Just a quick update on the “respectful campaign” being run by St. John McCain. This all happened in the last week:
1.) Released a ridiculous ad claiming Obama was responsible for high gas prices:
2.) Stated on several occasions that Obama would commit treason in order to win an election:
3.) Released another commercial blatantly lying about Obama, accusing him of ignoring the troops. This was so blatant that even Jake Tapper couldn’t take it, and wrote “New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops…”
And that was just the big stuff, and in the last week when I was NOT paying attention to politics. Who knows what else I have missed? At any rate, you might begin to wonder why the media still pretends that McCain is different, and not just another peddler of Rovian filth. Well, there is a reason McCain still gets treated as if he is actually running a “respectful” campaign. The media is in the bag for him:
Most of the reporting from the evening news was opinion-free, but when on-air media personalities strayed, 28% of the statements about Obama were positive, while 72% was negative. In contrast, 43% of the statements about McCain were positive, while 57% was negative.
In other words, network reporting was tilted against both major-party candidates, but Obama faced a far more hostile environment than the barbecue-offering, donut-receiving McCain.
Conservatives have been emphasizing that Obama has been getting far more coverage than McCain. As it turns out, that’s true. But if most of the coverage of Obama is negative, the McCain campaign should probably quit its whining and start sending producers thank you notes and gift baskets.
Liberal media, and all that.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Meanwhile, Obama continues to pull away in polling
4tehlulz
This from the Gallup page made me chuckle:
Punchy
The Steiner just excoriates McCane’s campy. And stunningly, supports Al Franken in Minny.
The networks stand to lose a TON of advertising scratch if this doesn’t go down as a tight race. Therefore they’ll pay for a few extra Fluffers if it keeps Mc’Old on the court with the ball only down 3.
greynoldsct00
Check this out, a food friend of mine wore this to our town Democratic Picnic yesterday!
Look carefully at all the details
Napoleon
Tomorrow Bush will be less then a mile from my house (and almost certainly will have to drive by it, there are only 2 ways to get to it and going by my house is the easiest) for a fund raising event for congressional candidates. Should I stand in my front yard and give him the finger as he passes?
Here is the report on the event from the local paper:
By the way when he was on his 2005 tour of the country pimping privatizing social security he flew right over my house at tree top level while I was working in my back yard. It happened so quick and I was so surprised I forgot to give him the bird.
greynoldsct00
Damn this link business…
TCG
I guess you missed RedState last week too. Apparently, while Bush is Batman, McCain is Luke Skywalker.
You see McCain is surrounded on all side battling a villianous foe, just like Skywalker on the Death Star. And who is the foe that McCain Skywalker is fighting…..THE MEDIA.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
The only thing going down faster on McCain is his favorability polling.
zoe from pittsburgh
Now that Obama’s back in the US there really needs to be some serious pushback on all of this crap– from Obama himself as well as his surrogates.
McCain is making it rather simple for them– he’s lying, he’s flip-flopping and he doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of what is going on in the economy OR in Iraq. Not to mention that he’s going against his own campaign promise of running a “respectable campaign.”
McCain is a BIG phony, plain and simple. Apparently the MSM won’t report on any of his numerous mistakes so we have to do their work for them.
Punchy
/squints….sees nothing…squints harder….still nada
greynoldsct00
Aw, fuck it. Go to Cafe Press and look up t-shirt# 282837970. It’s worth the visit.
Notorious P.A.T.
But–but–but most reporters donate to Democrats! ! !
If you want to judge a restaurant you don’t taste the food, you taste the cook! ! !
greynoldsct00
Absolutely! Do it for all of us! Free speech and all, or free hand gesture… wev
El Cid
And Kristol is reduced to arguing for McCain as a check on a ruthless, power-hungry radical Democratic Congress. Boogety boogety!!!
Mr Furious
This is why, way back when, I stated that McCain was the only Republican we’d need to worry about.
Then his campaign imploded and he almost got run out of the primary, and I felt like a fool for making that prediction, but once he made his comeback it’s all fallen back into place for him.
I think they are in the tank for the GOP anyway, (see Gore/Bush) but the kid gloves for McCain is fucking ridiculous.
What I said in December 2006:
Of course in the same post, I was totally wrong about the surge screwing McCain, so I’m not THAT smart…
Napoleon
For anyone interested in seeing where a populist party like the Republicans has a fund raiser the house described in my above post can be found using google’s satellite images at map coordinate 41.540667,-81.418696
By the way my Obama yardsign from the primaries goes up in my front yard tonight for a one day appearance before election season rolls around.
Mr Furious
Quote of the Day:
James Wimberly in response to this “on the other hand…” story from the “liberal” media.
Notorious P.A.T.
I would.
harlana pepper
Whoa! Hang on, now. Let’s be fair. As for #2, McCain reiterated the ‘traitor’ charge to one of the Sunday gasbags, but said he did ‘not question Obama’s patriotism.’
Notorious P.A.T.
It was nice to see that numbnuts Stewart echoing Republican talking points about Obama last week. He even made the “speech in Germany in front of a big crowd=Hitler” comparison. Ha. Ha. Ha.
TR
And the media continues to move the goalposts? “Why is Obama only leading by nine? Shouldn’t it be a bigger margin?”
This will continue through November, and then the post-election analysis will all be “Why did Obama only win 49 states? Why can’t he connect with the hard-working white Americans in the great state of Utah? Is this going to be a fatal flaw in his re-election campaign in 2012? Let’s go to our roundtable of Pat Buchanan, Bob Novak and Karl Rove for their insights.”
Dork
$10 says you’ll be arrested for it. No, I’m not joking. I’d raise to $50 if Cheney’s in the limo with him.
Dennis - SGMM
For another insight on just how crazy McCain is, he reiterated his desire to throw Russia out of the G-8 on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday.
When told that the other G-8 nations oppose Russia’s ouster, McCain answered:
He sure sounds like G.W. Bush in that one, doesn’t he? McCain overlooks the fact that the G-8 is a collaborative body so the only way Russia will be out is if it decides to leave. He also overlooks the fact that we need Russia’s cooperation in dealing with loose nukes. Then there’s the little fact that Russia is now the world’s second largest supplier of hydrocarbons.
When pressed further, McCain explained that he wanted to change Russia’s behavior and went off on a ramble that included the mention of Reagan’s “Tear down this wall,” speech. That East Germany and the then Soviet Union were in a state of economic collapse as opposed to Russia being currently afloat with oil wealth apparently didn’t affect McCain’s desire to evoke St. Ronnie.
Just what we need; a president stuck in the Cold War.
dslak
I’m not seeing how actively pushing for Russia to be removed from the G8 is best for America.
McCain here seems to be confusing a substantive position (it would be better for the US if Russia weren’t in the G8) with a procedural one (we should openly state that we believe it would be better if Russia weren’t in the G8). Sometimes it’s better to keep your cards close to your chest, but since McCain’s not a poker man, that’s probably an unfamiliar virtue to him.
croatoan
How about mooning?
gbear
Bush’s caravan had to drive past my house to get from the MSP airport to downtown St. Paul. I stood up on a railroad trestle next to the road with my Wellstone lawn sign and a sign about Norm Coleman having bled St. Paul dry when he was mayor. This was not long after Wellstone’s plane had gone down. It was as close as I could come to giving him the finger and it was much more visible from the road.
Apparently Obama put in a pretty good appearance on Late Edition. He shot down McCain’s talking points with humor and grace.
Brachiator
I partly disagree here. Obama did a good job of countering McCain’s most ridiculous challenges on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” but I think that Obama would do well to defy the conventional wisdom here.
I was watching the “Race to the White House” pundit show, largely because people here and elsewhere have praised Rachel Maddow. I was underwhelmed. The various panelists were doing the typical pundit dance in which they stupidly praised themselves for the intricate creativity of their predictions of what might happen months from now, giddily pumped up their self-importance by breathlessly mentioning all the campaign strategists and political insiders who contacted them during the week, and then fell back on the predictable “best advice” for Obama — that he should furiously launch attack ads against McCain.
This kind of crap would of course give them navel-gazing fodder for future shows. They can simplistically reduce the contest to a political horse race and then chuckle over who has the best attack ad.
But when voters are polled, they often claim that they don’t know enough about Obama. But there is not a lot to indicate that they are accepting McCain’s view of Obama.
So, Obama should build on the best results of his world tour, the positive reactions of the troops, and the positive (and sometimes effusive) positive reviews of foreign leaders that Obama demonstrated a much superior grasp of issues than either Bush or McCain, and then move on to the economy, which is increasingly the biggest issue for voters.
Town hall meetings, either with or without McCain would also be helpful.
And where are the Clinton’s and their supposed big promise of active campaign support?
The Democrats have to goad the media into doing their job. If they focus too much on attacking McCain directly, they make it easy for some voters to dismiss the attacks as equally false or over-stated (since they are coming from McCain’s opponents), and they keep the lie in the front of voters, giving it a longer shelf life.
Incertus
I don’t know which night you’re talking about, but he made it pretty clear in the one I saw just how fucking stupid the Hitler comparison was.
John Casey
Jeez, John, it’s only Monday, and you’ve already got the Post Title of the Week award locked up.
Unfair to other bloggers, I say.
Napoleon
Since I can see the police station from my front yard maybe the mooning thing isn’t such a great idea, and if they arrest me they only will need to drag me 1/2 a block.
The Moar You Know
Oh, hooray. Just what the world needs, another Cold War.
How far behind is McGenius again? Whatever it is, it speaks very poorly of our country that his support is any larger than single digits.
Z
Maybe just an ‘impeach Bush’ sign?
Mr Furious
Uh, yeah. Clear to me, too. He went right from the German crowd/Hitler joke to likening “links to Hitler” in Germany to “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” here. But with one degree…”Look! Obama’s in a Volkswagen! A car linked to Hitler!“
The Grand Panjandrum
The Jed Report has a great catch on the McCain video criticzing Obama for not visiting wounded troops.
His update is even better:
Oy. McCainia dips deep into the stupid fucking claims bucket on a regular basis. They still don’t understand that the blogosphere is all over this bullshit in a matter of minutes and a few hours later the debunking is widespread. They just don’t get it.
It really is generational. The candidate and his campaign do not have a firm grasp on technology and are so far behind the power curve they are being eaten alive.
Shygetz
Nah…if Cheney is there, he’ll shoot you in the face, and then make you apologize for getting your face in the way of his shotgun.
harlana pepper
Dennis – Shorter McCain: Giving the finger to the rest of the world is in America’s best interest. And remember to ‘duck and cover’ kids.
jake
Fixed.
After the teh Media spent 7+ years acting as head testicle gargler for Commander Codpiece, I find it hard to worry about press coverage. The neo-cons are convinced the press has a liberul bias. The liberals are convinced the press sucks. I sometimes wonder if the only people watching or reading are bloggers looking for easy targets.
Zifnab
This is pretty classic front-runner strategy. There’s no point in attacking your opponent – hell, there’s no point in even mentioning your opponent – when you have a comfortable lead and the wind is at your back.
Obama should be out selling the Democratic agenda and pushing positives of himself and his fellow Senators. People are talking about a 6-7 Senator gain and upwards of another 30 House seats falling into our hands in November. But all the Congressmen in the world won’t be enough to get good legislation passed if elected representatives are too scared of the ’94-style health insurance push-back to act.
The last thing Obama needs when he steps into the White House is a massive corporate-sponsored political pushback against all his progressive policies. So he has to take the opportunity provided by his Presidential run to sell not just himself, but his entire policy suite. He needs to ride in with the nation convinced that his solutions will fix their problems. And he needs to put fear in the hearts of Republican Politicians who think they can filibuster or obstruct without serious risk of losing their seats.
Napoleon
I actually think that is exactly what he intends to do. If you look at the states he is active in, even long shot states (for him), they tend to correspond to where the best senetorial/congressonal pick up opportunities are. Part and parcel of that same effort I think is the announcement in the last week that he is putting his transition team in place. He isn’t going to fuck around for 6 months like Clinton did and let the Republican’s regroup but hit the ground running.
carpeicthus
Best headline ever.
jake
OT, but I was afraid of this when the story of the shooting at the Tenn. U.U. first broke.
Stupid fuck.
ThymeZone
Clipped from GOS this morning. Just dunk it in your coffee, and savor.
Meanwhile, in terms of the flailing media (“Is Obama’s likeability actually hurting his chances?”), remember that these are the people who told is with serious faces only weeks ago that Obama was losing the Hispanic voters.
They are in a sort of panic, having no idea what is really going on, and nothing really to say about anything, just making shit up and throwing it at the wall.
Not unlike what the McCain campaign is doing.
harlana pepper
jake: No doubt, the liberal movement and not Republican policies were responsible for his inability to find a job. Wow. Just wow.
harlana pepper
Liberals are the ones who take in the sick, the mentally ill, and care for them. If we had more liberal policies, this guy might have actually received the help he needed before cracking and murdering innocent people.
rachel
Two birds, then, or one bird and one “Impeach!” sign.
~Blue Girl
Best. Title. Ever.
jake
But don’t say anything about being “bitter” and clinging to a gun!
Unfortunately this is the sort of crap you get when the economy tanks and the chicken shits of the affected society need someone to blame.
Someone who isn’t in power, has been scapegoated by authority figures and is unlikely to fight back, of course.
rachel
And don’t forget to have a friend videoing what goes on, just in case the SS guys get rambunctious.
WHackwhacker
Would the gift baskets to producers include barbecue ribs? They would be very tasty after several days in transit!
liberal
Zifnab wrote,
You’re assuming that Obama is pretty liberal.
My take on it, having looked at his voting record, is that he’s about the same as Hillary, ideologically (though I think he’s marginally better on Middle East stuff).
So I think that anyone who’s looking for goals that will generate disapproval from the corporate class is going to be disappointed.
dslak
Regarding McCain, Obama, and the media, I notice that Yahoo has really been pushing this story today: Details missing from Obama’s Social Security plan.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with analysis of a candidate’s proposed policies. That’s something really missing from this campaign. But Charles Babington, the reporter, doesn’t offer any analysis by himself or third-party sources. He just plays ‘he-said, she-said’ with some Republicans and people in the Obama campaign, then slaps a negative headline on the story.
Whoa, I thought, this guy doesn’t appear to be a very good report. So I did a quick surch on Mr. Babington, and lo and behold. Liberal media, indeed.
BombIranForChrist
Hey, if they did all this tallying, can’t they also list who is most in the bag for which candidate?
I am guessing Andrea Greenspan is, uh, 98% pro-McCain.
Joshua Norton
If Meh-Cain is upset by the U.S. media focus on Obama, he should probably start wailing on the foreign press, too. From an op-ed in the U.K.’s Guardian:
It’s obvious to everyone that if he gets elected his Presidency will be a train wreck on par with the Bush mess.
dslak
Well, there was this bit in the report:
So Hume is 79% anti-Obama and 61% anti-McCain. Does that make him 18% or 39% pr-McCain?
PK
I am waiting for the McCain ad which says Obama will bite the head off a chicken on live TV in order to get elected.
Dennis - SGMM
Everything is Excellent News for John McCain!
KRK
Lately I’ve only caught occasional clips of The Daily Show online when someone recommends something, but yeah, I have really noticed how Stewart uses the kid gloves on McCain even when ostensibly doing a segment mocking him. (Small example, they recently showed one of the Fox News clips using younger-stronger McCain footage from 2000 — and didn’t even mention it.) I had been thinking it was lingering resentment against Obama from the primary, but I guess an unfathomable love for McCain might be the simpler explanation. Isn’t McCain the politician who has appeared most often on TDS, like 14 times or something?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This is key. If the GOP thinks they can get away with shutting down the government and preventing anything from passing until the 2010 midterms, they will do exactly that. Look at the record breaking number of cloture failures in the current Senate – under an Obama administration it will be far worse, because right now the only reason for the GOP to kill bills in the Senate is to keep them out of the news and spare W the embarrassment of using his veto pen. Next year, the stakes are far higher.
Obama and all of the other Democratic leadership need to lay the groundwork now for the idea that if the GOP tries to lie down in front of the bus next year, then they can expect to become roadkill in 2010, or we will have nothing but heat death of the universe levels of gridlock for the next 2 years.
TenguPhule
Asshole Conservative Kills at Liberal Church
McCain’s base at work.
chopper
front runners do have the luxury of trying to ignore the guy behind him. but really, right now obama is basking in the aftereffects of his recent trip – his poll numbers are climbing, because it seems like this trip cemented in a lot of voters that the dude really looks like presidential material. so i guess ignoring the idiotic, desperate accusations and stupid ads coming out of the mccain camp kinda fits in with that.
what i’m wondering is, will the fact that mccain is being ignored by the public in favor of the guy who acts like an adult (seriously, for an old-as-hell guy mccain sure seems to act like a petulant child most of the time) cause mccain to really blow his top and say something really, really stupid? i mean, even dumber or more out there than usual?
physics geek
I see. Apparently Joanie didn’t give a fig about Chachie, either. I do have a question, though: does it take you to your happy place when you reject reality and insert your own version?
chopper
whatever stereotype you want to believe, i guess. yeah, the media hates mccain. that’s why cbs edited their big interview with him to cut out the stuff that made him look stupid.
“oh noes, he totally made himself look like a fool! we need to ruin his candidacy the best way we know how – by burying the footage!”
dslak
Don’t you hate it when you fail to notice that your talking points have already been rebutted further up in the thread, in comments which you failed to read? I know I do.
physics geek
If by rebutting, you mean repeatedly stating your preposterous assertions as fact, why then yes, I did read those statements. Bring sure to bring photos of the unicorns in your fantasy land when you get back.
Sherry Peyton
I blog on these issues every week, and several times a week. I keep everyone who reads me alerted to the lies and nonsense this old man is using in his desperate bid to win. He won’t of course. He has no ethics or morals.
jake
Joanie and Chachie?
Awww. That’s cute.
Dennis - SGMM
Did you actually read the post at the top of this thread all the way through or did you start just racking up McCain Points? I take it your handle means that you’re into “physics” as defined by cathartics and laxatives because you’re certainly full of shit.
dslak
All I have to say is how dare reality not conform to physics geek’s preconceptions!
NewUnansweredQuestions
Yes, that is the standard method of rebutting here, but more to the point …. your blog really sucks. I’m surprised that you have the chutzpah to link it.
Really, it’s as bad as it gets.
Tax Analyst
From listening to local SoCal ‘All News Station”, KNX-1070am last night I learned that all that positive attention Obama got in Europe was bad for his chances…’cause ‘Mericans are gonna resent that. Then they had some “analyst” basically repeat some of McCain’s more ludicrous claims about Obama…the “snubbing” of wounded soldiers, etc., without talking about what a phony bunch of shit those McCain claims were. Then another “analyst” who talked about how strong McCain was in “Foreign Affairs” and how Obama had a lot of ground to make up there…and allowed as how his trip was “some help in that regard, but he still has a long way to go”…I was only out for a short drive to the store and hadn’t brought any CD’s to listen to, an omission that left me cursing as I shut my radio off.
TenguPhule
I think we have a winner for Irony of the Day(tm).
dslak
Fixed.
Tsulagi
Excellent post title. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, it’s gonna get deep.
Thing is while the attacks are textbook Rovian, they lack the quality. It’s like plastic imitation Velvetta cheese Rove on a cracker without the Jesus dip.
Maybe it’s because McCain is talking too much. Rove knew he had a retard and one who couldn’t talk so he hit hard with the ads then trained the parrot to say three or four brief things over and over and over never deviating. Answer to every question was tax cuts. Constipated? Pray to Jesus and GWB for a tax cut to fix that.
McCain’s big problem is that his campaign’s single selling point is that you should pick him to be CIC. But his ads and even more so his pubic speaking smack of desperation. He’s been bringing his green-screen-speech game, or the cranky forgetful grandpa. Desperation and cranky senior moments not what you want to see in a CIC.
Plus, all this at a time when a lot of voters are wondering if they will have a job and/or home next January to drive to on $5-$6 gas. Babysitting Iraq and paying for it may not be a top priority.
binzinerator
If someone took a shotgun to a Baptist chuch and killed some people because of hatred for support of conservative polices, you’d damn well better believe we’d hear this all over the news, espeically whooped up by Fox and Limbaugh and Malkin every asshole rightwinger who is always crying about liberals being traitors and worthy of a noose.
Fuck these conservatives.
We’re seeing it now — the eliminationist rhetoric that went from the fringe right hate groups to the mainstream right has now fueled the actual deed. The “only good liberal is a dead one”. The “hang a few of the liberals for an example”. The liberals-are-a-traitors meme. They’ve created this theme and repeated it now so often for so many years at so many mainstream and high profile venues that it has become internalized in the far right nuts. And when these nuts see their world go to shit — as a fucking result of their own fucking dumbass “I’ve got mine, fuck you” vision of the country — they blame progressives, they go hunting people they assume must be liberal.
Liberals. Anyone who doesn’t agree with these conservatives is a liberal.
Sure! That’s who to blame for no fucking jobs, no fucking future! Liberals! Castrate the Liberals! Hang the Liberals! Shoot the liberals!
God I hate these stupid fucking conservatives. Fucking dirtbags. Fucking whiners. Fucking hypocrites. Fucking dumbasses. They deserve every fucking misery they’re feeling because they created it, no they fucking demanded it.
And now it comes home and bites them in their stupid ignorant asses, they want to shoot the people who told them their policies were one big bundle of callous, selfish stupid in the first place.
Fucking conservatives. They can’t handle reality. They preach all this personal responsibility bullshit, and can’t handle it when it comes time to take their own responsibility. So they go and shoot some people. Because it’s their fault, ya know.
When things are all going their way, we’re traitors who should be hung or shot. And when we’re right and the chickens come home to roost and things fall apart, we get shot down in our own churches.
Because no matter what, it’s always going to be our fault. No matter what, they are always wanting us dead.
I am afraid we’re going to discover the second civil war has already started. It shouldn’t surprise us. The call to start killing us has been there, in our faces, in print, on the best-seller list, on TV, on the radio, on the net and even in the keynotes of the gooper convention. It’s all been there for years now, we just didn’t realize that was the start of the new civil war.
Chuck Butcher
Tecnorati has this to say about Physics Geek, Authority 27, Rank 277K, Balloon Juice is A 1043 & R 2493, I’ve been running A 39 & R 177K over the last couple months.
I’m a reader of some single digit Technorati Authority blogs that are pretty good, just ignored, Physics Geek seems to be ignored for pretty good reasons.
Punchy
Stewart’s polite to all his guests. He regularly smokes McCane at all other times.
To suggest he’s “soft” on McCane is simply ludicrous.
Mr Furious
Yeah that liberal-hating spree-killing psychopath? One of the thing supposedly pushing him over the edge? The reduction of his—wait for it—food stamps.
Even their lunatics are hypocrites.
Punchy
No, this is not The Onion:
Read that again. Please respond if you understand it, then explain it to me.
Mr Furious
Agreed, Punchy. Only in rare instances has Stewart treated a guest aggressively (Doug Feith, maybe? One of those asshats, anyway…) but a regular guest like McCain will be handled gently when he’s in the chair, but I’d say he being pretty relentlessly mocked in the coverage these days…
I WAS disappointed to see the 2000 footage pass by unremarked upon. But it could have been unnoticed at the time of the taping, which was prior to Olbermann.
TR
I just saw that myself. Unfuckingbelievable.
Grand Moff Texan
This is how you reach them? They must be the stupidest fucking voters on earth.
.
Delia
If someone had done this to a Baptist church in hatred of conservative policies, he would now be an official terrorist, and there would be calls to to take all registered Democrats into “protective” custody.
Tax Analyst
Oh, yeah…on that KNX broadcast they also had some snippets from a Katie Couric interview with Obama. Question: “What is your weakest area?” WTF? I wonder if she asked Johnny-Boy McCain that question? I’m kinda doubting it. Why not, “When did you stop beating your wife?” Or better still, “When did you stop being a defeatist-traitor?” Jeezus, I admire the man’s control, because I would have wanted to slap that silly bitch for tossing out that kind of loaded, leading question at me. D’ya think his answer just MIGHT have ended up in a negative ad from Johnny-Boy’s camp?
Fuck Katie Couric…and KNX-1070 News Radio, for that matter.
Grumpy Code Monkey
“Slime of the Ancient Mariner”? I thought we weren’t supposed to pick on
McThuselah’sOldie McOldster’sMcCain’s age?