Friday, September 12, 2008

Looking for victory in deceit

By Libby Spencer

Krugman has a good column today on the slimy tactics that have become the hallmark of the McCain campaign. I think the sex-ed ad really pushed a lot of pundits over the edge. Read it all of course, it's short, but a few choice cuts here.

Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.

One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.

But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.

And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.

That's the understatement of the year. Cheney, although he may be evil incarnate, at least understands how world politics work. If by some ill fortune this pair manages to win the race, we would have two clueless "leaders" at the helm. Even more frightening, between the two of them, Palin is the smart one.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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2 Comments:

  • Via Sully:

    I just wanted to say thank you so much for being the only blogger (aside from Al Giordano) who gets it. While the rest of the blogosphere (especially the liberal bloggers) lose their heads you are an island of common sense. Patience and Steel. Yes, yes. yes.

    It also occurs to me that in a way McCain and Rove have actually simply taken over the liberal blogosphere in some way. They are being played.

    Just a few examples---yesterday Obama gave a fantastic interview at the Service Forum. Did the liberal blogs even cover this? No.

    He gave a great speech on the trail. Are his town halls even posted or excerpted? No.

    The liberal bloggers have become McCain central. They make people click on his ads, make the world spin around him instead of focusing on our candidate and what he is trying to do. There is ZERO coverage of what Obama is actually doing every day talking tough on the issues. There is ZERO coverage of Biden (who is on the trail but the blogs don't seem to care or cover him unless he is doing what they think he should be doing. Sadly AFP did cover him this week and people seemed to be too busy saying he was not doing anything to include the link with his forceful comments against McCain. The one time the blogs linked to Biden---when the MSM tried to make a big deal out his answer to a question that made Hillary look bad and he defended her. That was it).

    McCain and crew realized early this cycle that they did not have a visible internet presence. So what did they do? They took over the liberal presence, they are manipulating the leading liberal blogs , just as they manipulate the MSM. All to their own advantage. And the blogs have all fallen for this hook, line and sinker. Does no one realize this?

    They are all being played.

    And Obama, god bless him, he gets it. As does his team. while everyone whines he keeps at it every day with much much class and like a laser focused on the issues. The problem is not Obama, is that no one wants to follow his lead. Instead they are following McCain-Rove and they don't even know it.


    Pass it on.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:04 PM  

  • I was just thinking about this anon. How to get Obama's message out again. The campaign needs to send out their own YouTubes of the appearances because if the press doesn't cover it, then there won't be footage otherwise. Everybody posts youtubes. It's so easy and it's a good way to get the message out.

    They haven't sent me anything in a while.

    By Blogger Libby Spencer, at 8:38 PM  

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