There’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed when the far right brings its arguments from the safe confines of the right wing blogosphere, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of right wing radio, and Fox News. It just looks dumb and the arguments fall apart. Conservatives are so used to the head-nod echo chamber where the stupidest things are agreed upon in the pages of the Weekly Standard and National Review, aired on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity then parroted as “serious” issues on Fox News. But the rest of America is not in the tank like the right wing propaganda machine. In cases like Terri Schiavo or the defense of Tom DeLay, the right wing learns how so out of touch it is with the rest of mainstream America.
Today’s subject is Sarah Palin, the Wingnut’s Starburst Queen, who can’t understand why her smear of Barack Obama as a scary black separatist terrorist sympathizer would make normal Americans look at her as if she was doing some serious meth in the garage.
Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, launched the attack Saturday, repeating it at three different events and signaling a new strategy by John McCain’s presidential campaign to go after Obama’s character.
“The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about,” Palin said as she boarded her plane in Long Beach, Calif. “I think it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy’s living room.”
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But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they “pal around” is a stretch of any reading of the public record. And it’s simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weather Underground claimed credit for numerous bombings and was blamed for a pipe bomb that killed a San Francisco policeman.
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During her stop in California, Palin was asked about an Associated Press analysis that said her charge about Ayers was unsubstantiated, a point made by other news organizations, and the criticism carried a “racially tinged subtext that McCain may come to regret.”
“The Associated Press is wrong,” Palin said. “The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about, and I think it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy’s living room.”
In fact, Obama was questioned about Ayers during a prime-time Democratic debate against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton prior to April’s Pennsylvania primary.
Up next McCain/Palin pounds the media for sitting on the truth about fluoridated water. “It’s about precious bodily fluids,” screamed Palin.
I know that this Ayers business is total bullshit, but I wouldn’t be blowing it off as nonsense. It is exactly the kind of bullshit that can become a Big Story if it isn’t crushed immediately. Based on the immediate response to Palin, the corporate press/media is prepared and perhaps willing to kill the story. But it will take a directed effort from the Obama campaign to get them to do it. Otherwise, it will be the old, “hey, it’s out there” argument for keeping the story in front of the campaign coverage.
It’s over for us!
The Drudge Report is saying that they have PROOF – including birth certificates!!! – that Obama has fathered TWO BLACK children – BOTH in wedlock!
The McCain campaign said, “This goes to prove what we’ve been saying about Obama and others of his race!”
How will we ever recover from this!!! LOL
This is further confirmation that McCain is recycling Clinton’s losing strategy against Obama. It will lose for him too
Past associations?
Keating.
Liddy.
Nixon.
The important thing here, for me, is that this is backfiring, and badly. As ML points out above, she’s talking about as if it’s news, at a point in the campaign where the name Ayers is just about as well known as the name Obama, thanks to the aforementioned rightwingnuts. If somebody doesn’t watch Fox, they know somebody who does and have likely heard all about it around the proverbial water cooler.
They seem to think they’re going to claw back into this via the death by a thousand cuts (Ayers! Tax and spend! Dangerous Liberal!), but they just look like they’re flailing.
Marc Ambinder yesterday: “Conservative groups have spent more than ten million dollars on ads tying Obama to Ayers, and so far, Americans don’t seem to give a heck. (This tells us what about how we’re going to make that mortgage payment?)”
James, unless there is some shocking new information then the press will just be bored with the Ayers story, as they’ve already covered it far more than it deserves.
“It just looks dumb and the arguments fall apart.”
It’s not just stupid made up stories that have this problem; you could say this about the whole republican party and it’s policies. If you try to discuss them rationally with, you know, with actual facts their whole argument falls apart or dissolves into a puddle of gibberish.
e.g. the whole offshore drilling frenzy they worked themselves into a frenzy over – which could provide something like 1% of the oil the US needs in 10 years.
From what I understand, the “kicking off” business was one supporter making an unofficial announcement at Ayers’ house at an unrelated event that was not at all an Obama event. They live in the same neighborhood; people’s rolodexes overlap. It wasn’t a “kick-off.” Do I have the facts wrong?
Conservatives are Confederate flag blanket toting toddlers in adult bodies
Based on the immediate response to Palin, the corporate press/media is prepared and perhaps willing to kill the story. But it will take a directed effort from the Obama campaign to get them to do it.
–James E. Powell
Sure, kill the story. Good strategy. Meanwhile, why not show your support for William Ayers. He really wasn’t that bad a guy. Some people seem to like him.
Support Bill Ayers
Dear friends and colleagues in the field of education,
It seems that the character assassination and slander of Bill Ayers and other people who have known Obama is not about to let up. While an important concern is the dishonesty of this campaign and the slanderous McCarthyism they are using to attack Obama, we also feel an obligation to support our friend and colleague Bill Ayers. Many, many educators have reached out, asking what they could do, seeking a way to weigh in against fear and intimidation. Many of us have been talking and we agree that this one gesture, a joint statement signed by hundreds of hard-working educators, would be a great first step. Such a statement may be distributed through press releases or ads in the future.
Please click on ENDORSE THIS STATEMENT in order to sign the following statement and, just as importantly, FORWARD it to other friends and colleagues who would like to stand up against these attacks.
“James, unless there is some shocking new information then the press will just be bored with the Ayers story, as they’ve already covered it far more than it deserves.”
That’s about the sum of it, I think, only adding that the odds of some “shocking new information” coming to light are exactly zero.
That said, the supposedly deep and deeply sinister Obama-Ayers connection is destined to live on forever in the wingnut world. If the MSM ignores it, as they should, it will no doubt be elevated into the wingnut conspiracy pantheon along with the murder of Vince Foster.
If Obama wins, expect to hear it repeated daily on talk radio and on the blogs, as the wingnuts seek to warm themselves with their own rage during their long, cold exile from relevance.
“Sure, kill the story. Good strategy.”
Case in point. The idea that there’s even a story to kill is, in itself, beyond ludicrous. It’s a non-story. There’s nothing there. Of course, the more the MSM fail to report on a something that isn’t news, the more it will prove to the Dennis’s of the world that this story is HUGE!!!
Why do I need to support William Ayers?
The “pals with terrorists” story needs to be shut down and shoved down McCain’s & Palin’s throats. If they don’t pay a price for repeating this slander, they will just continue.
I am sure it will be like the Vince Foster murder story. I just don’t want it to become a “John Kerry didn’t earn his medals” story.
Ayers, Wright, Phleger, Farrakan, Edward Said, Cornell West, Rashid Khalidi, Dr. Khalid al-Mansour…there’s a pattern here and it’s not pretty.
That anyone thinks this guy should be anywhere near the White House is freakin nuts.
Liddy, North, Keating, Cheney, Nixon, Stevens, Hagee, Robertson, Hannity, Vogle….there’s a pattern here and it ain’t pretty.
Anyone who thinks these two should be anywhere near the White House is freakin nuts.
esrog,
Did Hillary win more or less votes after undertaking the ‘kitchen sink’ strategy? In the general, Obama doesn’t have an insurmountable lead of delegates already locked in the bank.
So “pals around with terrorists” equals “Barack Obama as a scary black separatist terrorist sympathizer” on Oliver World?
Where exactly in Palin’s comments did she reference or allude to Obama’s race? Can you provide a direct quote?
I see you’ve once again pulled out the race card. Big surprise. Because you see, any criticism of The One must be, by it’s very nature, racist. What with him being black and all. And anyone who won’t vote for him is clearly a racist.
Thank God Obama is the “post-racial” candidate. I shudder to think how often he (and his supporters) would be screaming “RACISM!!!!” if he weren’t.
The campaign may not be a perfect emulation, but Hillary ran experience, sexism and Ayers. Ditto John
the “kicking off” business was one supporter making an unofficial announcement at Ayers’ house at an unrelated event that was not at all an Obama event. They live in the same neighborhood; people’s rolodexes overlap. It wasn’t a “kick-off.” Do I have the facts wrong?
Same difference! BLARGHHHG! OBAMA MAY ASE WELL AHVE BEEN LOADINGNAILS INTO PIPE BOMBS WHEN HE WAS IN THE 7TH GRADE!!!!!
GLAFAGLAFAGLAFAAAA!!