I don’t even know what to make of this latest RNC attempt at fear-mongering, in which they compare closing Guantanamo with nuclear armageddon in a remake of the Cold War era Daisy commercial:
It just doesn’t even make any sense. Part of the persuasive aspect of fear appeals is that there has to be some basis in reality, or some real perceived fear that the viewer will understand. I’m not going to waste your time with the Witte’s extended parallel processes model or any of the recent fear appeal literature, because you don’t need to know any of that stuff to realize that this commercial just makes no sense. How is closing Guantanamo comparable to a MIRV exploding on your daughter’s head? Is Obama going to airdrop the Gitmo prisoners on unsuspecting schoolchildren? What on earth does this ad mean?
This is what a fear appeal would look like if David Lynch on acid was designing your ad campaign.
BTW- I loved this paragraph from Glenn the other day mocking the notion that we can’t house these guys in prison:
We’ve been doing that for two decades. What are all the bad and scary things that have happened as a result? The answer is: “nothing.” Take note, Chris Cillizza and friends: while it’s true that “not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created,” it’s also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison “has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape.” Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn’t succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.
Just the perfect amount of geek and dismissive ridicule.
*** Update ***
This interview with SecDef Gates is pitch perfect:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Bad Horse's Filly
I thought the most measured response came from Gates this morning with Matt Lauer. Used the words fear-mongering and brought up the fact no one has ever escaped from SuperMax prisons.
Martin
But the wingnuts do understand. They’re convinced that every muslim has a suitcase nuke stuffed up their rectum set to detonate the moment they touch US soil. That’s a fact told to them by our greatest intelligence agency – Glenn Beck.
Mike S
Flailing at the wind. Nothing they throw at him sticks to Obama. The closest they got was Wright but it became a typical GOP over-reach so that fell away too.
I’m sure many of them are still waiting for the whitey tape.
Tony J
Because they’ve got nothing sensible to say that their Base wouldn’t crucify them for. The Limburgh Window only opens to the right, and that’s all they see.
SATSQ
Linus
They obviously think they are onto something. And between the 90-6 vote against Obama’s Gitmo plan and the NY Times running Pentagon propaganda on page A1, why shouldn’t they? But it still makes no sense.
TenguPhule
The Craig party was standing up and wagging their tails for the first part and then wetting themselves on the second.
Singularity
They are so desperate to get even for every Democratic victory since FDR. Johnson trounced Goldwater in 1964, and the “Daisy” ad was a contributing factor, so now they think they are clever by turning that back against the Democrats.
They’re like John Heard in the movie “Big”, repeating “I don’t get it” after Tom Hanks presents a great idea for a toy, while everyone else just stares at him in annoyance.
JenJen
Yes, Wingnuts. REALLY. Really, really, really. As in really, that John McCain feller you all voted for really wanted to close Guantanamo too. Really. And he wanted to really bring the captives (who he refused to call “terrorists” and rightly so) to Leavenworth, in Kansas. Really. I swear. REALLY.
What in the holy living…? I mean, really.
omen
isn’t this more of a reflection of GOP’s fear of investigations?
this is what liz cheney said, when asked why her father is speaking out. she said it was a reaction against dems raising the spector of prosecutions.
kay
I’m hoping people are more practical and hard-headed now, because a lot of them are broke.
A lot of the Bush-Cheney terror-fear strategy depended on people not noticing that they weren’t making any money, because they were borrowing enough to make up the difference and buy a lot of stuff.
It was worthless as a tactic when gas prices doubled, for example. I don’t know how committed people are to these vague fears, if gas prices can knock them right out of contention on list ‘o worries.
Mike S
Via Steve Benen is this WaPo article:
But still the chicken-shit Democrats who get ascared by the GOP’s fear mongering had to put their foot down to stop the terrarists from moving into our neighborhoods.
Dennis-SGMM
The song says “the home of the brave” not “the home of the pusillanimous cowards.” boys. If your remaining supporters ever wise up to the fact that you’re attempting to turn them into bed wetting sissies they’ll hang you themselves.
bvac
Counterpoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3nYv4vZF7M
GambitRF
Can he give Harry Reid a call and tell him that?
JenJen
@bvac: FTW!!
asiangrrlMN
WTF? I can’t even begin to understand what the Republicans are trying to do with that ad. By the way, Harry Reid is now reassured about the terrorists in America thing because Obama made a few statements yesterday. WTF, Harry Reid? He is so fucking useless.
I thought the GOP was the party of big, bad, hard-asses! They weren’t supposed to be a-feered of anything. Now, if a chihuahua looks at them cross-eyed, they’re shitting their pants.
Feh.
P.S. Now I can’t get that song out of my head. Fortunately, I like the song.
BDeevDad
I know the MSM has not evolved much since 1964, but doesn’t the GOP know the average voter is a little more media savvy these days?
burnspbesq
Let’s just be entirely clear: the Right wants to be able to summarily execute any brown person who looks at any American with even a hint of disrespect, or even contemplates doing so. Genocidal morans, each and every one of them.
Ugh
I thought Green Arrow was a good guy?
Blue Neponset
I think it is important to note that the Green Arrow that we are talking about was really a shadow of himself by the time he went to prison. IMHO, there isn’t a prison in the world that could have kept Oliver Queen locked up back when he was in his prime.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Here’s a link to it. I watched it again and am still impressed, that despite ML stupidity, Gates came across as measured, serious and thoughtful.
Secretary Gates on Today
gwangung
@burnspbesq:
Fixed that.
asiangrrlMN
@gwangung: Good fix, gwangung. Remember the big fuss over the people killed in the immigration center in New York a while back? Neither do I. I have a hunch we would have heard more about it if it were Asian man shoots up a white-dominated school or community center.
Dennis-SGMM
Because When the Bush administration began stacking these guys in Gitmo under the rubric of ‘fighting terrorism” you, Senator Max Baucus, stood up on the floor of the Senate and demanded to know with what these people would be charged, how they’d be tried and where the guilty would be incarcerated. Or not, you shit-eating little weasel.
Wile E. Quixote
@Glenn Greenwald
Yeah, but that’s Green Arrow for Christ’s sake, and Green Arrow is lame, lame, lame, lame, lame, lame. Green Arrow and Aquaman are like legacy admissions or something for the Justice League. Letting these guys into the league is like putting Michael Brown in charge of FEMA. I mean really, you have Superman, who’s well, Superman. You have Batman, who, despite his fetish for bats and young boys clad in tight spandex, is tougher than nails, a strategic, tactical and logistical planning genius and also pays for lots of the gear. Batman is also completely insane, so it’s probably a good idea to have him where you can keep an eye on him and where he’s going to be inside the Justice League tent pissing out rather than the other way around.
You have Wonder Woman, who can trade punches with Superman, kick ass, take names and has a great rack and an interesting collection of fetish gear (golden lasso, Amazon bracelets of submission, etc). You’ve got the Flash, who can run faster than light and change his vibrational frequency so he can pass through walls or travel to alternate dimensions and you’ve got Green Lantern, who has the cojones to wield one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, the power ring and lantern of the Green Lantern Corps. Then you have the guy who’s really good with a bow and arrow and the guy who can talk to fish. I think that the only reason that they’re in the JLA is to take the slot of a more qualified female or minority superhero, Apache Chief as an example, who can not only become a giant but can also get you comped at tribal casinos anywhere in North America. Or maybe a couple of Wonder Woman’s Amazon sisters from Paradise Island, especially if they’ve also got lots of fetish gear and do hot girl on girl stuff.
I don’t know where the Justice League’s shameful institutional racism and sexism comes from but if I had to guess I’d say that it comes from Batman. I mean Batman is incredibly wealthy, has a Manichean world view, acts outside of the law and has no respect for the civil rights of the criminals he beats up. This, and his fetish for young boys implies that Bruce Wayne is probably a Republican, with all that implies.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 30 years thinking about the role of heros such as Green Arrow, or his Marvel Universe counterpart, Hawkeye. If everything has gone completely and totally pear-shaped, your backs are against the wall and you’re going up against earth shattering bad-asses such as Starro the Conqueror, or Despero, the demons three, Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast or Darkseid and his legions of parademons from Apokolips what good is a guy who dresses up like Robin Hood and is really, really, really good with a bow and arrow, or for that matter someone who can talk to fish? Bringing Green Arrow (or Aquaman) into a conflict like that goes so astronomically far beyond the classic bringing a knife to a gun fight level of stupidity as to boggle the mind. Yeah, sure, go ahead, try to use the boxing glove arrow against Darkseid, that should be fun to watch, he’ll either blast you out of existence with his Omega beams or ordered you captured, tortured and broken and thrown into the slave pits of Apokolips by his evil, craven, toadying cowardly sadistic henchman
Dick CheneyDesaad. I suppose that you could send him out for coffee, and he could go around and nag everyone about making sure that their Justice League TPS reports had a cover sheet, but outside of that he’s useless, bringing him into these things is pointless and cruel.I mean I’m just saying that Green Arrow is a bad example. To those of us who spend lots of time thinking about such things it comes as no surprise that Green Arrow couldn’t escape from a SuperMax prison, even with the help of Lex Luthor and the Joker. Any other member of the Justice League of America would find such an exercise trivial, even Aquaman, who could flush himself down the toilet and use his ability to breathe underwater to escape through the sewer system. But Green Arrow? Come on, he’s a prop superhero, take away the props, the bow and arrow, and he’s got nothing, he is to superheros what Gallagher and Carrot Top are to comedians.
Wile E. Quixote
@Dennis-SGMM
Maybe the Democrats should offer up a bargain, tell the RNC that they’ll change the name of the Democratic Party to the “Democratic Socialist Party” if the Republicans change the name of the Republican Party to the “Fear-crazed, Submissive, Bed-wetting Sissy Republican Party”
theo
he is to superheros what Gallagher and Carrot Top are to comedians.
Clap, clap.
Although being “the world’s #1 prop comic” will get you a show in Vegas.
Maybe the Green Arrow exists in a low-standards, anything-goes entertainment sector of the multiverse.
Steeplejack
@Wile E. Quixote:
Win.
Also enjoyed your presentation last year on “Semiotics and the Superhero” at the Lacan conference.