Carving Out Space

In standard form for one of its unsigned editorials, the Washington Post has some silly things to say about the current election campaign. The sort of thing that, understandably, would make any self-respecting columnist hesitant to sign the thing:

There was, no doubt, a calculated element of tactical foul-crying in the McCain campaign's loud and immediate protestations that Mr. Obama had not only "played the race card" but dealt it "from the bottom of the deck." This assessment was overstated. But just as the Obama campaign is free to do what it can to counteract the complications of running as the first African American nominee, the McCain campaign needs to carve out space to wage a vigorous campaign without fear of being labeled racist at the slightest criticism.

I agree with the assertion that Obama shouldn't be suggesting that his opponent is making an issue of race when that's not the case. But when I first heard an actual recording of the "dollar bills" comment and found out that Obama used the line to elicit a laugh from his audience, it seemed pretty clear that he was attempting to defuse race as a potential issue, not inject it. And I still don't see how anybody but McCain benefits from making race an issue - as evidenced by his campaign's working overtime to keep it front and center.

Beyond that, as the Post describes,

[McCain]'s not entitled to be dishonest, as he was, for example, in the ad suggesting that Mr. Obama preferred to play basketball rather than visit wounded troops on his trip to Germany.

And boy, was that dishonest. After all, didn't that footage in fact come from a military base? But hold on a second... did you say basketball? You have an ad comparing Obama to two young, white women whose recent media attention has been driven by scandal, followed by an image of him playing basketball (and playing it well)? [Addendum: David Gergen states that McCain's "The One/Messiah" ads are racist "code", adding yet another example to the series of dubious allusions.] With the ads produced by some of the most sophisticated smear artists in the business? Who clearly want race to be an issue? We're supposed to believe that it's all innocent, because the smear artists say so?

If Fred Hiatt and his gang wanted to be honest about what is going on, they would confront the McCain campaign based upon the most reasonable interpretation of their over-the-top statements and continued effort to keep this issue at the top of the news - they're trying to set up a context where when they inject race into the campaign (whether deliberately or accidentally) and Obama responds, they can shrug and say, "There he goes again". Is Hiatt being deliberately obtuse in playing along?

Attack of the McCain Shills

The issue of offshore drilling presents a conundrum for Obama. History tells us that if, during a political campaign, you try to explain a complicated position - why offshore drilling is unwise even in an era of high gas prices, how it won't affect current gas prices, and how it's unlikely to have any material impact on future gas prices - you lose the war of the sound bite. So Obama has offered nuance to those who he hopes can understand it, while trying to remove the issue from the table by saying that under the right circumstances he would support lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling.

In contrast, the Repubican attack machine has been in overdrive. Remember how a month or so ago they were perpetuating the lie that Cuba was drilling off of our shore? They're eagerly suggesting, knowing their claim to be entirely false, that offshore drilling or ANWR drilling will somehow lower gas prices. They want very much to keep this issue on the table, hoping that fabricated claims, accusations and sound bites will prevail. So out comes a McCain shill:

On policy, [potential McCain V.P. pick Tim] Pawlenty said he doubted Obama's statement Friday that he would support expanded offshore oil drilling if it were the key to a compromise on comprehensive energy policy.

"He's put so many contingencies around it that I wonder - in fact I question - whether he would do it at all," Pawlenty said in an interview. "It may be a way for him to gain favor during the election, and tube it later because all the contingencies weren't met."

Why is this even news?

Meanwhile, on the "race card" front, another shill crawls out of the woodwork:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Barack Obama is "absolutely" injecting the issue of race into the presidential campaign on Sunday morning, and twice calling it "a lie" for the Democratic presidential nominee to claim otherwise.

“To say that Barack Obama did not intentionally inject the idea of his name and his race is a lie,” Graham said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

Is there anybody out there with half (or more) of a brain who believes that Obama gains from having race be an issue in the campaign? If that's the case, as with offshore drilling, why is McCain sending out an army of shills to try to keep the issue front and center?

Rather than asking that question, for the most part the media (as you might expect) plays along. Or observes, "This is horrible, but this isn't the true voice of the wise and honorable John McCain."

McCain's New Campaign Song?

McCain's focus on Obama's "celebrity" seems to be coopting the campaign song I once suggested for Joe Biden, "New Kid In Town", a song is in the voice of somebody who is past his prime. Heck, it's even about a guy named (albeit figuratively) Johnny.

You're walking away and they're talking behind you,
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along.

Where you been lately? There's a new kid in town.
Everybody loves him, don't they?

C'mon, John, you used to be happy to play up your status as a political celebrity. If you drew a crowd of 200,000 to one of your own speeches, you would justifiably crow about your accomplishment.

As much as people want to claim that this isn't really McCain's authentic voice, that he's uncomfortable with the low road, for now it nonetheless is his voice.

Update: Another round of McCain's tactics being "out of sync with the real guy".

McCain's Bad Analogies

Yesterday on On Point, in response to an assertion that Obama's statements about his appearance as compared to past Presidents was "stating the obvious" to try to defuse attacks, National Review staff writer Stephen Spruiell said (starting at 18:31),

Stating the obvious, I mean, that's just not something that McCain and Bush have been doing, have been going around and pointing out that Obama is black. I mean, that's what he said that they were doing and they're not. Now I mean as far as the veteran card as opposed to the gender card or the race card. I mean the difference would be that being a veteran is something that you can legitimately put on your résumé and say, you know, like, this is something that I've done. You know, this is something that, you know, you can judge for yourself, but maybe it qualifies me to lead the country better than sort of a one-term Senator who, you know, had some experience in state politics before.

When asked specifically about the comparison of Obama to two "blonde, flouncing white girls" could be seen as a kind of race statement "in the music if not in the words",

That's, I think that's so ludicrous. I mean, you know, clearly the ad was comparing Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and saying that he has a lot of fame, but he has not done a lot to, you know, justify that. I mean, that is, sort of, Paris Hilton is famous for being famous. I mean, what, we, you know, you can't juxtapose Obama next to any white woman without somebody like, immediately accusing whoever made the ad of racism? I mean, that's, I, that's, that's so, so paranoid as to, you know, defy belief.

This is a pretty stupid defense of the ad. Granted, the McCain campaign's official defenses are pretty stupid, also - the idea that they're comparing Obama to the world's biggest celebrities, by pulling two blonde young women out of yesterday's news. The absurd claim that they're the #2 and #3 celebrities in the world behind Obama? Pure fiction. Citing the Forbes Celebrity 100, upon which neither Spears nor Hilton appear,

Instead, the top 10, in order: Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles, David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z, The Police, JK Rowling, Brad Pitt.

So, they didn't pick other big celebrities, who were either men, or black, or married.

What they picked was two sexually available white women.

But it must have been a coincidence, because we know John McCain wants to run an elevated campaign focusing on the serious issues that America faces.

Okay, so the McCain camp's excuse for why it picked Spears and Hilton is a fraud. Perhaps that's why Spruiell tried to bend the excuse into something new - the idea that Obama, Spears and Hilton did nothing to deserve their celebrity. Except Spears did a lot to earn her celebrity status. In addition to being talented as a child - as a singer, gymnast and performer - and working harder during her pre-teen years than many people do during their entire lives, she actually picked up the pace during her period of fame. If McCain thinks his touring schedule is rough, perhaps he should ask Spears how many weekends she got to take off during the height of her fame.

Now if the analogy is to Spears current public image, muddied by her legal problems, drug problems, erratic behavior and mental illness? Let's say that type of judgment should hit a bit too close to home. It's not fun watching a talented person turn their life into a train wreck over drugs. Anybody who has lived through the ordeal of a loved one spiraling toward rock bottom should have empathy for somebody like Spears (and for her family) - to me, if that's the image of Spears that McCain intended to convey, it's disgusting to claim pride in exploiting her illness.

As for Paris Hilton, let's see.... Which of the candidates took middling political talent, mixed it with a strong family name and millions of dollars in inherited cash, and bought his way into status as a political celebrity? Hm... Strangely, it doesn't seem to have been Obama.

McCain Needs Better Defenders

One of McCain's supporters makes an embarrassing series of assertions in defense of John McCain:

But former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who supports McCain, called Obama's comments "a very sophisticated injection of race."

"It was sort of like a political prophylactic," Blackwell said. "[Obama] was anticipating, you know, that race will be an issue, although John McCain has worked very, very diligently to make sure that race is not the issue.

So you see? Obama was working too hard to try to prevent race from becoming an issue. So as part of his diligent effort to make sure that race is not an issue, McCain had to make race an issue.

"We'll let the chips fall where they may when it comes to how people perceive this, but we are not going to let anybody paint John McCain, who's fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone, to be able to be painted as racist."

Right... McCain has a long history devoted to equal rights for people who didn't want to celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. And equal rights for those who want to fly the Confederate Battle Flag. Besides, if that's not what you mean by "equal rights", he's flip-flopped so that doesn't count any more. Also, he supports, er, used to support but now opposes affirmative action, but either way he was supporting "equal rights". Equal rights for gay people? No, wait, don't bring that into a discussion of race....

We didn't draw first blood. I mean, this campaign has been rough and tumble since the day Barack Obama got his nomination, and we've withered under the attacks of the Obama campaign on a daily basis.

Ooh... You can almost picture McCain, dressed up as Rambo, slurring out, "He drew first blood."

Would these be the "attacks" where McCain has been accused of supporting the Bush Administration policies that he... supports? The reciprocal misrepresentation of the meaning of Senate votes on multi-issue bills? I'll grant that I bypass most commercial television, and thus rarely see the attack ads, but what did I overlook?

Meanwhile, McCain doesn't seem much better at defending his gutter tactics. He is "proud of" an attack ad that compares Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Is he similarly proud of the lies in his ad about Obama's cancelled visit with injured troops in Germany? Are we to believe that it is a coincidence that his "race card" claims were released at a time when there was growing media attention being paid to those lies - and the fact that he had another attack ad scripted and ready to go if Obama had visited the troops?

Is the worst part that the media continues to follow the campaign at the surface level, that it drops the ball on real stories to pick up the latest campaign fluff, that McCain seems to have obtained a bounce in the polls through his gutter tactics, or that this could be the point where the campaign gets truly dirty on both sides?

The Great Equalizer

Consider taking a moment to honor the bar exam.

If Martians Landed On The Earth, Would Obama Given Them Human Rights?

Here's how a conversation might go between a columnist and the Obama campaign:

Q. I have a question about Obama's health care policies?

A. Did you review the materials on our website?

Q. Of course. But I was hoping for a few more specifics on when the candidate might impose a mandate....

But the act of picking up the phone and dialing a number? It's too much for our poor columnists and their overstressed dialing fingers? Which is why we get this type of stuff from Ruth Marcus:

To read Obama's exams is to get a glimpse of the supple intelligence he would bring to the presidency and to be impressed by his lawyerly capacity - perhaps even compulsion - to see the other side's argument and mine the weaknesses of his own case.

But it is also a reminder of Obama's essential elusiveness, and how little we understand about how the candidate himself would resolve these thorny problems....

Reading them buttressed my confidence in Obama's capacity to grasp the nuances of any question, no matter how complex. They also underscored my sense that, in the hardest cases, I'm not always sure where Professor Obama, or President Obama for that matter, comes down.

I dunno. Maybe it's just me, but if I were a Washington Post columnist and thought one of his exam questions was that pressing, I would call him up and ask him about it. Would that make for too short a column?