  |
 |
| |
|
|
|
 The Coming Attack on BarackPosted on Jan 9, 2008By Joe Conason “They will try to Swift-boat me,” said Barack Obama in the days before the New Hampshire primary, looking forward to the Democratic nomination that he still believes will be his, with a prediction both accurate and chilling. Whether he can go on to claim the nomination is yet to be determined. Much more predictable is the nature of the campaign that would be waged against him—and the fickleness of the national press corps if and when that ugly process eventually reaches its nadir. The effective template for attacking a Democratic nominee was developed by former Republican political boss Karl Rove during decades of trench warfare in Texas and across the country. While Rove may only whisper advice from the sidelines next fall, his approach can be easily copied by lesser talents: Seize upon the Democrat’s most attractive quality and sow doubts to undermine that appeal. With candidates such as John Kerry and Max Cleland, that meant tearing down their records as war heroes and raising questions about their patriotism. With Obama, the obvious target is his inspirational life story. The task of the opposition operatives will be to twist that saga, to unearth facts or factoids that raise concerns about the candidate’s background, and to make his cosmopolitan upbringing appear alien and even sinister—and, of course, to play the race card against him, either subtly or blatantly. These themes will begin to appear in the right-wing press, which is of course where the original Swift-boat smears showed up four years ago. Indeed, that process has begun, and is accelerating along with Obama’s drive toward the nomination. Conservatives will briefly applaud him for defeating Hillary Clinton, the immediate object of their hatred, and then turn on him as the next target. Denigrating material about the front-runner—whose popularity and skill they clearly fear—will be ready for deployment very shortly, but will not be aired until his nomination is a certainty. Meanwhile, certain themes are being tested on the Web sites of the extreme right. The basic concept is to suggest that Obama is somehow less wholesome than he appears to be, and to provoke bigoted responses. On these sites and in e-mail barrages, he is being portrayed as the son and stepson of Muslims from Africa and Asia, who as a young boy worshiped in mosques and madrasas. That is a proven falsehood surrounding a tiny grain of fact, but no matter. Repetition will make the poison. Next will come questions about the Chicago church he attends, whose eccentric pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a close friend and spiritual adviser to the Obama family. In an article published on the Web site Newsmax just days ago, Wright is depicted as a raving black nationalist and a proud associate of Louis Farrakhan. He is prone to polarizing remarks about a wide range of topics, from Jews and Israel to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The Newsmax article on the relationship between Obama and Wright displays at least one aspect of the campaign under construction on the right. Although such Web sites may seem marginal, they are not—and more powerful forces are clearly indicating their interest in these same lines of attack. Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who now runs Freedom’s Watch, a political committee funded by major Republican donors that has aired several pro-war commercials, told Newsmax he was aware of the Wright connection. “If your spiritual adviser makes outrageous statements, it’s incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements,” he said. “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual adviser pronounces.” Newsmax concluded that “if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency.” In other words, be prepared for the attack ads to be aired by Freedom’s Watch and other shadowy, well-funded organizations, just like the Horton ads put up by an earlier “independent committee” in 1988. The unscrupulous right wing will do exactly the same thing to Hillary Clinton if she wins the nomination—except that those smears will have to be reruns. Joe Conason writes for The New York Observer.
© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.
Previous item: Shadows Trump Hope Next item: How Hillary Got Her Women Back Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By KM589, January 13 at 10:38 pm # Clinton is the primer forClinton is the primer for the right==she will lead the way and already has with the help of her used car salesman attitude husband.They are warming up for the deadly onslaught they have planned. Who needs the right when we have our own centrist corrupt and power hungry mates-in-smear to accelerate the process?
By Dan Weisman, January 12 at 2:30 am # LET'S SKIP ALL THAT PAINFULLET’S SKIP ALL THAT PAINFUL AND VICIOUS SWIFT-BOATING OF OBAMA AND HILLARY AND GET BEHIND JOHN EDWARDS....THERE’S STILL TIME EVERYONE. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE POSSIBLE VICTORY!
By p silva, January 11 at 10:16 pm # Joe,In case you hadn't noticed,Joe, In case you hadn’t noticed, swiftboating has begun much closer to home. At a speech he made at Dartmouth College this week, Bill Clinton completely distorted several of Obama’s 2004 statements regarding Iraq, claiming Obama’s fairly consistent position against US involvement was a “fairy tale.”
By Bill Foote, January 11 at 8:47 pm # Those horrible right-wing attack machinesThose horrible right-wing attack machines - they’ll stop at nothing! The next thing you know, they’ll start digging into what Barack might have written in kindergarten. Yes, these Republicans are certainly without moral compass, all right.
By Margaret Currey, January 10 at 10:48 pm # If the country could be like Iowa and New HampshireIf only the american people on both sides would just get fed up with the negative of politics, just like Iowa and New Hampshire dislike negative advertisement and smear ads so should the rest of the nation. The Bush administration has shown us how being nice in the beginning but once the reins of power were in their hands then the knifes came out and boy did the average american suffer, from the middle class tax payers to the seniors who depend on their social security and especially to women who in effect receive the lowest amount of social security thanks to less pay for the same job. So the Supreme Court says you have only so many days to discover if you receive less pay than the men who do the same job, the only problem is you are threatned to get fired if you discuss your pay with a fellow employee. I know how Hiliary felt when she said she had experienced sexesm I was told the same thing when I was young, you cannot do the same as the boys, and only now in some areas of the country is there equal pay for equal work. Too many areas of the country either hold women back with low pay or worse yet there is the glass ceiling and in some areas of the country the glass ceiling is very low.
By yours truly, January 10 at 9:28 pm # "Why that and not, say,“Why that and not, say, health care for all?” “Because what chance health care for all in the midst of a blood for oil war that’s wasting over twelve billion dollars a month?” “What about the swiftboating?” “No problem.” “Why not?” “The power of our message.” “What message?” “Come one, come all, peace on earth and goodwill to all living beings, directly ahead and ours for the taking.”
By bg1, January 10 at 9:03 pm # Obama's early support from SwiftboatersWhy did Obama receive early substantial support from some of the same rightwingers who funded the Swiftboat attack ads on Kerry in 2004? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/us/politics/07obama. html?pagewanted=print Tejas and people associated with it were major donors to Mr. Obama’s political committees, having raised more than $150,000 since 2004. The company’s chairman, John J. Gorman, has held fund-raisers for the senator in Austin, Tex., and arranged for him to use a private plane for several political events in 2005. Mr. Gorman declined to comment. In May 2005, Mr. Abbruzzese, who was vice chairman of Tejas and a principal investor in Skyterra, contributed $10,000 along with his wife to Mr. Obama’s political action committee — a departure from his almost exclusive support of Republicans. Eight months earlier, for instance, he had contributed $5,000 to the Swift Boat group, and he has given $100,000 to the Republican National Committee since 2004. Last year, Mr. Abbruzzese, a major investor in several high-tech companies in New York and elsewhere, emerged as a central figure in the federal investigation of the New York State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno. The inquiry is examining Mr. Bruno’s personal business dealings, including whether he accepted money from Mr. Abbruzzese in return for Senate approval of grants for one of Mr. Abbruzzese’s companies. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Mr. Abbruzzese did not return phone calls seeking comment.
By Greg P., January 10 at 6:54 pm # "Next will come questions about“Next will come questions about the Chicago church he attends, whose eccentric pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a close friend and spiritual adviser to the Obama family. In an article published on the Web site Newsmax just days ago, Wright is depicted as a raving black nationalist and a proud associate of Louis Farrakhan. He is prone to polarizing remarks about a wide range of topics, from Jews and Israel to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.” Rev. Wright has said some radical things over the years. If the Reverend has indeed been a major source of inspiration for Senator Obama, I would find that to be very troubling. I’m not sure if I understand your argument. Are you condoning what Reverend Wright has said? - For example: “White America got their wake-up call after 9-11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns. Or are you implying that Obama’s connection with the Reverend is not indicative of his own ideolgies? Or perhaps you do not believe that Barack Obama is really that closely connected with Rev. Wright? He has been, and still is a member of Wright’s church and has sought out spiritual and political advice from him. Personally, I find his connection with the Reverend quite troubling, and I’m not sure why you don’t feel the same way.
By mackTN, January 10 at 7:45 pm # Re: "Next will come questions aboutGreg P I have kept up with Barack Obama from the first day a volunteer knocked on my door in Evanston, Il, and handed me a brochure announcing his candidacy for the senate. I’ve never witnessed any failure of integrity from him, I’ve never heard that he mistreated anyone. But perhaps that is the problem. If you can’t come up with something utterly atrocious about him, then you attack his associates and make him responsible for the acts of others. You don’t know Barack Obama or anything about his spiritual life; you probably don’t have any black friends. But you are an expert on the lives of black Americans, especially the ones you see as unsavory. And I know you’ll make sure that everyone understands just how scary and evil Barack Obama and his friends are over the coming months. Heckuva job, GregP.
By rage, January 10 at 3:13 pm # "At the end of the“At the end of the day Obama is no better than Clinton--at all! Foreign policy, corporate lobbyists, etc. They’re political twins.” --Jacks, January 10 at 1:58 pm LOL! You got that right. But, that’s what the military industrial corporatocracy want, and they’re running the show in this alleged democratic republic. The corporatocracy needs a Presidential ringer in the Oval Office who is attractively managable enough for their media propagandists to tart up well enough to gain and capture our undivided attention. The preferred candidate the corporatocracy is pushing needs no substance, no plans, certainly no ideals, absolutley no experience, and no conscience. Notice how the corporatocracy pushed us stealthy past viable Presidential material like Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, and even Mike Gravel to cram Hillary, Obama, and Edwards down our throats. Though Edwards is not the best choice from the original field, he’s become the best choice by process of elimination because he and two social precedence-setting squirrels remain, a strident estrogen deprived weeper demanding credit for her more than 35-years of hands-free political voyeurism, and a goodlooking charismatic former weedhead who hopes his charm will continue to serve him well. Already the corporatocracy has decided Edwards is too calculated a business risk with his high ideals about corprate reform and ending corporate personhood. Besides, the drama of a black man and a white woman going head to head in a dead heat has been a ratings winner huger than Who Shot JR on Dallas. That our votes really don’t amount to a hill of beans has been the only inevitable truth to arise out of this fiasco. Voting is just a front to make the gullible think we actually have a say in the selection of who represents us in an alleged representative government. Global corporations, however, have been kind enough to take care of all that for us. Kucinich - Richardson 2008! For mere defiance!
By rage, January 10 at 12:38 pm # Please! Y'all are a dayPlease! Y’all are a day late and a dollar short, thanks to Faux News. They’ve been singing Barak Hussein Osama’s praise since he bested the GOP plant Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate race. The idiots reading our evening “news” for the major networks have pretty near exhausted all their most viably dubious lies, slants, slander, liable, and enuendo. What’s left? Porn? Human sacrifice to satan? Love children from that 3-way with Brit and K-Fed?
By Sharon Ash, January 10 at 10:57 am # He's already been 'swift boated'...John Kerry endorsed Obama today and that, in many parts of the country, is like having a big hole shot into the side of your boat. Because, as the good ‘ole boys (i.e. rednecks) and girls in my part of the world are prone to say, “John Kerry Sucks.” So maybe he has been john boated before he had a chance to get swift boated.
By dsmith, January 14 at 3:03 pm # Re: Joe Conason: [i]"Wright is depictedMuslim fanatics killed over 3000 Americans on 9-11. Compare that with Zionist fanatics who killed several thousand during their airstrikes on Lebanon and not a hint of condemnation. Israel has several hundred thousand Palestinians living like dogs behind Krakow like fences. Jews won’t allow fresh water, food, medical supplies to be transported to Palestinians in hopes they will either perish or move elsewhere. Good ol’ Christian George W. is responsible for between 150,000 to 600,000 Iraqi deaths, depending who you listen to. He has invaded and now controls two formerly soverign countries. There are over 2,000,000 Iraqi refugees living in tents in Jordan and Syria....and that’s just for starters! Bush and Israel continue to call for economic sanctions on Iran even after the NEI report said Iran was not constructing a nuclear weapon. Madeline Albright said of the two hundred thousand Iraqi children who died because of sanctions levied against Iraq during the Clinton years, ‘ I think it was worth it.” What if those were Jewish children? Speilberg would have made a movie about it. Please. before anyone berates the Muslims...take a deep breath and look at what Christians and Jews have done and plan to do.
By HK, January 10 at 9:05 am # As long as Americans wantAs long as Americans want their candidates to be larger than life fairy tale heroes and heroines; and as long as their fairy tale qualities are the primary things about the candidates the media and the people rally around - the Swift Boating will continue in full force. Why was John Kerry’s Vietnam war record so much as an afterthought? Nothing but the ideas he presented should have mattered in the least. Ditto Max Cleland. And nothing about Obama but his ideas should matter now. Who cares how inspirational his life is or isn’t? Who cares if he snorted coke or didn’t? Who cares if his pastor is a firebrand? I want to know what his view of our system of government is, and I want to know if he’s able and willing to work to save it. How stupid and shallow that anything else should even be reported.
By bbf, January 10 at 2:36 pm # Re: As long as Americans want“Who cares how inspirational his life is or isn’t? Who cares if he snorted coke or didn’t?” I do. I care if he snorted coke. We’ve had enough problems w/an ex-Alcoholic in the White House for 8 years. I prefer not to replace him with an ex-drug user.
By Patricia Sweeney, January 10 at 7:53 am # One of the best qualitiesOne of the best qualities of the Obama campaign is its ability to transcend divisive argument, transcend partisanship, and appeal to something almost naive in the American consciousness. One hopes that he will be able to strengthen this transcendence to the point where swift boating will not be able to make any real dent. And yes, on my less cynical days, I’m a fan.
By mike, January 10 at 7:11 am # Its already going onIts already going on I have had 2 people I know who aren’t complete ding dongs tell me You cant support Obama he’s muslim. I then tried to point out the lies they had heard ( mostly from rush) Nope their minds where made up and they are going to change.
By Joe, January 10 at 12:40 am # I've noted this before, butI’ve noted this before, but the only way Democrats (which I ain’t) will deter such unethical attacks is to have an arsenal of their own but, facts in this case based on truth. Everyone of us has rough, disgusting edges, including the Republicans. In the 2004 race, if Kerry’s people had researched (and made known) a full-bore fact-based attack on the behavioral quirks of their top 2 Repub opponents, the swiftboating junk would not have been released. I’m especially disgusted with an otherwise fine candidate, John Kerry, for not taking the known preemptive actions in his campaigh, esp after the what had happened to the country in the 2000 election. I actually had e-mailed his daughter at the Boston hq very early in the campaign, well before the swiftboating, and told her that her dad had to prepare to come down like a ton of bricks on the Republicans if needed; letting them know in advance they would be squashed publicly if they pulled any dirty tactics. Time to get to work, staffers. Pull together on this. Another failure on your parts will likely condemn the world to eight more years of misery for the world’s poor and unprotected. Last thought is that the General staff at the Pentagon has far more power and influence than it has been prone to admit. When a thing is damaging to the country and the wider world, make yourself heard. Add Your Comment |
|
Huckabee’s Major Misfire
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|Comment Policy
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
COMMENT TOOLS:
Hide comments
Show comments
Comment on this article