Another voice of reason that has arisen in the media is Rachel Maddow. Here she joins with Olbermann to explore the hypocrisy of McCain - particularly in regards to religious figures. And in the process, this goes a long way to explain why Hagee and Parsley really should matter to people a lot more than Jeremiah Wright.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Continuing the theme
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
So Obama accuses McCain of agreeing politically with the good pastor's characterization that the U.S. was founded in part to destroy Islam.
Great strategy, Rachel; well thought out. Let me pose a series of questions we'd then hear from every fucking redneck white dude (and gal) in the country:
Why does Obama support Islam so much? Isn't that because he's a Muslim, himself? He must be; his middle name's Hussein. How do we know the guy is not going to hand America over to the terrorists?
Like I said, great strategy. What an idiot she is. That's the liberals' biggest flaw in the last few general elections: a failure to understand how ignorant most Americans are. If you give our countrymen an opportunity to demonstrate their ignorance, they'll rise to the challenge every time.
And Keating? That's a crummy strategy, too; good way to lose the Catholic vote. The guy was loved by Mother Teresa, who wrote a personal letter to Judge Lance Ito (yeah, him!) during Keating's trial. Why shouldn't she love Keating when he'd contributed 1.25 million bucks to her mission?
Nope. Smearing McCain won't work. If Obama's going to make a serious run, he's got to fend off the Republican lies about him -- and then confront McCain on the issues. No other strategy wins for him.
Wow. Bad weekend? Want to borrow some of my Lexapro?
I know I have mentioned this before, but Obama (Hillary, Edwards, Kerry, Gore) would never get those peoples' votes anyway.
Rachel Maddow an "idiot"... hmmmm... I would expect that from certain "types", but I wouldn't necessarily from you. You continue to surprise. I suppose that's a good thing...
So, I take it from your response -- defending that brilliant Rachel Maddow -- that you'd like to see Obama's camp begin a smear campaign. Attack McCain based on who supports him. Because who doesn't want six months of the ol' Ayers/Keating/Rezco/Wright/Parsley/Hagee carousel? The war in Iraq? Who cares? The economy? Does anybody give a shit? Something substantive on health care, education, the environment, alternative energy sources, abortion rights, gun control? Nah -- let's play politics as usual.
Yay, Barack. Trot out those Rovian tactics. Nice Machiavellian scruples there, Evo.
Oh, Ex.... Your contrarian streak, which you obviously run just for the fuck of it and not for any higher purpose, would be comical if it wasn't for the fact that I seriously think you could use my Lexapro!
If you've been paying close attention to my last 3 posts and the comment threads, you will know that I'm not recommending that Barack attack McCain on these typical wedge issues. I DO, however, want the MSM to do with these issues exactly the same as they have (and will) on the "liberal" candidate.
Going back at least to the Reagan years, the press is either intimidated by or infatuated with the Conservatives to the point that they gleefully hop on any negative story about a Liberal and largely ignore the same or worse from the Conservative. There's nothing devious in my hopes. I would rather deal with the following:
1. Using war as the tool of first choice rather than diplomacy.
2. Fighting a war in Iraq based on lies and McCain's continued defense of it and promises of more.
3. Voting for the use of torture, when McCain himself knows better than most how immoral it is.
4. McCain's admissions that he knows little about the economy.
5. Promises to load the Supreme Court with Conservative judges along the lines of Roberts and Alito.
6. Lack of a clear plan to make sure every American has adequate (if not excellent) health care.
7. The promises of McCain to maintain and extend tax cuts to corporations and individuals earning the highest income (in the midst of a war and economic recession).
While Barack focuses on these things, I'd be very pleased if the MSM (for once) would focus their slime machine on Hagee, Parsley, McCain's memory problems and his ties to lobbyists while claiming to be a reformer.
Ain't I a little demon?
Well, you've invented a whole new logical fallacy: You disagree with me; therefore you must need Lexapro.
Shall we call it: reductio ad lexaprodum?
That's exactly what I was saying. So, I'll drink (Lexapro) to that!
Given his messages of hope and a different kind of politics, he needs to avoid mudslinging, as far as it will be possible to do so.
I agree with Evo that the MSM has a double-standard in its coverage of liberals and conservatives. I'd like to see that change, but I doubt that it will happen in the next six months. Because Wright's statements can be cast as anti-American, he's an easy target. OTOH, it's difficult to attack Hagee, Parsley, et al, without attacking, or appearing to be attacking, religion. That's too much work for the lazy MSM.
The "he" in my previous comment was Obama, obviously.
I don't think Rachel is too far out there. I think as a defensive strategy, it might be effectively used. IOW, wait until McCain attacks Obama in, say a debate, about his connection with Wright, then instead of getting defensive, a good offense is your best defense.
And Evo's right about who will be swayed by the argument. The one's who already think Obama is a Muslim won't be voting for him anyway. I'd be more concerned with pulling back those who think Obama has bad judgment in the company he keeps, who are very concerned about other issues, but may be looking for a reason not to vote for a black man, but can't think of any.
The other thing that nobody want to deal with: The Republicans have mastered the smear tactic. They are able to win elections using it by having others do the smear. Think McCain/Bush in SC in 2000 and the Swift Boat assholes. As long as the Dems take the high road and refuse to deal with the gutter issues, they will be in elections that are theirs to lose. And they will lose them. Part of McCain's tactic is to declare that he will not use negative ads and smear the other side, while he continues to do so. I watched his wife being interviewed the other day where she swore up and down that he will not do that. Bullshit. If he doesn't, someone in his campaign or sympathetic with it will.
The reality is that most people don't go to the polls with a laundry list of substantive issues. The average American's life is too complicated and self centered to spend that much time on the process. They want the sound bytes to educate them, and it's in the sounds bytes that the last two elections were won.
Getting back to Evo's original point, I wish NBC, rather than MSNBC, would use Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. I watched MSNBC during the Indiana and SC returns, and he and Chris Matthews were the anchors for that, pulling in various other people, like Maddow and Russert, and even Tom Brokaw, when needed, and he did a good job. Better than Matthews, I thought.
SI said: Part of McCain's tactic is to declare that he will not use negative ads and smear the other side, while he continues to do so. I watched his wife being interviewed the other day where she swore up and down that he will not do that. Bullshit. If he doesn't, someone in his campaign or sympathetic with it will.
Here's the perfect example of what is to be expected for the the next 6 months. McCain claims this will be a campaign about issues and not divisive attacks. Then:
McCain: Obama is the candidate that Hamas wants to win our election.
Obama: McCain is losing his bearings.
McCain Supporters: Hypocrite! He said he was the guy of "change" who would run a different campaign. Now he's ATTACKING John McCain on age!
This is an early salvo and meant to discourage Obama from fighting back. It won't work this time.
Here's an interesting take on Hagee.
Obama got this far by not slinging mud. I'd like to see him go all the way with clean hands.
I agree with John Evo's main point: it is important for anyone who opposes McSame to hammer on issues like his association with those televangelists so that the MSM stops treating him as St. Maverick McStraightTalk. Ditto for all the lobbyists on his campaign's payroll.
T. Ex. is right that a lot of the voting public is too stupid or too apathetic to get deeply involved in the campaign and the issues. This it all that much more important to get the MSM to spend some time talking about what a phony McCain is, so that those who get just a few minutes of news a day will get a little bit better of an understanding of reality.
I don't think the Obama camapign itself needs to spend a lot of time hammering on these issues. They have plenty of other things to talk about -- better attitude about Iraq, better plans for health care and the economy, etc. But they shouldn't hesitate to mention the association issues from time to time either. As several here have noted, the people who will piss and moan about Obama doing this aren't going to vote for him in any case. What we're after here are the undecided people in the middle.
On an unrelated note, Rachel Maddow was interviewed on this week's On The Media. Quite good.
^This it all^This makes it all
Another correction: It was SpanIq's point about the voters. Sorry for the incorrect attribution.
I think it's far better to harp on the hypocrisy than the substance of McCain's preachers. The lobbyists is one issue, there's been an issue recently about him saying he wasn't going to rely on his wife's riches for his campaign yet he's been flying around on her jet and only paying her for the flights at 1/4 what it costs due to some campaign rule that HE SPONSORED, and of course the shit where he says he won't run a negative campaign then says Obama is Hamas' choice.
Also, MSM should be running down the laundry list of flip-flops McCain has made since 2000, even on torture of all things. That shit should be framed in both the traditional Republican way of being indecisive (they hate that) and the say anything to get elected way ala Clintons (and they REALLY hate that).
Obama should simply work the hypocrite angle with McCain and leave it at that without the mud slinging, much the same way he made that comment about how it took 3 tries for McCain to figure out people needed help with the mortgage crisis.
@ Philly - I assume you mean that Obama should point out the inconsistencies in McBush's positions. I wouldn't have him broach the "hypocrite" idea. Leave that to others to say.
@ Brendan - Thanks for that link to the Maddow interview. I hope T. Ex (lol) will listen to it.
Post a Comment