The corporate media are desperately trying to show how "fair and balanced" they are by arguing that Obama's campaign ads are as unfair as McCain's, most recently referring to the Obama ad linking Rush Limbaugh to McCain. While it's true that Limbaugh did detest the "old" McCain who ran against George Bush in 2000, it's clear that he has no problems with the "new" McCain who has flip-flopped on nearly every issue on which he's shown moderation in the past to a hard-right position popular with Rush's fans -- most notably, the immigration issue. McCain said during the primaries that now he wouldn't even vote for his own moderate immigration bill, cosponsored with Ted Kennedy. And especially since McCain has selected someone from the lunatic fringe of the radical right as his running mate, Limbaugh is in McCain's corner now, as this transcript shows:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_082908/content/01125107.guest.html
But there's a more direct and more disturbing connection between McCain and another right wing hate monger, one who's not just a talk radio bloviator but also a convicted felon and a self-admitted admirer of Adolph Hitler: G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate infamy. Only last November, McCain appeared on Liddy's radio show and fawned over Liddy and praised his "adherence to the principles and philosophy that keep our nation great." This was reported by the conservative Chicago Tribune columnist Steven Chapman:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6238795.column
Other than Chapman and liberal web sites like the Huffington Post, the media have totally ignored this story. Obama would be doing a public service by running an ad pointing out the McCain/Liddy connection. No media pretense of "fairness and balance" could be used to justify criticism of the factual basis of such an ad. This is far more than just guilt by association. This is a direct link, in McCain's own words, based on principles and philosophy shared with an extremist of the worst sort. Of all the signs that bode ill for the prospect of a McCain administration, this has to top the list.
Let's face it, nice guys finish last, and Obama, like Democratic presidential candidates before him, is being way too nice. The Republicans are now putting out ads that lie about how Palin was opposed to the "Bridge to Nowhere." An Obama spokesman even said it was a lie. But where are the TV ads pointing that fact out? Most voters don't hear what campaign staffers say in conference calls with the media. The ads wouldn't (and shouldn't) have to use the word "lie" when pointing out that Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.
McCain and his "former" economic adviser Phil Gramm have given Obama a rich supply of video clips that could be used in contrast ads. Among the most notable examples are the video of "foreign policy expert" McCain being corrected by Lieberman after McCain falsely claimed that Shia Iran was training Sunni Al Qaeda, which even foreign policy novices know are bitter enemies of Iran.
McCain also was captured on video saying his knowledge of economics was less than it should be. And of course, there's Gramm's infamous "nation of whiners" gaffe.
So where are the Obama ads showing these videos? McCain has gotten a convention "bounce" that threatens to be permanent unless Obama responds soon. Obama doesn't need to base his negative ads on distortions and lies the way McCain does; the videos of McCain himself should do the job.
By the way: The Huffington Post is reporting Palin has already made her first major gaffe of the campaign by displaying her ignorance of how Fannie May and Freddie Mac work:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/08/palin-makes-her-first-gaf_n_124792.html
That's certainly worth an Obama ad or two.
I lost a lot of sleep this week glued to my TV watching the powerful speeches and video presentations at the Democratic Convention, which culminated in Barack Obama's terrific acceptance speech. I also was moved by some of the ordinary people who spoke at the convention such as Lilly Ledbetter, the woman whose rights to equal pay for equal work were denied by the Bush Supreme Court and who inspired the legislation to get around the court's obstacles with legislation that McCain opposed but didn't even bother to vote on. The speech by a former union member who lost his job and then was diagnosed with diabetes that his insurance won't cover was also a powerful speaker. These ordinary folks didn't have great public speaking skills; it was what they said, not how they said it that was compelling
In my last post, I was whining about Obama not taking advantage of the ugly reality of the mindset of the Republican leadership exposed by multimillionaire Phil Gramm's accusation that America is a "nation of whiners," so I was especially pleased to hear Barack refer to Gramm's revealing comment specifically in his acceptance speech. I hope he keeps it up!
The pundits of the corporate media don't seem at all pleased with Barack's speech. But Obama's surge to an 8-point lead over McCain in the latest two Gallup tracking polls, scarcely mentioned by the pundits, indicates that these blatant attempts to manipulate public opinion have failed, at least for now, in the face of the combined efforts of Clinton and Obama supporters.
McCain's people and their surrogates in the media had been salivating at the prospect of the Democratic Convention dissolving into a food fight between the Clinton and Obama camps. But instead, both President Clinton and Senator Clinton gave great speeches in support of Barack and they both lit into McCain quite effectively in my opinion. The Clintons should be congratulated, too, and I hope they'll be out on the campaign trail for Barack.
I believe that it was the success of this convention that pushed the McCain people to select Gov. Palin of Alaska as McCain's running mate. It appeared to be an act of desperation, not "boldness," as the pundits are now gushing, that drove the McCain people to choose her, a woman that McCain scarcely even knew. I'm certain that if the Democratic Convention had been the disaster they had hoped for, McCain's people would have chosen a safer but also more experienced person for the Republican vice presidential nominee.
In their panic, it appears that McCain's people may have made a big mistake selecting Palin without the proper vetting. I'm sure most people are familiar with her nearly non-existent credentials for high federal office, her "Troopergate" problem, and her anti-choice and anti-science beliefs (she's a global warming denier and a creationist). Not only that, but ThinkProgress.org is reporting that her repeated claims that she opposed Alaska Senator Ted Stevens "Bridge to Nowhere" boondoggle are false: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/30/palin-wanted-nowhere-bridges/
I still see this campaign as a very difficult uphill battle for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. As Al Gore said, the reason this election is close is that powerful special interests oppose Obama's bid for the presidency. A victory is far from assured, but I'm still going to continue contributing to the Obama/Biden campaign. To quote Frank Rich, one of the few pundits I've read who are sympathetic to Obama, Obama's unofficial slogan should now be: "Change Before It's Too Late." I think that's what every speaker at the Democratic Convention was saying.
I posted the comments below in response to a Huffington Post article about how Andrea Mitchell stood up to a McCain surrogate who was peddling the slander that Obama wouldn't visit the wounded soldiers at the Landstuhl military hospital because he couldn't bring reporters with him. It kind of goes with the theme of my last post: that Obama needs more ads that counter the garbage McCain is putting out. The sad thing is that these sleazy ads work, at least if they're not countered.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/andrea-mitchell-leads-med_n_115501.html
I agree with everyone who's said that Obama should be pushing back hard on this. Not that he should be running dirty ads on McCain's character defects, even the ones that are true like his adultery. I do think, however, he should answer point for point this despicable slur that he wouldn't visit wounded soldiers unless the media was there to photograph the visit. The ad should be run in EVERY market in which McCain's attack ad appeared.
The same goes for the snake oil McCain is peddling about off-shore drilling. The public is actually falling for this nonsense. Sheesh! Even T. Boone Pickens, the guy who financed the Swift Boat ads has put out an ad saying that we can't "drill our way out of the energy crisis." An Obama ad could even mention Picken's comments.
As for Andrea Mitchell, I'm surprised that she stuck it to the McCain surrogate. I always thought she was in the tank for McCain. I guess she reached her limit, too. I wish the rest of the media would do likewise. But since most of the media won't, it's up to the Obama campaign to defend their candidate.
I've made my contributions to Obama's campaign, and they should be enough to pay for a couple milliseconds of TV advertising in one of the cheaper TV markets. Therefore, as a vested interest, I now feel I've got the right to say what I think is missing in the Obama ads right now:
First, there needs to be at least one educational ad about off-shore drilling. McCain not only reaped oil money contributions from his flip-flop on drilling, but his claim that consumers will benefit quickly if we "drill here, drill now" is making some headway with the voters. I think the Democrats have made a good case that more off-shore drilling wouldn't have any effect on gas prices for at least 5 years, and the impact wouldn't be very great even then. Plus, the oil companies already have leases to drill in places that they are not yet drilling in. Their desire for more leases seems more like a desire to control as much property as they can rather than to actually drill any time soon. The Democrats' arguments seem to be sound ones because McCain doesn't dispute them, he and most of the media just ignore them.
Second, I think Obama needs more of what are euphemistically called "contrast" ads (negative ads) about McCain. He's made so many flip-flops that Jack Cafferty on CNN said McCain might break a hip if he keeps it up. Concerning off-shore drilling, Jon Stewart ran a video of McCain in May saying he was opposed to off-shore drilling and then a news clip from only a month later where he said he now favored off-shore drilling. As most Obama supporters (but not the general public) know, McCain has flip-flopped on tax cuts for the wealthy, on torture, on immigration (he said he'd now vote against his own bill). And rather than "moving toward the center" as most candidates do, McCain has been flip-flopping away the center and toward the radical right. I don't think the public has been made sufficiently aware of this.
His confusion about Shiite and Sunni and his mistakes about the Sunni Awakening are also worth an ad or two. The "surge" may have helped reduce violence in Baghdad, but there were few additional troops sent to Al Anbar Province where the Awakening movement started, so there was no cause-and-effect relation whatsoever between the surge and the success of the Awakening. The case should be made that America can't afford another president with such little interest in foreign policy issues, even Iraq, the issue that's supposed to be his specialty. I think most successful military leaders think you must know your enemy before you get into a war, but McCain seems to be of the Bush school of military strategy that teaches knowledge of the enemy is unnecessary if you have sufficient firepower to obliterate the enemy.
Well, that's my advice to the Obama campaign. And I'd like to see my two milliseconds divided equally between the educational ads and the contrast ads.
The Houston Chronicle several times a week, the Houston Chronicle publishes opinion columns attacking Barack and his wife Michelle. While I wasn't surprised to see yet another one this Sunday, I was surprised by its author: Marianne Means who has been a liberal columnist for years. What was worse than its nasty tone was the fact that she used a deceitfully edited quotation of something Michelle said that made her sound like a Marxist encouraging people to go on the public dole:
"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do. Don't go into corporate America."
See: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5849487.html
But the full quote from News Hounds from http://tinyurl.com/33s5kc is:
“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do... Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.”
The full quote is hardly controversial, at least to anyone not on the radical right fringe; it’s the sort of call to service that John Kennedy made when he started the Peace Corps.
Means also didn't bother to note the fact that Michelle Obama was in fact treated coldly by her white classmates when she was at Harvard and that her roommate's mother tried to get her daughter's room changed when she found out Michelle was black. This might explain why Michelle doesn't put on the gushy displays of patriotism favored by Cindy McCain, a white woman who inherited a fortune from her family's beer distributor business. But it's obvious to any objective observer that she loves her country just as much as Cindy, and, I suspect, with a greater depth of understanding of what it means to be an American for the bad as well as the good.
I emailed Ms. Means suggesting she should apologize for the deceptively edited quote she used. If anyone else wants to send her a (polite) comment on her column, her email address is:
means@hearstdc.com
Perhaps Obama needs to say something about this on his anti-smear web site: The media are trying to whip up an "agism" charge against Obama. It's true that in the blogosphere some Obama supporters say insulting things about McCain's age, just as Republicans say insulting things about Obama. But the corporate media seems to believe that any criticism of McCain's gaffes, blunders, and flip-flops is really a code-word attack on McCain's age. The worst example of this phony agism assault is how the media have seized on Obama's observation that McCain was "losing his bearings." This is a common expression for someone who has violated his or her own moral or ethical principles. That is exactly what Obama was saying as was clear from the context. Obama was responding to a negative attack from McCain of the sort McCain had promised not to engage in.
An expression that does suggest agism is "losing his marble," which is a charge that could justifiably be leveled at some of the over-paid media pundits who are years younger than John McCain. Chris Matthews spent an entire half-hour last week on discussing this "agism" nonsense, and now the Adam Nagourney of the NY Times has taken up the same chant:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/weekinreview/15nagourney.html?ref=weekinreview
So now it appears that every time Obama or one of his campaign staff criticizes a McCain statement for being counter-factual or hypocritical. This seems to be the latest of the many false narratives that the corporate media is trying to convert into indisputable fact by repetition, to Obama's detriment and to McCain's advantage.
I just read on Politico that ABC wants to set up a town hall meeting with Obama and McCain. I would strongly advise against any more debates moderated by ABC after their disgraceful performance in the last Clinton-Obama debate. The suggestion has been made the the League of Women Voters should conduct all debates. I agree. Either them or some other independent organization. I think all the major corporate media news organizations should be avoided. They've all got too much stock in seeing McCain win. He's been very helpful to them in the past and has strong ties to telecommunications lobbyists:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-23-mccainlobbyists_N.htm
Well, that's it for now. I don't know if anyone will read this, but I really hope that Obama's campaign is getting this cautionary advice from other people besides myself.
Lan
