain campaign V2.008 because he knows these guys but seems determined not to swallow any of their shit.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:31 am
What is really embarrassing is that a television network (CNN or, even more embarrassingly, Sunday Morning, which is on CBS, which used to have a news division) or a newspaper–as The New York Times certainly is supposed to be–would use Ben Stein as a commentator on anything other than whether Ferris Bueller should have a day off.
What is really sad is that Obama will have to show that he is not what he claimed to be: someone who is part of the new politics. He will need to do ads about McCain cheating on his first wife, calling his second wife a cunt, punching another member of Congress, and generally being the biggest whore ever to run for president. Ever.
July 31st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
” The guy’s a phony, utterly lacking in integrity, with …”
But the beauty of it is that it doesn’t matter that Obama is a throroughly self-made man, born to humble circumstances, while McCain was born into the military aristocracy and then married into another sort of aristocracy. The truth has almost no bearing on this line of attack. I’m glad to hear that BHO is currently the choice for a BBQ, but I’m not sure that sentiment will hold up, with every cable poundit asking portentous questions about his presumptuousness and elitism and replaying all of McCain’s attack ads as fodder for ‘analysis’. Can’t tell you how much I’d love to see Obama turn this crap around and toss it back in McCain’s face.
July 31st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“another sort of aristocracy”
If “aristocracy” can be applied to the kind of folks who end up in the slammer for falsifying invoices and tax records, get rich via ties to the likes of a shady liquor mogul who was linked, via testimony of one of the men convicted, to the murder of a whistle-blower Phoenix journalist, and are investment parters with S&L crook Charles Keating (who one Senator McCain ran interference for, in violation of Senate Ethics.) More like “mobocracy.” If I were John McCain I’d be particularly wary of beer references in defense of my candidacy, because someone might get the bright idea of publicizing how Cindy’s dad became a beer mogul. It’s a pretty shady story…but with a happy ending for John McCain, i.e. the private jet, 8 homes, no need to worry about paying the rent while campaigning for public office, $500 Italian loafers, etc. etc.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Al I know is the polls are tightening — so this stuff is having an effect.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I am certain that the Obama campaign will push back effectively – but they do have the disadvantage of not being complete and total scumbags. In the case of McCain, he has the disadvantage of plunging into this sewer shamelessly AFTER carefully constructing a persona that would rule most of this stuff out. The danger for him is that the press will fall out of love with him – and like hurt and angered teenage girls will lash out at the former object of their affection. My main evidence of this potential so far is that the egregioius hack Andrea Mitchell has been hitting the McCain campaign hard on this series of ads, calling them false and/or ridiculous, as well as Jake Tapper – another hack – who published a damning piece on John McCain being a member of the fabulously wealthy elite who are far removed in lifestyle from the concerns of ordinary people. (The difference between McCain and, say, a super-rich liberal like John Edwards on this score is that McCain shamelessly advocates in his class interests.)
July 31st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Evets: “Al I know is the polls are tightening — so this stuff is having an effect.”
Maybe the polls are tightening because people are waking up to the fact that with Obama, there is no there there!
July 31st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Here’s why Reg and Woody (or GM) aren’t allowed to sit next to each other on bus trips:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN3150230220080731
July 31st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Also everybody, enjoy the schaudenfreude (and from Malkin no less):
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/07/31/doh-mccain-donors-in-paris-hiltons-family-miffed-at-celeb-diss/
July 31st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Maybe the polls are tightening because people are waking up to the fact that with Obama, there is no there there!
And with McCain there is? GMAFB.
It’s classic smear politics: McCain can’t argue on the issues, so he takes a page from Karl Rove.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Actually, McCain’s “base” seems to be waking up to the fact that “there’s no there, there.”
July 31, 2008 8:39
Hope Dashed (Again)
Posted by Joe Klein
A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong. I used to think, as David Ignatius does, that McCain’s true voice was humble and moderate, but now I’m beginning to think his Senate colleagues may be right about his temperament. From what I can gather, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican, reflected the views of many of his colleagues earlier this year when he said:
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine…He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
The erratic nature of McCain’s campaign seems to be confirming that judgment. The McCain I used to know would never have touted his own courage as he did a few weeks ago when he said:
“I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war.It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”
Courage is grace under pressure. McCain showed it when he was a prisoner of war, and on many issues–yes, even on his stubborn insistence that the surge would work–but he is not showing it now. He is showing flop sweat. It is not a quality usually associated with successful leadership.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Randy, if you’ve paid attention at all, you will acknowledge that I have no brief for McCain. Don’t like him and not likely to vote for him, so I’ll disagree with the no there there for McCain; there is lots there and I don’t like it at all. That takes away not one whit from my comment that there is no there there for Obama, the epitome of the empty suit.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
It’s a pretty shady story…
Reg, links?
And how is John McCain responsible for the actions of his wife’s father? IMHO it makes about as much sense as the righties claiming Obama is a Manchurian Candidate of Wright and Pfleger.
If you’ve got something against what McCain’s voted for and/or against, or what he stands for (and I’m sure you’ve got lots on both counts) make the point. But even Molly Ivins (God bless her) dismissed the family-guilt stuff years ago when I heard her on C-Span re someone’s question about Prescott Bush’s affiliations: “I don’t particularly want to be held responsible for what my granddaddy did either…”
July 31st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
And FWIW Reg, IMHO you make your Obama-promoting points much more effectively with links such as you provided above to centrists like Joe Klein, rather than with spittle-flooded pissing contents against Woody and GM. My two cents…
July 31st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Joe Klein is still wrong about one thing – McCain’s “stubborn insistence that the surge would work.” If you go back and look at McCain’s statements about the surge, he hedged his bets and said alternately that it might help and that there still weren’t enough troops. Of course, anyone with a grain of informed analysis regarding the current situation in Iraq is aware of the fact that the “surge” itself wasn’t what led to some modest, potential improvements – it was a change in strategy that paralleled the surge, which was something McCain never discussed and certainly wasn’t involved in helping to shape, but more importantly it was the politics on the ground, with the Sunnis, prior to the surge, approaching the US command with a their proposal for payoffs if they turned on al Qaeda in the wake of it’s wild excesses as their ally, and Sadr shifting emphasis from open warfare to political engagement. Also key was the clear message from Congress to the Iraqis that the U.S. presence was finite and the public was rapidly losing patience with the notion of our troops being involved in an Iraqi civil war. “Surge” reductionism and/or triumphalism is more bullshit from morons. Which, unfortunately, includes the GOP candidate…
July 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I’m not promoting Obama with “spittle-flooded pissing contests with Woody or GMR” – I’m merely persisting in pointing out what pissants they are with their dishonest, adolescent taunts and falsifications. It’s really got nothing to do with Obama because their charges have nothing to do with Obama, but with the bizarre degradation of discourse and rationality that guys like this embody.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
That takes away not one whit from my comment that there is no there there for Obama, the epitome of the empty suit.
Sorry, but that guy is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now. A legacy Yale grad, recovering alcoholic, one full term as governor in what is one of the weakest governor’s roles in the country, failed in the oil business and only made money through crony capitalism aided by corporate welfare.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
The only thing those charges – which you’ll easily find if you google “james hensley” (I’ve lost the link) – have to do with McCain is that he’s not married into an “aristocracy”, but what was essentially a “mobocracy” circle of crooked beer distributors. Of course he’s not responsible for how his wife’s father came into his dough – unless of course he uses his political perch to defend one of the crooked bastards his father-in-law is involved with financially. So unless he ever did such with one of those guys…like, say, Charles Keating…he’s clean as a whistle.
Frankly, when he tries to link Obama to Britney Spears or claims Obama won’t visit wounded troops unless he can drag the media along, he deserves ridicule for bullshit like his $500 loafers. He’s asking for critics to piss on his shoes…
Screw McCain; screw his rich-bitch, drug-stealing, beer heiress wife; screw the fucking family dog… The pandering, tired-ass sonofabitch isn’t fit to be President.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
that should have read “his father-in-law WAS involved with” – the guy’s dead.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
OK Reg. Well, thanks at least for not calling this conservative a name…
July 31st, 2008 at 2:15 pm
As for the “there” with McCain, GMAFB. There is absolutely zero imagination in his programs, his speeches are pure attack with no substance, recycled failed Bush policies hwo thinks that drilling for more oil that at best would start arriving at the pumps in ten years will drive oil prices down now.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Is McCain a crook ? Here’s a clip from Chris Suellentrop in Slate, 2/18/2000 on McCain’s intervention with bank regulators on behalf of S&L crook Charles Keating:
McCain defended his attendance at the meetings by saying Keating was a constituent and that Keating’s development company, American Continental Corporation, was a major Arizona employer. McCain said he wanted to know only whether Keating was being treated fairly and that he had not tried to influence the regulators. At the second meeting, McCain told the regulators, “I wouldn’t want any special favors for them,” and “I don’t want any part of our conversation to be improper.”
But Keating was more than a constituent to McCain–he was a longtime friend and associate. McCain met Keating in 1981 at a Navy League dinner in Arizona where McCain was the speaker. Keating was a former naval aviator himself, and the two men became friends. Keating raised money for McCain’s two congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1984, and for McCain’s 1986 Senate bid. By 1987, McCain campaigns had received $112,000 from Keating, his relatives, and his employees–the most received by any of the Keating Five. (Keating raised a total of $300,000 for the five senators.)
After McCain’s election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating’s expense, three of which were to Keating’s Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.
And in April 1986, one year before the meeting with the regulators, McCain’s wife, Cindy, and her father invested $359,100 in a Keating strip mall.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Is McCain a crook?
No. And neither is Barack Obama, despite Tony Rezko.
Come on, Reg. You can do better than that.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
qdpsteve… no he can’t. Witness the last paragraph of this mindless rant.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
McCain isn’t a crook in the same sense Charles Keating or his father-in-law were, but he’s not a guy who’s proven in his post-military life to be of particularly high ethical standards. To the degree he’s been embarrassed by appearing to not have much integrity, he seems to be pretty shameless these days. Here’s a guy who claims to have cut his campaign’s ties to lobbyists, but he’s got an array of lobbyists for the worst sort of special interests working directly for his campaign (Phil Gramm – now there’s a great guy to promote your economic vision in the wake of the home mortgage melt down that he helped make possible with his deregulation mania. Or Randy Schneumann – his foriegn policy guru, who works as a lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia. No not Woody’s Georgia. The other one. Campaign manager Rick Davis is a founder and still holds an ownership stake in Davis Manafort, with a client list that has included Verizon and SBC Communications, Ukranian holding company System Capital Management and Russian magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. All I can say about these guys is “WTF?”)
Based on character alone, McCain isn’t fit to be President.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
“Joe Klein is still wrong about one thing – McCain’s “stubborn insistence that the surge would work.†If you go back and look at McCain’s statements about the surge, he hedged his bets…”
More importantly, even if he hadn’t hedged his bets, once he’d tied his name and rep to the success of the war, going all in on the surge didn’t take any special “courage”. It didn’t involve bucking his party, its base or its leader and required no admission of prior error. It was the natural political move in his position, the path of least resistance. I’m sure it also reflected his general POV re: Iraq, but courage didn’t factor into the choice.
Had Obama come out for the surge, or McCain against it, that would have involved courage. (Not saying that Obama should have, just trying to define where courage would have factored into such a decision.)
July 31st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It would be helpful Roper if you suggested which of the actual charges I made in that “mindless rant” were baseless or false. After all, you’re the “fucking idiot” who defended Woody’s posting garbage viral wingnut email charges against Obama that the U.S. military has officially deemed false and inappropriate. Now THAT’S mindless…
July 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Yes, McCain is a politician and a Republican.
But mob connections? This sort of desperate guilt-by-association only makes Obama’s supporters look more like McCain’s.
I like to think there is a widening distinction between the right blogosphere’s increasingly surreal attacks on Obama and the left’s concerns about McCain’s fitness to be president.
That distinction may actually make a difference in the election as the Woodies of the world spew so many outrageously false accusations about Obama that he gains a kind of media immunity among swing voters.
Consider the meme, rife on the wingnutosphere two weeks ago, that Obama is gaffe prone and not too smart. This sort of frontal assault on factuality and logic actually helps the Obama campaign because it displaces potentially viable criticisms with easily punctured balloons of paranoid fantasy.
Obama showed, to an extent, in the primary campaign that he understands that responding directly to scurrilous attacks may only give them more traction. Rather, the approach that works is to stay above the fray, where he clearly, naturally belongs in terms of his rhetorical style, political goals and strategy.
McCain is a good guy in the relative sense we must use the term in the world of real politics. Obama is much better, though not because he didn’t marry a rich beer distributor or didn’t punch a colleague or wasn’t involved in the S&L scandal.
Obama’s a better leader because he understands that the best way to expand the progressive base is to invest more in reaching for new voters than in trying to peel voters away from the Republicans.
Obama’s a better leader because he has a more realistic grasp of America’s place in the world as a beacon of civil liberties, fair play and charity, not as a beat cop with the biggest gun and thinnest conscience.
The last thing the Obama campaign needs to do is get bogged down in calling McCain a criminal or a lout of any kind. He needs to remain relentlessly positive and focus, like a laser beam, on bringing new voters into the progressive fold, while letting the Woodies and GMs rot unacknowledged in their moronic cyber-playground of resentment and paranoia.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Daniel Henninger on McCain: Is McCain Stupid? Well, we know the answer to that don’t we?
And reg, you are the only one of the obamabots here that makes McCain look positively smart. And that’s not saying much! I offer this quote in particular which is what I was referring to “…Screw McCain; screw his rich-bitch, drug-stealing, beer heiress wife; screw the fucking family dog… The pandering, tired-ass sonofabitch isn’t fit to be President.” McCain as bad as he is qualified to be president period… the ONLY qualifications being 36 years of age and a native born citizen. Hmmm, come to think of it, even the obamamessiah meets those qualifications. Empty suit and all.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:10 pm
You’re a sanctimonious, hypocritical bore, Roper.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“But mob connections? This sort of desperate guilt-by-association only makes Obama’s supporters look more like McCain’s.”
Evets used the term “aristocracy” in reference to McCain’s wife’s money. I said it was more like “mobocracy” that he married into – because it was. This isn’t guilt-by-association – it’s the facts of the Hensley fortune. Much the same, of course, could be said of the Kenndy fortune – and has. I dare say that some of the progressive turn that the Kennedy’s took in their political second and third generations are due to a certain uneasiness at the means by which the old man acquired his wealth. So there’s never a complete disconnnect with these things. But McCain’s unethical acts as regards Charles Keating – and Keatings personal/money ties to McCain and the Hensley’s – are a matter of public record and Senate censure.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:23 pm
You mean “flouting,” not “flaunting,” of the Constitution.
http://www.bartleby.com/68/45/2545.html
July 31st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I want to get back to our genial host’s column advocating a jail cell for the Bushies. Sorry Marc but this isn’t Chile or South Africa. No, the political and Media Elite of this country would have a fit if the Obama DOJ indict4ed any of these sorry losers. See Stuart Taylor’s recent screed about “Criminalizing Politics” if you think that the Broders, Dowds, and Milbanks of this world wou;dn’t raise a shitstorm if that happened.
Of course, when last seen, Taylor was declaiming – for all to see – how Impeachment was just too good for Clinton. After all he had blow jobs in the Oval Office and lied about it on a civil deposition! What do we tell the kiddies about “Rule of Law!” But put Bush and Cheney in the dock fior a little rough treatment of “terrorists” – don’t you love America!?
No, if this is to be done it will have to be by a judge in Spain or Germany or some other civilized country. But since Dubya probably won’t go abroad it won’t mean much.
Sorry to rain on your parade!
July 31st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I keep hearing that the race is “Tightening up” but see no evidence. Tracking polls haven’t moved in two months – hence the deperation at the McCain camp.
Obama has the dough to advertize during the Olympics and then his convention. He’ll be up nearly 20 by 9/1.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Bunkerbuster: Just wanted to say, Bravo to your 3:00pm comment.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
(And BB, I meant Bravo in the genuine, ‘kudos’ sense, not in the ironic sense. Geez, see what you’ve done to us, Mr. Colbert??)
July 31st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
BB – there’s no chance the Obama campaign will get mired in the kind of stuff I’m saying about McCain. BUT with his current spate of anti-Obama ads, McCain has stretched himself into “fair game” territory for raising questions about his vaunted character – which isn’t quite as the glowing narrative would have it. I have no problem with the blogosphere bringing as many of these chinks in the McCain armor to the forefront as are credible and “fact-based.” None of the stuff I’ve said about McCain comes close even as hyperbole to the outright falsifications that been slung against Obama by Woody in these very threads or the kind of stuff that the rightwing is feverishly circulating to slime Obama. And McCain has started echo that line of attack. He deserves a kick in the pants…
July 31st, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Sorry Marc but this isn’t Chile or South Africa. No, the political and Media Elite of this country would have a fit if the Obama DOJ indict4ed any of these sorry losers. See Stuart Taylor’s recent screed about “Criminalizing Politics†if you think that the Broders, Dowds, and Milbanks of this world wou;dn’t raise a shitstorm if that happened.
You’re probably right, Richard, but a truth commission would be a good idea.
As for Addington, Feith and Yoo, et al., they would be advised to limit their trips to the US.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Here’s the thing about negative campaigning, and I’m sure I’m revealing nothing new: It works. It absolutely unequivocally works.
It works in a funny way to be sure–it increases the negatives of the attacker too–but the attacks stick. Tax and spend liberal, effete, out of touch, responsible for high gas prices, take your pick. This stuff will start to sink in at least some. Liberals will recoil at the unfairness and idiocy of it, but it’ll slowly become part of the perception people have of Obama, and part of the water cooler discourse.
I would love to see him stay above the fray, but I fear he’ll lose if he does. He can’t sit back for months while McCain tees off on him over and over again.
If nothing else, this campaign has revealed McCain as a total fraud. Any vestiges of respect I once had for his independence are well gone.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
“this campaign has revealed McCain as a total fraud”
That’s the tack Obama needs to take (and I think will in coming days), “more in sorrow than in anger…”
July 31st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
McCain’s Brain – from Newsday:
“We just got off a conference call with Camp McCain, defending their new ad comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
“They said they thought the ad was legitimate because Obama is a big celebrity (which happens to be what John McCain was, too, when he came home from Vietnam and started to build his political career), and Britney and Paris were Number 2 and 3.
“The problem: Anyone with even a vague sense of pop culture knows that Britney and Paris are yesterday’s news. Here’s a link to Forbes’ Celebrity 100. Paris and Britney don’t even make the list any more.
“Instead, the top 10, in order: Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles, David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z, The Police, JK Rowling, Brad Pitt.
“So, they didn’t pick other big celebrities, who were either men, or black, or married.
“What they picked was two sexually available white women.”
“Ooooooh!!!” squeals McCain flack Rick Davis. “Obama plays the RACE CARD !!!!”
McCain is starting to smell like a pair of discarded Depends.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Via Digby, this is lifted from the McCain website (but has been scrubbed):
“NEW YORK (AP) – Republican Sen. John McCain said he will officially enter the presidential race … with a formal announcement in early April after a trip to Iraq.
“The Arizona senator discussed the timing of the long-expected announcement with reporters at an awards reception Wednesday evening a few hours after taping an appearance on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.”
“On the talk show, McCain told Letterman: “I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States,” then added that he would give a formal speech to that effect in early April…
“A political celebrity, McCain is considered a top contender for the nomination. “
July 31st, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Apologies if this has already been mentioned.
The Great White Hope
by billmon
Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 11:37:58 AM PDT
And
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Letter
July 31st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I agree, Reg, that the latest McCain attack ad is racially targeted. I wonder how he can look at himself in the mirror.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
And isn’t it McCain who makes a cameo appearance with Owen Wilson in “Wedding Crashers?” Sheesh…
July 31st, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Michael Balter hit it on the head when he said some time ago, “wait until the debates.” I hope it is true, as MSNBC reported the other day, that at least “90 million” Americans will watch the debates.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
I don’t have time to read all the comments David, but if you are referring to Reg’s quotes inferences that since Britney and Paris are ‘white girls’ and Obama claims to be ‘black’, that make this stupid ad racist, is pulling both of you and Obama’s campaign down with the ad.
The ad was clearly done to trivialize Obama’s wide popular support and attempt to connect it with the sort of, mostly young, people who are more pop than politically. Not that Obama supporters mainly are, but the ad trys to leave the msg they are.
Obama had the right response initial by asking “Is this all they’ve got? Is this what America deserves” But then, like all politicians will, he couldn’t stop talking. He then continued to talk and fell into the the racial association trap himself. He made it racial.
Now this stupid ad, which could have, and should have, been a loser for McCain, is now a winner because Obama made a racial association out to it. In fact, it is Obama and his team that have been the source of just about every racial connection in his Presidential campaign from the beginning, excepting the fringe nuts blogging in their cellar holes.
Obama has got to get away from this race sensitivity thing, and race sympathy if this was the planned intent. It is deadly……..and Ludicrous.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
If you think that two skanky white girls weren’t deliberately chosen for that ad – rather than authentic celebrities like Oprah Winfrey or uh…John McCain…you’re incredibly naive.
The thing that’s actually funny about that ad is that Steve Schmidt – the “brains” behind this shit – is best known for getting Guess Who elected governor of California.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:57 am
Also, if you think that “fringe blogging nuts” aren’t part of the GOP game plan, you know nothing about the current state of American politics. Given that McCain’s got nuthin’ in policy terms that appeals to an electoral majority – nor a particularly impressive political record on any issues that resonate, lives a lifestyle that’s as elite as they come, became an “anti-corruption” crusader AFTER he was caught and employs wall-to-wall lobbyists to manage his political affairs, is clearly the biggest “flip-flopper” in the race, is really no more a war hero than were losers like GHW Bush, Bob Dole…or George McGovern for that matter although he trades on it far more shamelessly, and represents a status quo on every issue (with the notable and courageous exception of off-shore drilling!) that people are sick of – as Marc said, the test of this campaign will be “is it a greater liability to be the candidate of the ruling party or to be black?
Period.
Everything else is white noise. Quite literally.”
August 1st, 2008 at 9:01 am
I’d have to say that with their retail outlet, Wal-Mart, openly opposing Obama, John McCain is now officially the favored candidate of the Chinese “communists.”
August 1st, 2008 at 9:13 am
The Race Card issue:
“You might say nothing could be more unsurprising than a panel of political pundits admitting the obvious: that Barack Obama is playing the race card when he accuses John McCain of saying the Dem candidate “doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency.”
But what makes the punditry panel’s unanimity notable is that no one would accuse them of being McCain backers, and what’s more, that they turned up on Hardball. Surely Chris Matthews, were he not on vacation, would have found one diehard to deny reality. But with Mike Barnicle guest-hosting, a consensus of truth-telling broke out.”
August 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
I actually watched that panel, and 2 things: the author of your quote is putting his own spin on what was said AND the three folks on the panel were uniformly idiots with a combined IQ barely above room temperature. If this is all ya got, ya still got nuthin. Incidentally, due to sleeplessness the past few nites I’ve been watching some cable news which I generally avoid like the plague and the level of discourse on crap like “Morning Joe” and “FOX Friends – and, yes, Hardball with Barnicle in particular makes me fear for the country. How they wallpaper shows with such relentless drivel from incredibly ill-informed bloviaters is remarkable. I’ve watched morning Joe three days in succession (yeah, I should go get some sleeping pills) and they are constitutionally incapable of discussing the issues as opposed to the rumors and horse-race banalities. And this is a show hosted by a former congressman ! Shocking and insulting to even a modest intellect. I’m used to Newshour – which isn’t liberal, but tends toward substantive discussion by panels of people who have some sort of expertise – and the difference is astonishing.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am
The ditz on CNN morning show actually interviewed a guy who was a speechwriter for Giuliani as a spokesman for independent voters.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 am
Jill Zuckerman: “The only person in this presidential race who was ever sucked into a horrible race accusation was John McCain in 2000 in South Carolina”
So McCain is the victim of racism in this campaign…
August 1st, 2008 at 9:44 am
That’s from one of the 3 Roper cites as evidence that there’s not going to be any racial overtones to anything the GOP comes up with in this campaign.
Like pulling a “Harold Ford” and showing the black guy with two skanky white girls…
August 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
I agree with the guys at MYDD. Obama should run a commercial of his remarks yesterday on McCain and the ads. Devastating.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:24 am
Here’s the bottom line for “conern trolls” about Obama going “too far when he says “they” will smear him and try to isolate his image as “the other.”
A bunch of white boys who work for John McCain thought it would be slick to drop some clips into After Effects pairing Barack Obama with two white women who are famous for being whores and druggies and create a red-meat flurry among the morons who pass themselves off as “journalists” on cable. When John McCain, a serious, thoughtful, courageous man, intones “I approved this message” over the images, he forfeits any right to object or parse when critics debate whether he’s sunk to the level of idiot, mendacious smear artist or both. You put this shit out there, Johnny Boy. Now take the pushback like a man.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Out of curiosity, does “Jim R” represent a continuation of the Rockford Files that were once a regular feature on this blog, or is this another character entirely.
As I recall, Mr. Rockford had a hard time tearing himself away from those cute little white sheets and hoods. His postings in the aftermath of Katrina being just the most OTT example of said inclination.
But this guy seems like a fairly normal conservative.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
The Great Shrinking Johnny Mac is now ahead Rasmussen Reports
August 5th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I am starting to think Obama’s success during the primary was more of an anti-Clinton vote.
Now that it is no longer “anyone but Hillary” to many, I think he is being examined more and not faring as well.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
What a difference a day made.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Polls aren’t really valuable quite yet, but what I would like to know is the ebb and flow involved in the numbers. How many McCain voters have moved to “undecided.” How many undecideds have moved to McCain or Obama? The typical process in the life cycle of an electoral campaign is that a potential voter goes from leaning toward one candidate, to undecided, and either back to the original favorite, or to the opponent. There is almost never an immediate switch from Candidate A to Candidate B.
There are a lot of undecideds for a race that is followed with such intense interest. I’m not sure how that cuts, but it’s not been good news for past candidates of color.
October 7th, 2010 at 12:17 am
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January 10th, 2011 at 8:59 am
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