Wow -- even Karl Rove doesn't approve this message
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Wow -- even Karl Rove doesn't approve this message
For days, people in the media, bloggers, etc., have been trying to drive home the message that John McCain and his advisors are running a campaign that may be the sleaziest ever, surely up there with Lee Atwater's slimefest for George H.W. Bush in 1988 and with the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth. Now, here's some backup from an unlikely source, indeed:
Former Bush adviser Karl Rove suggested Sunday that John McCain had gone “one step too far” in some of his recent ads attacking Barack Obama.
Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama. “McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far,” he told Fox News, “and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the ‘100 percent truth’ test.”
It will be interesting to see if Team Obama can and will use this in an ad. Meanwhile, Tom Esdall has a good piece on the state of the race -- here's the key passage:
To a considerable extent, the media insurgency has materialized. There have been tough, highly critical stories about McCain's claims in the New York Times "McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions," the Washington Post "McCain Wraps Distortions Around One Truth," the Los Angeles Times --"New election low: distorting the fact-checking -News outlets and independent truth squads seem to agree that the McCain camp's distortions on Barack Obama have gone too far"--and many others.
The McCain campaign, however, is banking on the notion that the steady decline in trust in the media has reached the point of no return, that the press and television can no longer play the role of umpire or national arbiter of what is accurate and what is untrue, what is fair game and what is out of bounds.
More on this later (I know SSB and Swifty can't wait).
Comments (25)
"db, are you as ignorant as the blogger you paste from about the attorney-client privilege?" Listing one's clients does not violate such. Try again. Also, I think the pattern that is established here is that Obama is a cipher in every stage of his academic and professional life, up to when he became a US Senator. Yet the media yawns while running en masse up to Alaska to see if Sarah Palin has an unpaid parking ticket in her past.— db_cooper
db, are you as ignorant as the blogger you paste from about the attorney-client privilege? Seriously, I assumed you'd know better. I assume you're also ready to justify McCain's refusal to release his Naval Academy transcript - where he was in the bottom 1 percent of his class.- and over, and over, and over.— Talking point sleuth
- and over, and over, and over— Talking point sleuth
- It is amusing just how much Republican lackeys are reduced to constant whining about "the press," even as they tell us endlessly how "irrelevant" MSM are, and apparently ignorant of the fact that frightwing media has been on attack against Obama nonstop for months. I have to give the Republicans credit, however. No matter how completely illogical their position is, they ignore any impulse they might have to apply objective reasoning, and just repeat the same nonsense over, and over, and over.— Talking point sleuth
- "When the press is obsessed with trying to dig up dirt and viciously attack Sarah Palin but does not offer any remotely critical analysis of anything in Obama's past" Yep, imagine if McCain or Palin attempted any of the following: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/obama_covers_his_tracks.html He won't allow his transcript from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to be released. He "lost" his thesis on Soviet nuclear policy (see "Where in the World is Obama's Missing Thesis" which might provide insight regarding his seeming lack of knowledge about Soviet policy during the Kennedy years). He won't answer questions about his days at Harvard Law School. He "lost" his Illinois Senate records. He will only release a simple one-page letter from his doctor on his medical condition. He won't release his application to the state bar, which, as National Review's Jim Geraghty notes raises questions about whether he told the truth about parking tickets and drug use, among other issues. He won't disclose list of his clients from his law firm days or the nature of the work he did for them as a lawyer (his clients include the indicted political fixer Tony Rezko). He walks away from uncomfortable questions about Rezko at a news conference. His cultists try to shut down inquiry into his stewardship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by sliming a journalist investigating his days at the helm of that group, which blew through $100 million dollars with no discernible benefit for the schools and students that it was putatively designed to help (what does the constitutional law lecturer say to the chilling of free speech by his acolytes?). He tries to muddle his long-standing ties with Pastor Wright by producing a version of his attendance record at Trinity Church that is sharply at variance with previous versions he has given ("Obama Re-invents his Trinity Church History").— db_cooper
- So Karl Rove thinks John McCain went too far? WOW!!! So our Nation's $5 Crack Whore really does have limits...— yobill626
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Paul B writes "And yet another post without one negative or questioning or critical comment about our Lord & Savior B. Obama and/or his saintly, 100% perfect group od supporters." But Will's post was not about Obama, so why should it include a criticism. Will has criticized Obama in earlier posts (apparently Paul B does read either, as well as not think straight), among other things for his FISA cave-in. The point here is that McCain's team has been caught out on the lies it has been broadcasting and anyone who is paying attention (even Karl Rove) recognizes it. With about 50 days to go until the election, the big question is whether the public starts paying attention, too. Obama quoted Lincoln the other day--"If you keep telling all these lies about me, then I will be forced to tell the truth about you." That should be sufficient to defeat McCain, but only if people really listen, read, and think. It's especially that last part that worries me.- Shorter R. French = "I love scat."— Talking point sleuth
- Shorter battyboy = "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!"— Talking point sleuth
- Shorter 24601 = "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!"— Talking point sleuth
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- I guess Kerry didn't have other priorities. Karl Rove isn't feeling any regrets, he's just saying that there is a finite amount of smear that should be applied, and I guess he knows fully well where the line is.— SteveMG
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- And yet another post without one negative or questioning or critical comment about our Lord & Savior B. Obama and/or his saintly, 100% perfect group od supporters. Why am I not surprised? I suppose when he is elected manna will fall from heaven, everything in America will be 100% great, and you'll just have to start writing because out first ever mistake-free president will negate the need for journailsm, right, Will????— Paul B
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- Tom Edsall is absolutely correct about one thing: "...the steady decline in trust in the media has reached the point of no return, that the press and television can no longer play the role of umpire or national arbiter of what is accurate and what is untrue..." When the press is obsessed with trying to dig up dirt and viciously attack Sarah Palin but does not offer any remotely critical analysis of anything in Obama's past, which to be sure contains a lot to be critical of, then when Obama claims to be the victim of "distortions" and "sleazy" politics it's a joke. The press has been the sleazy attack wing of the Obama compaign so now the Obama campaign can't claim to be the victims, in many ways they initiated the decent into the negative by proxy. Way to go Will, you are culpable being one of the media lapdogs for Obama.— 24601
- McCain will do well to avoid Atwater /Roveism. Just look at Obama's wild promises in his health care plan. Mandatory health insurance for children opens the gate for all kinds of abuse of working poor families in this country by their friendly government paid social workers. Obama says he wants to build levees to withstand a category V hurricane in New Orleans. That promise is almost sounds as good as his health care plans. He wants to raise tax rates to where they were before George Bush. This sounds great for the wasteful tax shelter industry. Obama makes more sense with his foreign policy. But then he throws away his best adviser, Samantha Power to be offered on the alter of Hillary Clinton. Obama does not seem to realize the that Al Malike may be manipulated by some Shite partisians. Agreed, we should not stay if the Iraq people do not want us, but it is difficult to say how true that is. McCain has plenty of issues here. I hope that will take what Obama says to criticize him.— Peter of Manassas
- "...call a genuine hero 'dishonorable'" -- you mean John Kerry? "...sliming a mother and her children?" -- you mean when John McCain made the joke about the teenaged Chelsea Clinton being so ugly because her mother is Janet Reno? Maybe you hadn't heard about that one since the media protected him from making himself look bad. http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html— phdave
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