Phony Outrage
Obama, to his great credit, criticized some of the more tiresome aspects of the campaign back-and-forth.
“What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it’s catnip for the news media,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m assuming you guys heard this watching the news. I’m talking about John McCain’s economic policies and I said here’s more of the same, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Suddenly, they say, Oh you must be talking about the governor of Alaska!’”
But who was quick to accuse the McCain campaign of racism? And haven’t some associates of the Obama campaign suggested that a playful series of McCain ads poking fun at some of Obama’s more grandiose remarks were designed to suggest that Obama was in fact the Antichrist — a charge that appeared in a number of well-regarded publications? The manufacture of phony outrage is, alas, endemic to both parties. The tone of Obama’s remarks suggests that he’s never even dreamed of using such a tactic himself — one has to assume Obama sincerely believes that John McCain is eager to tens of thousands of American servicemembers fight and die in the middle of an Iraqi civil war for 100 years. Which is, to say the least, unlikely. In a better world, perhaps the Democrats would deride McCain as follows:
John McCain believes that it might make sense for the United States government to make a long-term security guarantee to a future Iraqi government, one that would help secure Iraq’s borders and prevent an arms race or cross-border aggression in the region, with the goal of encouraging a shift in resources from destructive military competition to constructive domestic policies aimed at achieving broad-based prosperity, which will in turn alleviate the tensions that currently divide that country. He also believes that this might involve a commitment of U.S. military forces, not unlike the U.S. presence in South Korea and other allied states. This is dangerously insane!
We don’t live in that world. Nor do we live in a world in which Democrats, after seeing The One:
Oh come on, this is hardly “Swiftboating.” Boy, you really got us. I guess the rhetoric is a little high-flown. But come on, people like it, and our candidate really is an inspirational figure. I think you guys are a little jealous of Obama’s charisma, which is sad. That said, I do kind of see where you’re coming from.
Let’s get back to talking about how we want a fairer tax code and more investment in public infrastructure and early childhood education. Wait, now we actually want to keep all of the Bush tax cuts if there’s a recession, and we want to add more. And we also want to spend much more money. Wait a second …
The truth is, this world would get pretty awkward and uncomfortable pretty fast. The McCain campaign, for example, would have to acknowledge the fact that it utterly lacks a credible domestic policy agenda.
Reihan,
It’s admirable at some level, I suppose, to see some push back from you regarding McCain’s vile tactics. But the false equivalence with the Obama campaign is rather disheartening. I’m not going to claim that there have been no unfair attacks from the Obama campaign. (The only arguable serious black mark on the Dem’s slate this term has been the Palin/family stuff, but that was a product of the media, and was condemned by Obama.) But, as modern campaigns go, he has run a campaign remarkably free from that sort of thing. You compare the racism and “antichrist” claims – but each of those responses were low key, mainly in the blog world. The real equivalent would have been if dozens of Obama campaign people and surrogates, in the national level MSM, claimed that McCain was personally a racist. That obviously didn’t happen.
Of course, this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum; we have also, in the last day and half, seen two unspeakably vile McCain ads.
It’s obvious that you are uncomfortable about this stuff yourself. But this kind of “even handed”, both sides do it, kind of posts at the end of the day only contribute to the problem.
No, if you really want the discourse to improve, people like you need to start really hammering McCain on this kind of garbage – and, yes, even advocate for and vote for the other team, to send a message, if nothing else. It might hurt your goals in the short term, but it will help them in the long term.
— LarryM · Sep 10, 07:26 PM · #
I agree with Larry, but I’m not as nice about it. Equating the Obama and McCain campaigns on this dimension is laughable.
Also, because I know conservatives like to imagine their own reality: John McCain said he’s okay with troops in Iraq for 100 years. Obama isn’t putting words in his mouth. I realize McCain added “…as long as they’re not dying”, but that’s meaningless. He won’t answer a question about how long they can stay if they are dying, so that’s the only answer we have to work with.
— Ryan · Sep 10, 07:47 PM · #
Reihan, how tall do you think Sarah Palin is?
I can’t google anything on it.
Its gone dark.
What are they going to do, get her bone grafts before the debates?
;)
this is an unserious election, so I suppose its only fair that in the end our election will be decided on prejudice against short people.
— matoko_chan · Sep 10, 08:01 PM · #
You ask “But who was quick to accuse the McCain campaign of racism?”
Not the Obama campaign — their response has been to consistently accuse McCain et al of ‘cynicism.’ David Gergen on ABC’s This Week (last month) accused the McCain campaign of propagating racial undertones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfXvK84MPqQ
But, gee, Gergen is such a partisan left-wing radical…
You would have to be either a) blissfully ignorant; or b) a Yankee; c) totally in the tank for your man; to miss this.
— Nat · Sep 10, 08:04 PM · #
Are you really equating the campaigns’ reactions to the 100 years in Iraq comment and the “lipstick on a pig” slip? Really? The Iraq “gaffe” (and I’m not prepared to admit it was unintentional) actually reveals something about McCain’s cavalier attitude towards occupying a foreign country indefinitely. His qualifying remarks – the “valuable context” we had supposedly missed – noted only that a 100 year occupation would be OK if American troops weren’t being shot at, which suggests a degree of wishful thinking that, if anything, casts his remarks in an even worse light.
Swinegate, on the other hand, does nothing to illuminate Obama’s political priorities. One of these things is not like the other . . .
— Will · Sep 10, 08:30 PM · #
Will and Nat must resort to an awful lot of hair splitting to defend Obama from charges of political distortion.
Obama is on record as saying that the McCain campaign would use race cynically against him. Maybe not quite the same thing as calling McCain a racist, but calling him a race-baiter is almost as odious.
And perhaps if there had been some discussion about the feasability of a Korea-style peacetime military presence in Iraq, then the “100 years” thing would have some credibility. But that wasn’t the talking point. Obama and his surrogates repeatedly characterized McCain’s comments as being in favor of “100 years of war,” without elaboration, and that is simply not what he said.
— Blar · Sep 10, 09:04 PM · #
You see, this is just what I mean. You guys obviously live in a very different world than I do.
I want you all politically, socially, and professionally marginalized to the point that living in the United States is so miserable that you all leave.
And no, I’m not saying you guys are stupid or ignorant. Sadly you don’t have that excuse.
Go to hell.
— LarryM · Sep 10, 09:20 PM · #
I didn’t mean to come off as an Obama-maniac in that last comment, but equating the two campaigns on this is dopey. We live in an imperfect world, and I expect political operatives to opportunistically mangle their opponents’ words. That said, McCain’s “100 year” remark did reveal something about his thinking on Iraq insofar as it actually reflects his well-documented commitment to long-term occupation. What exactly did the “lipstick” remark tell us about Obama’s political priorities?
— Will · Sep 10, 09:39 PM · #
This post is some seriously shoddy stuff. Notice that at the end of McCain’s ad, the candidate appears and says “I’m John McCain and I approve this message.” No similar endorsement from Obama follows the overheated blogposts by self-styled Obama “suppoters” you mention.
But let’s dig a bit deeper. The paranoia about antichrist dog-whistles was foolish, but it wasn’t phony. That is, Amy Sullivan or whoever wasn’t intentionally lying about what McCain said in order to rally outrage— in fact, she was clearly pretty worried (again, foolishly) that those dog-whistles were really there. But even if she and her cohort were foolish, this reflects not at all on Obama or his campaign.
Nearly every one of your critiques of Obama involves an attack on some, or on one, of his supporters. This is cheap. I would never vote for McCain, but the remarks of his supporters (you included) have absolutely nothing to do with it.
The issue here is that your candidate is lying. Equivalence won’t wash.
— matt · Sep 10, 09:41 PM · #
Matt, my post above. Obama, not his surrogates, actually said that McCain would try to use his race as a way of highlighting his strangeness. Obama, not his media supporters, repeatedly claimed that McCain wanted a century of warfare.
I’ll throw out another one, when Obama claimed that the National Right to Life Committee was lying about the circumstances of his non-vote on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois.
Your candidate lies too. I don’t feel good about my candidate’s smears and distortions, but there is no moral high ground here.
— Blar · Sep 10, 10:19 PM · #
I want you all politically, socially, and professionally marginalized to the point that living in the United States is so miserable that you all leave.
In the immortal words of Brian Fantana, take it easy, Champ. Why don’t you sit this next one out, stop talking for a while.
— JA · Sep 10, 10:34 PM · #
Ok, this is old news, but the 100 year war stuff is not dishonest at all. McCain is willing to fight a century-long war in Iraq, isn’t he? Or is there some date at which he’d surrender to the terrorists? He will be dead long before we ever get that far, and he probably expects total victory sooner than that. But his statement meant that no time is to much time, that we will stay and fight until we prevail (at which point we might stay, anyway).
On the other point, Obama predicted that there would be cynical use of his ‘otherness’ in the campaign. Predictions can’t be lies, but they can be dishonest. This one wasn’t, by my lights.
— matt · Sep 10, 10:44 PM · #
I think both campaigns have been terrible. I feel McCain’s badness more just because he has been in past an honorable man, and what was done to him in SC over his daughter was…guh. Obama on the other hand has I think fallen into a pattern of letting proxies do the mudslinging, in part because certainly during the nasty primary fight he couldn’t do it personally. I think that’s a career pattern — I vaguely remember he sort of greenlighted pushing questions on his Senate opponent’s sexual practces as revealed in a divorce case. Again, I think Obama’s weekend interview with Stephanopoulos is a stunner. You had Obama actually trying to smear the McCain camp himself, not through proxy, getting called on it, and trying to have it both ways: I was disappointed. But this stuff is going around everywhere, and I’m pretty sure either campaign doesn’t have a concept of how low it won’t go.
— Sanjay · Sep 10, 11:50 PM · #
Matt, 1.) No, and at any rate the particular quote was very specific, and Obama and his campaign took away the context so it meant something else. McCain said he would support a 100-year peacetime occupation. Obama distorted it to mean that he would support a 100 years of actual warfare. Trying to argue that McCain might not mind a 100 years of war ignores that McCain never said that, and Obama claimed he did.
2.) Obama was not just trying to say the McCain campaign would highlight his “otherness,” but that he would use race specifically to do so. I can’t even think of a incident of the former, but do you really think the latter withstands scrutiny? Has the McCain campaigned ever hinted that a black man in the oval office is undesireable?
— Blar · Sep 11, 12:03 AM · #
“That said, I do kind of see where you’re coming from.”
Right, that would be very effective. Come on! Aside from its extraordinarily dubious merits, do you really think this kind of mealy-mouthed response would do Obama any political good?
— Pliggett Darcy · Sep 11, 12:23 AM · #
“Equating the Obama and McCain campaigns on this dimension is laughable.”
I agree, but I’m laughing at Ryan, not with him.
Reihan, it’s admirable the way you’re being even-handed and objective about this campaign. It makes you one of the people worth reading, even when I don’t like what you say.
— The Spokesrider · Sep 11, 11:44 AM · #
<i>But who was quick to accuse the McCain campaign of racism?</i>
Come on….enough Strawman arguments. Cite sources please.
— glenn · Sep 11, 08:46 PM · #