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).
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"...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- 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
- 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
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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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- 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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- Shorter 24601 = "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!"— Talking point sleuth
- Shorter battyboy = "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!"— Talking point sleuth
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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