Most mature political parties would have become slightly introverted after the recent succession of electoral defeats, recalibrated their message, analyzed, and then attempted to mainstream their message and attract voters to their position. The Democrats, while many things, are not very mature. Instead, as we all know, they decided to lurch leftward, electing Pelosi as their Minority Leader, and fielding a Presidential primary that had a voice for even the looniest of the loony. Not realizing that it was the message that was bad, the Democrats decided to just jack up the volume. Shrill and obnoxious, we all know, sounds so much better at ear-bleeding volume.
At any rate, the absurd reactions to the Bush campaign ads last week were entirely predictable. Even the ‘moderate elements’ within the Democratic party found nothing wrong with the ads, although the Calpundit is now proving why he is indeed a political hack animal. Compare and contrast:
Kevin Drum, on March 4thbefore reading the party talking points:
You know, I’ve been trying to work up some outrage over the use of 9/11 imagery in the new Bush ads, but it’s just not happening. I really don’t see anything wrong with it.
Kevin Drum today:
Bush immediately begins running ads exploiting 9/11 imagery to demonstrate what a firm leader he is.
Charming. I guess you are up to speed with the specious talking points now, ehh, Kevin? At any rate, the outrage, as noted by and others, was manufactured, and the Democrats knew it. Not only did they know it, but they were thrilled that they had manipulated the press so effectively. Check out Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein crowing about the deception. States Ezra:
The most shocking thing about the ads was how tasteful they actually were. The Bush Campaign merely dipped their toe in the water of 9/11 invocations. The media, of course, is covering how their toe looked. The real story here is that the toe immediately got bit by a shark.
The coordinated response to these ads has been absolutely spectacular. Head on over to Google News and check out the headlines. The number of people who’ll see Bush Campaign Defends Use of 9/11 in TV Ads far outnumbers those who’ll see the ad, and the direct accusation of politicizing 9/11 is far more effective than the subtle suggestion of leadership on that day. The Kerry Campaign has been employing a scorched earth strategy; whatever Bush does, they attack so hard and so fast and so mercilessly that the Bush Campaign is left in the rubble of their original intentions. Now people are on watch for Bush politicizing 9/11, Kerry just framed the media! It’s a level of efficacy I’ve never seen from Democrats; it’s so powerful that Bush has brought Karen Hughes back onboard to help out.
Matt, understanding the depths his party has sunk to, seems a little rebuffed, but oh well. In the end he comes to his senses:
There’s always something a bit discomfiting to me when I see a Democrat pull a really sharp campaign move — think of Max Baucus and the barber school ad, Mary Landrieux and the “secret plan” to destroy American sugar, Chuck Schumer and the putzhead controvery. It’s like . . . I thought we were the good guys here.
As the blogosphere knew already, this was nothing more than a masterful manipulation of the lazy news media. Today in the NY Post, it turns out that the staged outrage all came from a small group of political charlatans who are, as I stated before, whoring their loved one’s memories for short term political gain.
Leading the rhetorical charge has been an outfit called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows – which, the group admits, has only a few dozen members and represents relatives of no more than 1 percent of the 9/11 victims.
More to the point, the group was formed specifically to oppose the entire War on Terror: Not just the campaign against Saddam Hussein, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Indeed, the group’s leaders traveled to Afghanistan, drawing a detestable moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. bombing of the Taliban and opposing “violent responses to terrorism.”
Then, before the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a Peaceful Tomorrows delegation went to Baghdad to “demonstrate solidarity” with Iraqis – a move that Saddam’s deputy, Tariq Aziz, termed at the time “a very important international development.”
They also demanded that Congress set up a $20 million fund to compensate Afghan “victims” of the U.S. military.
And back in January 2003, the group said had it had gotten a “verbal commitment” to the fund proposal from the junior senator from Massachusetts – John F. Kerry.
Little surprise there – because Peaceful Tomorrows’ parent group, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, has received millions from foundations controlled by Kerry’s heiress wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.
In the 2000 election, the press, after being lied to for eight years by Clinton, and after Gore’s campaign started pedlling the same bullshit, became more suspicious of Gore and actually began to fact-check his news releases before simply cutting and pasting them into the daily copy. This is why questions abut Gore’s honesty began to stir- not because the media is a tool of the right wing conspiracy. And now the Kerry campaign, which already has a major problem regarding the waffling of John Kerry, has burned the major media players- exposing them as lazy fools. This, I predict, was the last free pass the Kerry campaign will get- and it is 8 months before the election.
Too smart by a half. And they have no one to blame but themselves.
*** Update ***
Some think I have misrepresented Kevin’s posts.
He states there is nothing to it initially. Then he states that Bush ‘exploited’ 9/11 in his commercials. You decide if I was unfair.
*** Update #2 ***
I am an idiot. Kevin wasjust listing rhetoric from both sides. I amused to him getting the vaoprs over the ppearance of any scandal, and generally when he is moderate about an issue, his commenters beat him into an about face. My apologies- I was wrong on this one.
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