The Rove team plays its next card:
It is a silly, silly piece, as was the Bill Kristol post last night that Sullivan described as transparent, and James Joyner describes the above commercial and Kristol’s thinking as truly bizarre:
By Kristol’s logic, Mike Huckabee should be McCain’s running mate. At the very least, he should be be seriously interviewed and Mitt Romney should get the nod, under the theory that Huckabee only surpassed him because he stayed in the race long after it was over. Does anyone think McCain is seriously thinking about Huckabee?
The entire effort is ridiculous, but then again, the targets of this commercial are deeply misguided and truly unserious people. These are, remember, the folks who have spent the last 3 months convincing themselves that Obama’s birth certificate is fake and that John McCain truly speaks to women’s issues. Those who will fall for this nonsense will do so willingly, as they are a loose coalition of fringe nutjobs, wild-eyed Hillary cultists, racists, and GOP operatives. The rest of the country- not so much.
Laura W
We now have a KANGAROO TICKET.
The back legs are stronger than the front.
Is there no end to George Will’s cleverness?
Maroon.
iluvsummr
Well of course McCain will right the wrong by picking Hillary as his VP running mate. I mean that’s what the video implies isn’t it? Scuse me while I go barf…
Benjamin
Not only it is bizarre but it is contradictory too.
Didn’t they release an ad yesterday calling Biden “Obama’s biggest critic” ? But now today they say he didn’t pick Hillary because she criticized him ?
Am I the only one who picks up on the nonsense here ?
smiley
Well, that’s two ads now that have used primary opponents’ words against Obama. Time to return the favor.
iluvsummr
Who else feels that McCain is going to pick a woman as his VP-candidate? Probably not Carly Fiorina or Sarah Palin. If he picked someone like Christine Todd Whitman (pro-choice woman), he could peel quite a few female votes from the pro-Hillary group. Fortunately, a moderate choice like that would suppress the evangelical vote. Can’t wait to see who he picks.
garage mahal
If one is glued to cultist websites, does that then make you a cultist?
Ben
Pretty darn risky. McCain’s depending on Hillary being petulant during the convention. If she’s not, and if she comes out swinging against McCain, he’ll look pretty foolish.
Also, you just know they had a different ad ready to go if Hillary was tapped.
smiley
Over at the Politico there’s talk it could be Colin Powell. I wonder if he would accept if offered.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
I’m beginning to get that sense that he wants to, that he wants a choice that screams “maverick”.
But he’s boxed in. Either he picks an outsider that’s likely pro-choice, or it’s an insider that doesn’t excite his base overmuch, but doesn’t drive Independents to him, either. And he’s got less than a week to make the call, if the Friday announcement rumors are correct.
Davis X. Machina
Powell wouldn’t — he got played, he knows it, and he’s said as much — in the run-up to Iraq. He’s not going to be put in the same box for Iran. And if he’s thinking about it, his wife Alma will scotch that idea. She torpedoed a run for her husband in ’96, and has been skeptical, at best, ever since.
Benjamin
Frankly I used to be worried about that but the only women mentioned are Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina and MEg Whitman. The first one has been governor for 18 months and the last two have never held public office.
How in HELL could he attack Obama on experience if he picked any of these three.
If two-term Sebelius was still deemed to be a gimmick, how in hell would these three be anything but ?
He won’t do it. It would make sense and it used to worry me but he wont do it.
jake
‘Nother day, ‘nother great blog tag.
All six of them. You know what? If the fReichtards really think there are legions of Democratic voters who will AVENGE THE SLAP IN THE FACE delivered to Hillary and everyone who supports women’s rights by voting for McC^nttrollop, let them. If they want to spend money and time courting jackalopes, let them.
Added bonus fun: It will piss off the Hillary Haterz of America.
jake
Not me, but if anyone wants to have a group prayer/goat sacrifice for Krazy Kat Harris, I’m in.
Jake
That’s the first thing I thought when I heard about this. I guess they figured it could also be used to play on the PUMA nutjobs, so it “worked” in two ways.
Still, I think Team McCain is on its heels a bit with the housing gaffe and this looks a bit like a chicken with its head cut off.
Dennis - SGMM
OT but tasty:
Buchanan accuses ‘McCain’s neocon warmonger’ of treason
Downpuppy
Because they’re Republicans. Pay attention, Benjamin.
iluvsummr
Maureen Dowd on McMaverick’s use of the POW card:
DougJ
Holy shit! Did you see Halperin today on Stuffy. He says the McCain housing flap is “the worst moment of the campaign for Obama” because it “opens the door” to discussion of Bill Ayers. Spends a solid minute talking about Ayers.
Wow.
wasabi gasp
The idea that Hillary Clinton’s name could possibly show up in the Wikipedia entry of the overturning of Roe vs Wade has got to put a shiver in her.
GSD
So now the PUMA’s are upset that the arrogant, self-centered ‘woman hating sociopath’they spent the last three months villifying hadn’t vetted their candidate.
Jeesh.
-GSD
Xenos
I saw Halperin’s shtick. I did not recognize him – I thought it was a third grade GOP hack. Everybody else in the room was suppressing giggles or looking appalled. Even Stephanopoulos was flabbergasted.
LanceThruster
If I didn’t love my goat so much, I’d put up with the blood clean-up to try to pull that off. Who’s got a brick for Krazy Kat (I miss the good old days of courtship)?
Trophy Wife, meet Trophy VP (Hey! How about Vicki Iseman? Show knows the ropes [nudge-nudge. wink-wink, Say no more!])
Dennis - SGMM
The “look what you made us do” card is another one that the McCain campaign is overplaying. The notion that McCain would high-mindedly lay off of any topic after the “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign,” remark is absolutely ludicrous. If McCain thought that he could get away with accusing Obama of practicing voodoo he would do so repeatedly.
JD Rhoades
I’m sure McCain (Who Was A POW) only has the best interests of Senator Clinton and the Democratic Party at heart.
I mean, Jesus, how fucking stupid do these people think we are?
maxbaer (not the original)
Put her on your ticket then, McConcernTroll. You still have an opening.
NR
You know, the PUMAs are a lot like stalkers. When Hillary says that she supports Obama, is going to do whatever she can to help him win in November, and wants her supporters to vote for him, they hear something completely different. They hear that she doesn’t actually support Obama and she’s just saying what she’s saying because she has to. It’s pretty creepy.
Hopefully, Hillary will really take it to McCain in her speech.
Cap and Gown
I am surprised at how wrong everyone here, including John, is reading this ad. It is not directed towards PUMAs. It has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton supporters. It is about calling Barack Obama a nancy-boy, period. It is a prototypical Republican attack that tries to emasculate and feminize the Democrat.
JD Rhoades
You’re not the only one, no.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVUPqoowf8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NrQ36Djf2E
Since we know McCain (Who Used to Be a POW) is an honorable man, we can only conclude he’s suffering from some kind of severe short term memory deficit. He’s like that guy in the movie Memento.
Sad, really. I mean, he used to be a POW and everything.
__________________
AkaDad
That headline is sexist.
rikyrah
How that stooge Halperin went from Housegate to Ayers, it boggles the mind. Rezko is the best tangent for that, and Rezko doesn’t work because Rezko’s a non-story.
I said from the beginning that Halperin was a stooge, plain and simple.
Like I’ve said before…BRING IT ON.
KEATING FIVE, ANYONE?
cleek
that McCain ad is stupid. but it continues in the same vein as all his recent ads, where the attack he makes could just as easily be turned around on McCain (celebrity? for years and years, McCain was a permanent fixture on the talk shows; elitist? doesn’t know how many homes he has or what kind of car he drives; out of touch? please; Obama budget plan breaks the bank? bitch, please, run both sets of numbers) – all of that could be easily turned around on McCain, if Obama wanted to run stupid ads. McCain just runs petty, stupid, little ads against Obama on topics where they’re both vulnerable but where it’d seem petty for Obama to make that attack first.
leo
They must really be desperate. I mean, all you have to do is think for a moment about the reception Hillary got from these same people while Bill was in office and you’ll know no one’s going to suddenly rush into their arms. The whole thing is a joke.
colleeniem
They are desperate. I was watching Fox news today, and they spent endless time building up the TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PROTESTERS that were going to SPILL BLOOD and make the 68 convention look like a tea party (not the Boston kind).
And then they cut to a reporter, who was at the place where violent protesters were going to be and kept talking about the crazy security measures that were planned to keep things from going to hell.
There were news crews and people standing around waiting. For the angry protesters. They’re just biding their time I guess.
I laughed out loud, FOX looked so stupid. Not that this is breaking news.
LiberalTarian
The upside of the GOP screech reflex is that when normal people see it, they turn the channel.
Everything the GOP puts out there makes me hate them more. When they are aware of what they are talking about they lie. When they are not lying, they don’t understand the issue. You vote Republican you get venal or you get stupid. So, whatever you do, don’t vote Republican.
Ninerdave
Because McCain will have the “experience” thus the VP slot will become a “internship”. I think McCain desperately wants to pick a woman to make his ticket “historical” too. I just don’t see that there is any one out there on the GOP side that would fit the bill.
I also don’t think he’d risk pissing of his base in the hopes of picking up a few independents and Hillary dead-enders.
Svensker
That may be the dumbest campaign ad I’ve ever seen. Enjoyable, tho. Hope they keep throwing their money down that rat hole.
zuzu's petals
Well, aside from the “Recreate ’68″ers …
I have a feeling we’ll see some serious ratf***ing going on. Just as the gov’t planted provocateurs at the ’68 convention, and just as GOP staffers staged a fake “protest” at the Florida counting office in 2000…it wouldn’t surprise me if Rove et al placed some hired thugs on the streets or fake PUMAs on the floor.
Ratf***ing being his specialty and all.
Lydia Kalish
and he spent big bucks for this… doh!
Laura W
Ouch!
Chris Matthews to McCain 4:02EST:
Why don’t you pick her for your VP? She’s available.
Get on it McCain, or quit running the ads.
(probably not verbatim but damn close.)
A very painful break-up indeed.
zuzu's petals
So Hillary’s folks have at least responded:
Now if she’ll just make an ad …
Just Some Fuckhead
Nah, we’ll need independents to beat McCain. No need for HRC to get out there and scare ’em to McCain. She’s doing just fine keeping her mouth shut save for the occasional reminder to her nuttier acolytes that she’s still supporting the Democratic candidate.
Just Some Fuckhead
McCain’s candidacy is historical. I’m pretty sure he’s the first major party canddiate for President to actually betray his country. (As opposed to wingnuts imagining Clinton and Kerry doing such.)
jake
Hilarious. I’m sure they’ll find a handful of people there to protest everything from THE SLAP IN THE FACE to Obama’s plan to sell us all to Islamic Martians. FAUX snooze will claim the 10 maniacs were really 10,000 by cutting between interviews with the loons and shots of the crowd. “See? Look! They’re all riled up. And, uh, waving Obama signs as camouflage!”
Maybe someone will set a trashcan on fire if they’re lucky. If not they’ll just connect any crime in the area with the ANGRY PROTESTERS.
Delia
How can you bring up the Keating Five? Don’t you know that John McCain was a POW? And was converted to Christianity when his guard drew a cross in the dirt with his toe?
The Other Steve
What I don’t understand is for all the talk of crazed angry protestors at the DNC… and how Hillary is splitting things off.
Nobody seems to be mentioning that Ron Paul is having a 3 day counter-convention here in Minnesota. And they had such a large response that they’re renting out the Target Center.
It was originally going to be at Williams Arena, which is the University’s building and holds like 15k people. Target Center holds 20k, and is as big as the XCel center where the RNC is holding their convention.
http://rally.campaignforliberty.com/
We’ll see if they talk about this next week. Somehow I doubt it.
The Other Steve
I think Keating Five is being saved for October.
Ed Drone
And these “ANGRY PROTESTERS” negate the Faux Noise “point” anyway — if these people are protesting Barack Obama, then Barack Obama is not the “extreme left” candidate they claim he is, is he?
I mean, if people take to the street because Obama is too sane and middle-of-the-road for them, then he can’t be a big, bad, scary nigger commie (with a side of secret extremo-Christian-muslim extremist manchurian candidate), and their claiming he is is disproved by the very “evidence” they present (if you call planting yourself in the path of a march and getting told to fuck off “evidence” of anything but your own stupidity).
Ed
Laura W
So CNN spent the first ten minutes of their 8pm segment blathering about The Multitudinous Slaps in the Faces going on there angering Hillary Nation. The one I keep hearing today that makes me unable to ask this in my inside voice is:
WHY THE FUCK DOES OBAMA HAVE TO CONSULT WITH HILLARY, OR BILL, ABOUT ANYTHING, LET ALONE THEIR THOUGHTS ON HIS VP PICK?
I don’t know why I am shocked that the talking potato heads are regurgitating this like mama birds to their feeble young, but I am. That line of non-thinking and un-reasoning is an insult to everyone on this planet. Except for Billary. It’s an absurd thing to even think and feel, let alone speak about in public. I picked the wrong day to put the screw cap back on the Ketel One Citroen.
Delia
Meanwhile, over at NoIQ, SusanUnPC has a rare moment of semi-lucidity over this ad:
You have to remember that this is a woman who has been nattering on for months about what a decent and honorable man John McCain is, especially in comparison to the scumbag Barack.
Well, maybe not lucidity. Maybe she’s just stunned that her worldview has been violated. Anybody could have told her that’s what happens when you trust a gooper, but would she listen? Naawww . . . .
cleek
wouldn’t work. her disciples would parse their little butts off, trying to find the code words which would tell them that she’s being forced to say it by the DNC. you see, Hillary is a paragon of strength, virtue and character, but she can still be forced to say nice things about Obama.
jake
Would that it were simple. Or Faux Snooze weren’t so simple. Which ever.
If the the angry protester(s) do show up the Squawking Point will be “U C? Obama’s term will be marked by general lawlessness and mayhem!”
Expect artless comparisons to the civil rights movement, ’cause you know, when uppity Negroes forget their place, windows get smashed.
Notorious P.A.T.
That is the fucking stupidest commercial I’ve ever seen.
Notorious P.A.T.
This is excellent news for McCain! ! !
jbarntt
Ah Rove, the Grandmaster without whose will the Sun will not rise in the East.
It amazes me that liberals continue to put forward candidates, given that Rove exists. It is pointless, and you do understand that Obama is just a Rovian plot to ensure a third term for Chen – uh, I mean Bush.
On the otherhand a Rovian victory will provide juice for Rush Limbaugh and John Cole, so it’s all for the best.
OriGuy
You haven’t seen this one from the Texas GOP, then.
PeterJ
Has anyone seen Chelsey lately? Obama probably has her locked up in his Chicago dungeon and will only release her until after the convention and only if Hillary does what he tells her to.
Rome Again
Idiots should keep their mouths closed.
Conservatively Liberal
If that was the case, poor jbarntt would never have anything to say.
jbarntt is free fRight-wing entertainment, and not to be taken seriously. When you see a post by jbarntt, imagine a court jester or village idiot before reading it.
It actually makes sense that way.
Rome Again
CL, I never took him seriously, seriously!