Bye bye Obama

[Guest StuCotts]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/us/polit...amp;oref=slogin

The Times has weighed in. I've been saying it for months. If Obama gets the nomination the Reps will go after him in earnest. He will be pounded to a paste with more lying accusations and insinuations than he can fight off. By election day a significant segment of the electorate will be convinced, or at least deeply suspicious, that he is a closet Muslim, a pawn of Bin Laden whose best pals are terrorists.

Of course, Nader will add his ray of sunshine.

The Dems who have given Obama the nomination will react true to form to the whole situation with a lot of serious thumb-sucking and soft whimpering. They, with special emphasis on those who have been keening about his rough treatment at Hillary's hands, had better prepare to hail President McCain.

[Guest Conway]

He will be pounded to a paste with more lying accusations and insinuations than he can fight off.

Having read the article, I didn't reach that conclusion at all. I agree that the use of his middle name is intended to sway certain people. But, then again, so was the Times' speculative and completely factless article regarding McCain's alleged relationship with a lobbyist that was published this week.

The Times really is in no position to criticize given the fictional piece it published on McCain.

From what I read in the article, it appears that the GOP plans to paint Obama as a tax and spend liberal type ala George McGovern under the impression that middle America won't support Obama the same way that it didn't support McGovern, Mondale or others from the far left in a general election.

I personally see no problem with such a strategy as long as it's factual. It's a two way street. What papers like the Times need to figure out is that the alternative media is too strong and too well circulated now for it to pull the disreputable white wash tactics that it tried with McCain this past week.

The actions of the Times leads me to believe that the American left doesn't believe that, in a factual record based campaign, that Obama can beat McCain.

Obama has had a free ride much like what John Kerry had leading to the 2004 Democratic Convention. If the left wants to play the type of dirty political games like that demonstrated by the Times this week, then they need to do so with the understanding that their candidate will be subject to the same type of dirty political games. And, that's a contest that the Pubs are clearly better at than the Dems.

[Guest BewareofNick]

Having read the article, I didn't reach that conclusion at all. I agree that the use of his middle name is intended to sway certain people. But, then again, so was the Times' speculative and completely factless article regarding McCain's alleged relationship with a lobbyist that was published this week.

The Times really is in no position to criticize given the fictional piece it published on McCain.

From what I read in the article, it appears that the GOP plans to paint Obama as a tax and spend liberal type ala George McGovern under the impression that middle America won't support Obama the same way that it didn't support McGovern, Mondale or others from the far left in a general election.

I personally see no problem with such a strategy as long as it's factual. It's a two way street. What papers like the Times need to figure out is that the alternative media is too strong and too well circulated now for it to pull the disreputable white wash tactics that it tried with McCain this past week.

The actions of the Times leads me to believe that the American left doesn't believe that, in a factual record based campaign, that Obama can beat McCain.

Obama has had a free ride much like what John Kerry had leading to the 2004 Democratic Convention. If the left wants to play the type of dirty political games like that demonstrated by the Times this week, then they need to do so with the understanding that their candidate will be subject to the same type of dirty political games. And, that's a contest that the Pubs are clearly better at than the Dems.

In terms of the traditional media outlets, kerry got no more of a free ride than bush did. However, it was the conservative media, led by Fox "News" that swift boated Kerry unendingly while Bush got his usual free ride from them.

[Guest Conway]

Agreed somewhat, Nick. The Swift Boat Campaign was led by men who purportedly served with Kerry in Vietnam and was, in the case of some things reported, supported by some documentation that Kerry couldn't deny (such as his meeting with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1971).

On the other side of the coin, if you will recall, it was the left wing media, led by 60 Minutes that tried unsuccessfully to "Swift Boat" George Bush with a story claiming he deserted his guard unit that was supported by easily disproven counterfeit documentation that was provided to them by a long time Bush family critic and political opponent.

It is hardly behavior exclusive to Fox News.

[caeron]

Agreed somewhat, Nick. The Swift Boat Campaign was led by men who purportedly served with Kerry in Vietnam and was, in the case of some things reported, supported by some documentation that Kerry couldn't deny (such as his meeting with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1971).

On the other side of the coin, if you will recall, it was the left wing media, led by 60 Minutes that tried unsuccessfully to "Swift Boat" George Bush with a story claiming he deserted his guard unit that was supported by easily disproven counterfeit documentation that was provided to them by a long time Bush family critic and political opponent.

It is hardly behavior exclusive to Fox News.

That's not a fair comparison. It wasn't easily disproven. And when you have a story like that, you run it. If you think any publication would run something they know is false, you don't understand how media works. They ran it because it was hot. Had they had the same on Kerry, they would have run it too. The media are whores. They may have their preferences, but when money and a story is on the line, that's what they care about.

I think a better comparison is the stupid NY times story on McCain. They ran it because they thought others had gotten it, but they still shouldn't have run it. It was vacuous.

[Guest Conway]

If you'll recall, disproving the Bush story was a s simple as evidencing the fact that the font the report was written in didn't exist at the time that the report was supposedly written. It was a font exclusive to modern printers versus standard typeset. The source of the report was a long time Bush critic with a history of this type activity. IMO, 60 Minutes ran with it because their reporters and producers wanted it to be true.

Whether we agree on that issue or not, we can both agree that the media are whores. I found the McCain story to be particularly distasteful considering that there was nothing more than conjecture linking the two. The Times, as a result, continues to lose its position as a result of it's own sloppiness. First, there was the Jason Blair matter. Then, the Ahmad Chalabi debacle. Now this.

[Guest BewareofNick]

Agreed somewhat, Nick. The Swift Boat Campaign was led by men who purportedly served with Kerry in Vietnam and was, in the case of some things reported, supported by some documentation that Kerry couldn't deny (such as his meeting with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1971).

On the other side of the coin, if you will recall, it was the left wing media, led by 60 Minutes that tried unsuccessfully to "Swift Boat" George Bush with a story claiming he deserted his guard unit that was supported by easily disproven counterfeit documentation that was provided to them by a long time Bush family critic and political opponent.

It is hardly behavior exclusive to Fox News.

Agreed that the piece on George Bush was sloppy and unprofessional, but it didn't smack of the concentrated efforts by the conservative media to trash Kerry. It pretty much ended after it was proven that the letter was a hoax. It was different with Kerry. Even after it was shown that none of the men who had actually been on the boat with Kerry disputed his claims, Sean Hannity and the rest of Fox "News" continued on with the story.

The NY Times piece on McCain was pretty stupid and almost smacked of the NYT trying to be relevant again. This was the same NYT that sat on the Bush illegal wiretapping story that could have handed Kerry the election in 2004.

[Guest StuCotts]

The destructive viciousness Obama will be battered with is not comparable on any level with the Times article on McCain. It is analogous to the derailment of McCain's 2000 campaign by the Bush forces who spread the slander that McCain was the father of an illegitimate black child*, and to the accusations of insufficient patriotism leveled by Saxby Chambliss, who weaseled Cheney-like out of any military service during the Vietnam war, against Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in that war. There were campaign ads that showed Cleland's photo paired with Bin Laden's and Saddam's. They were declared reprehensible at the time by McCain, but Chambliss was elected anyway.

These are prime examples of lies aimed at destroying not only campaigns but lives. They were devised by the soulless to gull the mindless. I am surprised, though I shouldn't be, at how much of the public gleefully embraced the lies and guaranteed their success.

The hate campaign against Obama is off to a relatively gentle start with the Tennessee Rep Party and Bob Cunningham. It will get a lot worse if he wins the candidacy.

*Yet Strom Thurmond, who really did father an illegitimate black child, never suffered even a whisper of reproach from his colleagues in the fight for moral values.

[Guest BewareofNick]

The hate campaign against Obama is off to a relatively gentle start with the Tennessee Rep Party and Bob Cunningham. It will get a lot worse if he wins the candidacy.

That's true enough. Fox "News" was well prepared to slime Hillary and do their best to defeat her, but I think they were just as surprised as everyone else that Obama appears likely to beat her. The reason that the sliming is so gentle right now is that they are having to feverishly rework their anti-hillary machine into an anti-Obama machine. Limbaugh came out yesterday or Friday to encourage people to vote for Hillary to keep her in the race. he wants Obama alittle more bloodied before the conservative media begins its assault.