McCain agrees with the 'out of touch ad.' Senator Obama need not change the 'John McCain is out of touch because he doesn't use computers or the internet' ad or copy one note or punctuation mark, nor need anyone back down from or question just how valid it is. McCain, to reiterate, agrees with the statement made in the ad.
This is an update of my Daily Kos post, "John McCain Uses A BlackBerry."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/13/103735/543/712/597294
It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when John McCain was widely viewed as a pretty earnest guy. His best-selling books are written in a tone of solemnity and idealism, with treacly titles such as Character Is Destiny. And he has long called for high-minded debate: "If we're going to lead," he said in early June, "we have to begin by reforming the tenor of political discussion in our campaigns."
More recently, however, McCain's tone has changed starkly. First came his campaign's "Obama Love" Web video, featuring clips of pundits fawning over the Democratic nominee to the mocking strains of Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Next was the infamous TV spot "Celebrity," which contemptuously juxtaposed Obama with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Another Web ad pretended to hail Obama as the Messiah, complete with footage of Moses parting the Red Sea. "Can you see the light?" sneered the narrator. Still another pitched an imaginary "Fan Club" for Obama zealots.
The Republican National Committee has joined the fun. When Obama vacationed in Hawaii, the RNC issued mock travel guides highlighting his allegedly effete taste in hotels and shaved ice. After Obama said that well-inflated tires could match energy gains from new oil drilling, the RNC delivered tire pressure gauges to the hotel rooms of journalists--with juvenile notes saying the gauges, distributed on what happened to be Obama's birthday, were "[i]n celebration of Barack Obama's special day."
Finally there is McCain's recently hired in-house blogger, former Weekly Standard staffer Michael Goldfarb, whose writings largely consist of obnoxious chortling at Obamamania. Goldfarb recently posted a photo of Obama jogging on the beach in Hawaii, congratulating him for "keeping focused on his workout" while McCain was concentrating on the Russia-Georgia crisis. After some liberal bloggers questioned whether McCain was accurately recalling an inspiring anecdote from his Vietnam captivity, Goldfarb responded by calling it "typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement."
What's interesting here is not that McCain has gone negative against Obama; it's the way he has gone negative, using that special blend of phony sincerity and cutting mockery that constitutes sarcasm. Indeed, John McCain is now running perhaps the most sarcastic presidential campaign in history. It's an approach in stark conflict with his image as a straight-shooting man of noble values and ideals. The question is whether he can really be both things at once.
Often derided as the lowest form of wit, sarcasm is nonetheless a kind of universal language. John Haiman, a professor of linguistics at Macalester College who has extensively studied the form, says he's not aware of a human culture that lacks it. And American politics has a long history of sarcasm-- from FDR's 1944 response to a false Republican charge that he had dispatched a Navy destroyer to retrieve his Scottish terrier from a remote island ("[H]is Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since") to Ronald Reagan's memorable 1984 quip about Walter Mondale ("I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience").
In recent years, sarcasm seems to have become a preferred tone of discourse for conservative pundits. First talk radio, and now blogging, has given rise to a new breed of aggrieved conservatives--and sarcasm is typically an expression of grievance--who see American life awash with absurd political correctness and media bias. Sarcasm allows these pundits to parody what they consider to be the excesses of liberalism; it also allows them to communicate sentiments that aren't quite considered acceptable in contemporary political discourse. They can, for instance, denounce Obama as "the Messiah, Lord Barack Obama, the most merciful, the man-child" (Rush Limbaugh), call him "the least dangerous Hussein I know" (Ann Coulter), or label him "Princess Obama" (the conservative blog Little Green Footballs)--which is more polite than calling him (respectively) uppity, Muslim, or gay.
This tone has crept into Republican campaign tactics in recent years. In 2000, one of the GOP's most widely aired advertisements mocked Al Gore as a political chameleon and exaggerator. "There's Al Gore reinventing himself on television again. Like I'm not gonna notice," cracked a narrator. After a soundbite of Gore's alleged claim to have invented the Internet, she chimed in with a mocking, "Yeah, and I invented the remote control, too." The tone was more pronounced against John Kerry in the 2004 campaign. One Bush ad attacked Kerry for supporting a gas tax increase while showing black-and-white footage of people riding ridiculous, old-fashioned bicycles.
Of course, sarcasm is hardly a tool of the right alone; Al Franken and Stephen Colbert aren't exactly models of sincerity. Even Hillary Clinton once sardonically mocked the parting clouds and "celestial choirs" that would supposedly greet an Obama presidency. But sarcasm simply hasn't caught on as a device for Democratic politicians--including Obama--who tend to prefer earnest idealism or righteous indignation. "This is how Republicans run races. They attempt to drive a character negative using humor," says former Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, adding, "Generally, [Republicans] have done a better job with humor than we have."
But why has this tactic seemingly reached its pinnacle in the McCain campaign? One explanation may lie with the candidate himself. Most voters wouldn't know it from McCain's public image, but, up close and personal, he's the most sarcastic guy Washington has seen since Bob Dole. Being a wise-ass got McCain into trouble as far back as the Naval Academy, according to his memoir. Even during his captivity in North Vietnam, a Cuban psychiatrist who evaluated him noted his sarcastic streak. Today, McCain calls reporters on his press plane "you little jerks." During the nadir of his primary campaign last summer, he often quipped that "it's always darkest before it gets totally black." And he has been known to respond to journalists' obvious questions with a smart-alecky "Um, duhh!"
Over the years McCain's sarcasm has had a gentle, amiable quality--more Johnny Carson than Glenn Beck. But his clear resentment towards Barack Obama--whom he sees as jejune and entitled--has sharpened this natural impulse. After a 2007 dispute with Obama over ethics reform, McCain sent his rival a letter snarling, in part: "I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again."
Sarcasm has turned out to be a neat vessel for McCain's central message: the purported absurdity of a freshman senator leading the country in a time of war. In May, McCain said of Obama: "I admire and respect Senator Obama. For a young man with very little experience, he's done very well." And, after Obama said last summer that living abroad qualified him to make foreign policy decisions, McCain snorted: "I also think I'm the most qualified to run the decathlon because I watch sports on television all the time."
The bottom line, however, may be that Republicans have increased their use of sarcasm because it seems to work. "The critics may argue about the message and the tactics of the 'Celebrity' ad," says Mark McKinnon, a former McCain media consultant who sat out this campaign rather than craft attacks against Obama, whom he admires. "But they can't [dispute] that the message got attention." Of course, there's always the possibility that McCain's nobler impulses will reassert themselves, making his campaign's sarcastic tone impossible to sustain as the race wears on. Yeah, right. As if.
Michael Crowley is a senior editor at The New Republic.
Good news today - Former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska wrote an opinion piece in the Denver Post praising Obama's plan for Iraq:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_10035189
First Read has the story on McCain and his surrogates repeating already-disproved attacks on Obama. These attacks have been discounted by such nonpartisan organizations as FactCheck.org:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/30/1234797.aspx
Finally, Jonathan Chait in The New Republic has a piece that asks why Democratic candidates for president are always seen as the flip-floppers (as we have seen, John McCain has done plenty of flip flopping of his own):
http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bb1c215b-5350-42a5-84a3-c60059716009&p=1
Looks like the polls haven't changed much since Obama's trip abroad. What can we do to help dispel the image of Obama as an "arrogant elitist who thinks he's already President", as I've seen one news item put it?
http://politicsofscrabble.org/?p=189
Conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett’s article about the Obamacon movement in The New Republic is a good and insightful read. But it was hearing him flesh the issue and the article out a little bit more on PRI’s To The Point that really nailed it for me.
In the article Bartlett acknowledges that part of the conservative support has to do with a distaste for Bush and McCain, but then goes on to note that it is Obama’s “rhetorical acumen” that has left many coservative thinkers deeply impressed. In the To the Point interview, though, Batlett draws this distinction out even more sharply saying,
[Larissa McFarqhuar] was talking about Obama’s temperament, which is something that a lot of conservatives find very likeable about Obama. He seems to be a thoughtful fellow, somebody who does not, you know, make decisions quickly, does not believe in radical change, ah, believes that we should move slowly… and it shows that he is willing to take one step at a time and not try to do everything all at once. And that is very much of a small “c,” Burkean, Russell Kirk version of conservatism.
That description brilliantly captures what I also find so appealing about Obama. Obama’s vision for America is obviously very liberal in kind, but his beliefs about how to go about realizing that vision are much more measured, careful, and thoughtful than many firebrand Democrats. Obama seems, ironically, to exude the political maturity that is required to hold that steady, stoic gaze and move with that deep calm that I mentioned in conjunction with Will George.
It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming months with the “Obamacon” movement. But Bartlett’s comments have only further solidified my support for Obama and my agreement with Juma at the Daily Cloud that Obama is the right person at the right time, though for more reasons than its just the Democrats’ kick at the can.
Negotiating Isn't AppeasementBush, McCain and other conservatives are on the wrong side of history when they dismiss Obama's foreign policy.J. Peter Scoblic, The New Republic Published: Tuesday, May 20, 2008
In a speech to the Israeli parliament Thursday, President Bush took a swipe at Barack Obama for his willingness to negotiate with evil regimes. "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is--the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." But if there is anything that has been discredited by history, it is the argument that every enemy is Hitler, that negotiations constitute appeasement, and that talking will automatically lead to a slaughter of Holocaust-like proportions. It is an argument that conservatives made throughout the Cold War, and, if the charge seemed overblown at the time, it seems positively ludicrous with the clarity of hindsight. The modern conservative movement was founded in no small part on the idea that presidents Truman and Eisenhower were "appeasing" the Soviets. The logic went something like this: Because communism was evil, the United States should seek to destroy it, not coexist with it; the bipartisan policy of containment, which sought to prevent the further spread of communism, was a moral and strategic folly because it implied long-term coexistence with Moscow. Conservative foreign policy guru James Burnham wrote entire books claiming that containment--which, after the Cold War, would be credited with defeating the Soviet Union--constituted "appeasement." ¶ ¶Containment, negotiation, nuclear stability--each of these things helped protect the United States and end the Cold War. And yet, at the time, conservatives thought each was synonymous with appeasement. The Bush administration has been little different, refusing for years to talk to North Korea or Iran about their nuclear programs because it wanted to defeat evil, not talk to it. The result was that Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon and Iran's uranium program continued unfettered. (By contrast, when the administration negotiated with Libya--an act that its chief arms controller, John Bolton, had previously derided as, yes, "appeasement"--it succeeded in eliminating Tripoli's nuclear program.) Alas, John McCain accused President Clinton of "appeasement" for engaging North Korea, instead calling for "rogue state rollback," and now he dismisses the idea of negotiations with Iran. Given conservatism's historical record, Obama's inclination to negotiate seems only sensible. When will conservatives learn that it is 2008, not 1938? J. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of The New Republic, is the author of the newly released U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security.This article originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times.--->full article
"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is--the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
But if there is anything that has been discredited by history, it is the argument that every enemy is Hitler, that negotiations constitute appeasement, and that talking will automatically lead to a slaughter of Holocaust-like proportions. It is an argument that conservatives made throughout the Cold War, and, if the charge seemed overblown at the time, it seems positively ludicrous with the clarity of hindsight.
The modern conservative movement was founded in no small part on the idea that presidents Truman and Eisenhower were "appeasing" the Soviets. The logic went something like this: Because communism was evil, the United States should seek to destroy it, not coexist with it; the bipartisan policy of containment, which sought to prevent the further spread of communism, was a moral and strategic folly because it implied long-term coexistence with Moscow. Conservative foreign policy guru James Burnham wrote entire books claiming that containment--which, after the Cold War, would be credited with defeating the Soviet Union--constituted "appeasement." ¶ ¶Containment, negotiation, nuclear stability--each of these things helped protect the United States and end the Cold War. And yet, at the time, conservatives thought each was synonymous with appeasement.
The Bush administration has been little different, refusing for years to talk to North Korea or Iran about their nuclear programs because it wanted to defeat evil, not talk to it. The result was that Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon and Iran's uranium program continued unfettered. (By contrast, when the administration negotiated with Libya--an act that its chief arms controller, John Bolton, had previously derided as, yes, "appeasement"--it succeeded in eliminating Tripoli's nuclear program.)
Alas, John McCain accused President Clinton of "appeasement" for engaging North Korea, instead calling for "rogue state rollback," and now he dismisses the idea of negotiations with Iran. Given conservatism's historical record, Obama's inclination to negotiate seems only sensible. When will conservatives learn that it is 2008, not 1938?
J. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of The New Republic, is the author of the newly released U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security.This article originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times.--->full article
