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Barn Doors
BARN DOORS....Via TPM, Mark Halperin said this morning that Barack Obama was foolish to bring up the issue of John McCain's seven house because it "opens the door" for McCain to air inflammatory ads about Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, and other dark chapters from Obama's past. It opens, to coin a phrase, the gates of hell.
But wait, you're thinking: wasn't all this stuff going to come up anyway? Turns out George Stephanopoulos asked precisely that:
Stephanopoulos: Don't you think that was going to come up anyway?
Halperin: I think it would have been hard for John McCain, given the way he says he's going to run his campaign, to do all this stuff without the door being opened.
It really does make you wonder what planet Halperin is living on. Last month McCain hired Karl Rove protege Steve Schmidt, and since then he's run ads mocking Obama's celebrity, charged (repeatedly) that Obama puts his career ahead of his country, pretended that Obama had refused to visit wounded soldiers unless the press was along, run an ad saying that Obama was responsible for high gas prices, and conspicuously declined to comment on Jerome Corsi's bestselling claim that Obama is really a secret Muslim. At this point, who cares how McCain "says he's going to run his campaign"? Halperin can look at McCain's actual campaign and see what kind of campaign he's running. It's been sunk in the gutter for weeks now.
Anyway, as Halperin is certainly well aware, McCain and his cheering section are beavering away on all this stuff anyway. Over at National Review, for example Stanley Kurtz has been hard at work badgering the University of Illinois to give him access to the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Why? Because his heart is turning somersaults over the possibility that something in the archives will show that Obama had a conversation or three with radical leftist Bill Ayers during the period when both served on the board of CAC in the mid-90s. Do you think Kurtz was waiting for a "door to be opened"? Or Jerome Corsi? Or Steve Schmidt? Please.
Each morning, Halperin performs his exercise routine, which consists of believing five impossible things before breakfast.
According to the Official CorpMedia Rule Book,
1) The rightwing sleaze campaign is always the fault of the Democratic target of said campaign.
2) It is the job of the Official CorpMedia to make this point over and over again, no matter how tenuous or even bafflingly wrongheaded it is.
3) Up is down, white is black, night is day.
This political junky's TIVO Season Pass is now shorter than my kid's daily list of household chores.
No more Sunday morning news shows. No more network evening newscasts. No more inanity from the corporate media. Period.
In addition, I'm pre-paid on my paper subscription for another 9 months or so, but if they keep printing the AP's editorials, disguised as news, I'm cancelling them too (I've written to the public editor of my Atlanta paper to complain).
Old Media (with limited exceptions) can't be trusted anymore. It's a damn shame.
Hey Kevin, why isn't there a link to your new blog over at Washington Monthly (other than the mention you made in your last post)? I had to Google you to get here. Whatever happened to professional courtesy?
Honestly: it was one of those great momments in tv IMO. Halperin looked like the tool he was and I particularly enjoyed the look of pure disbelif on EVERYONE's face when he said it was bad for Obama. It just stopped the conversation and when people started pushing back on that he has this oh shit look on his face. LOL.
It was priceless. And pretty much showed what the Obama camp is up against. Halperin's colleague at Time on Swampland has a post up calling Obama out for going on the low road in the houses ads.
Thankfully; the Obama camp has decided to hold a convention calling out the Bush crowd for the last four years.
You can bet everyone will be talking about new politics going out the window.
Welcome to the new digs, Kevin.
The Republican tactics remind me of Soft Punching Contests we had when I was a kid. You would find somebody you didn't like who was out of the loop and ask them to have a Soft Punching Contest. You would tell him to punch you as softly as possible. After he went, you would punch him as hard as you could and say "I guess you win."
The problem with Soft Punching Contests is that you couldn't use the same technique on the same person every day. Republicans seem to think that they can use Rovian tactics every election cycle, but the fact that Halperin got shot down by the rest of the panel tells me that perhaps they have used their techniques as many times as they are good for. Soft Punching Contests don't work very well if the target punches you as hard as he can.
Gawd, is Halpern a wanker.
c'mon kevin, you know what planet halperin is living on: he's living on planet pundit.
my guess is that this is going to be the last presidential election in which the pundit class plays its current role: overpaid and underproductive, they are going to be among the victims of the great unwinding that is going to hit the american economy.
as bloggers prove daily, there is no point to the pundit class as it currently functions, and bottom-line oriented ownership is going to increasingly realize this.
So, one spends a week in the United S of A - Twin Cities of coming GOP fame, no less - comes back to Denmark, opens a browser and it's the end of the world as we know it.
Congrats Kevin - though the layout here it just so much not you; might get used to it though :-)
Regards.
Why hasn't CONFUSED been linked to McSame ? You can use it on his flip flops, attacks, and every other screw up and lie his campaign puts out. Just thinking how he would blow up at this is reason enough.
It is long past time to recognize that most of these pundits are either incredibly ignorant, stupid, or just plain lying.
I am scared to death over the fact that Obama is a secret Muslim.
Think about it.
The Chinese take kids who are 3 years old and train them for the Olympics. How the hell can they tell which 3 year old will be a good diver and which will be good on the balance beam?
Now, it appears the Muslims find young Americans and figure out which one will grow up to be President.
Don't you understand how smart and how powerful they must be if they knew 30 years ago who was going to be President in 2008?
Wow, I am not even sure who is going to run in 2012 let alone who is going to be running in 2032.
As it happens, I had the show on while reading the morning papers and was listening idly--until Halperin opened his yap. I sat up. Put down the paper. Watched in fascination to see, in some astonishment, even Cokie Roberts (Cokie Roberts) cock an eyebrow, turn to the hapless journo, and challenge him, along with the two other sentient beings there (Stephanoploulos and Brazile). I don't recall George Will responding (perhaps he did).
Still, Halperin persisted until he was able to put every ludicrous jot and tittle on his laughable performance.
What a joke. Especially for a Walt Whitman grad, who should know much better.
Since a debate on issues is not part of the McCain campaign, isn't it time to bring up the ultimate sleaze--the Keating 5.
These guys, including guess who? interfered with an investigation of a corrupt banker, who was guess who's? number one donor
If you read through Kurtz's posts about his "mission" with these archives, you get a sense of what a huge dick Kurtz is.
He's in a fever swamp of pure nutjob orgasmic speculation:
Were these papers tampered with before he got access?
What will they reveal about Obama - that he's a dog beater?
1) Dr BB is right on target, but unfortunately that doesn't mean Halperin is wrong. I think the Obama campaign should stay out of this kind of silliness, and let others make those points for them.
2) The Obama campaign and all us supporters should recognize that much of what the McCain campaign puts out is silly. Let's make that a catch word. They are silly. Their anti-Obama ads are silly. The Obama Nation is silly. Let McCain be silly, we're serious. We're adults and we are seeking solutions to our problems we are inheriting from the children in charge, and building for the future. Let the Republicans play their silly games.
3) I hope we've heard the last of Biden's tragedy. Once was good but once was enough. I really hope it won't be come the Democratic equivalent of 5 1/2 years in a POW camp, i.e., an excuse for everything.
The only door that opens, is the one that allows McCain to directly attack Obama. The indirect route, using entities that aren't officially connected to the campaign, and that can thus be disavowed if needed, is always open.
CJ:
I've been like that for some time now. I don't want my thinking muddled by the garbage from our corporate media, so I studiously avoid it. Better to seek out less corrupted sources of information.
What's awful about all this is that a 2-bit shill is editor of The Page, Time's political website that has a huge volume of readers.
Halperin tries mightily to hide his McCain bias on the site, but he can't help himself. It creeps through every day.
You'd think that Time would care about this, but no sirree.
Now that we're losing, we're not just going to round up the Jews and put them in camps, we're going to gas them, too. And it's all your fault!
You simply have to see the video at the bottom of Greg's post to fully appreciate the breathtaking mendacity of Tapper's comments:
But it started with the Obama campaign, filled with machismo & aggressiveness, saying that, "We're gonna not... we're gonna make this week not about the economy."
In the space of a relatively brief sentence, Tapper manages to claim that the Obama team a) started "it," b) is bullying the opposition, and c) is avoiding substantive issues simply in order to attack McCain over something irrelevant. Only against the backdrop of this kind of utter horseshit can Cokie Roberts manage to look reasonable.
Halperin has nice hair.
I just watched the full video and the look at Stephanopoulos' face was priceless. Halperin is a tool and I'm still not sure how he got this far as a political hack.
Funny. As evidence for his "barn door" claim, Halperin (yes, Halperin, in spite of my previous insistence on referring to him as Tapper... sheesh) gets one thing right:
"There was no criticism from the press, and the chattering class, of (McCain's) coming back with that Rezko ad."
No, indeedy. There most certainly was not. Where on earth, though, did he get the silly idea that the chattering press class would ever criticize McCain for anything?
Kevin is probably right that there would have been some other reason for allowing McCain to more easily start using Rezko, Ayers, Wright etc.
However, Halperin is correct that attacking McCain on his houses opens the door wide for attacking on Obama's partnership with the convict Rezko to buy Obama's mansion.
McCain gave a very stupid answer on the houses, but I doubt that it will have much lasting impact, unless it is followed by other answers that can be used to make McCain seem too old.
I think McCain probably will wind up winning fairly comfortably, because Ayers and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (plus the historical damage from Wright) are the type of issues that move votes.
McCain gave a very stupid answer on the houses, but I doubt that it will have much lasting impact, unless it is followed by other answers that can be used to make McCain seem too old.
Ooops. Too late.
Jerome Corsi of Swiftboat fame: His over $150,000 in judgments, his corporations and more
webofdeception.com
alas, poor brian, still not doing his homework.
obama did not have a "partnership" with rezko to buy his house, and rezko was not, at the time, a conviced felon.
other than that, you're right on the money (just as much as your are with your expectation that there are potential obama voters who are going to buy the born alive protection act nonesense and then decide not to vote for him, or potential obama voters who, when suddenly confronted with the fact of a former weather-person and obama have shared the same room, will change their minds).
that last part is a joke, son.
howard, it distresses me to say it, but your obvious partisanship is preventing you from considering the truth in what brian said.
Ha, just saving Brian the trouble of typing that crap.
I wonder what President Kerry thinks about Obama attacking McCain on the house issue.
Halperin is an idiot. The Rovettes will say anything that pops into their heads. All the topics Halperin mentioned are on the table and have been since the Rovettes were hired.
Brian, I'll see your Rezko and raise you a Keating5.
McCain has been in politics for a long damn time. It isn't hard to find instances when he associated with shady people.
What you need to keep in mind is Obama really isn't Obambi. He is more like a tough young pol from the south side.
Halperin's colleague at Time on Swampland has a post up calling Obama out for going on the low road in the houses ads.
That would be Michael Scherer, who has long since been pegged as a tire-swinger.
BTW, the tire swing at Rancho McCain must have come from a John Deere tractor, as at any given moment about a dozen campaign reporters are riding it.
shortstop: awesome! for a second there, you had me believing you that i had lost it!
What was also priceless came earlier in the segment when Halperin solemnly predicted that there would be convention interviews coming up next week that would feature pro-Hillary delegates proclaiming that they would not be voting for their party's nominee.
The other members of the panel looked to be struggling hard to appear that they were taking Mark seriously---and had almost succeeded before he went on to laughable comment #2.
This southeast Arizonan wonders why no one is discussing the similarities between George W and McCain. Both chafed under the accomplishments of their fathers and grandfathers. Both were irresponsible partiers who got into Yale/Annapolis due to family influence. Both got to fly despite having appallingly low scores that would have disqualified anyone else. There is no denying the character McCain displayed when refusing to leave the POW camp without his fellow soldiers. However, he had a reputation as an unskilled, careless pilot who crashed an inordinate amount of planes prior to his capture. Like W, McCain has never had to earn his way. After his war service he has been supported by his wife and the Phoenix right-wing money machine like W was supported by his uncle who bankrolled his lame oil schemes in order to get the tax write-off when they failed to earn profits. Both are famous for being uninterested in details. This Arizonan never viewed McCain as a maverick. I just thought he never really took the whole politics thing too seriously. He never earned it. Never had to work for it because for the last 50 years Arizona politics was domiated by the elite republicans in Phoenix, a group that included Charles Keating, who propped up McCain. Now that the rest of the state's population finally outnumbers Phoenix', we are a purple state definately trending blue. Note our progressive smart governor, Janet Politano.
I agree that Halperin's take was creative.
However, re:
Because his heart is turning somersaults over the possibility that something in the archives will show that Obama had a conversation or three with radical leftist Bill Ayers during the period when both served on the board of CAC in the mid-90s...
Can we have an Annenberg fact Check? Bill Ayers was never on the board of the CAC - he was a co-founder and presumably instrumental in picking Obama as the first chairman.
He also worked closely with the board through his leadership of the newly formed Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which did a lot of the staff work for the CAC, reviewing proposals and so on.
Obama was chair until 1999, then took a spot on the board.
Hence, he worked closely with Ayers on school reform for five years or more on a high profile project that ultimately failed ("limited impact" is the phrase used by the Annenberg Foundation in their review of how their money was spent.)
Obama did not mention this to George Stepanopolous when asked at he Philly debate or in his subsequent "Fact Check" at his website - why the cover-up?
Howard,
You offer a less than compelling defense of Obama on the Rezko aided purchase of Obama's mansion.
The house deal was not a "partnership" in the legal sense. It was a partnership in the practical sense in that Rezko paid full price for a vacant lot that allowed Obama to buy the adjacent mansion at a discount.
Rezko was not a convicted felon at the time, he was just in the midst of criminal conduct and under investigation.
You are just dreaming if you think the Ayers connection and the Born Alive Infact Protection Act will not move votes. I suspect even you know the connection with Ayers is not that they shared the same room. It includes a fundraiser in Ayers' home to start Obama's political career and a long association thereafter.
brian, my son, your confusion continues. i'm not trying to offer a "compelling defense" on the house since there's nothing that needs defending.
as for "moving votes," you seem to have a comprehension problem: the question is not whether the multitude of little right-wing robots in this fair line will tsk, tsk their little hearts out about billy ayers and born alive: the question is whether anyone who is truly undecided is going to take this crap seriously.
if, for instance, you are among the good percentage of americans who will never, under any circumstances, vote for a black person for president, you may claim that you didn't vote for obama because of ayers, but that would be because you're a liar, not because being in the same room with ayers convinced you that mr. bomb, bomb, bomb iran would make a superior president.
My answer to charges about associations with Ayers is Irving Kristol. Particularly this passage: Joining a radical movement when one is young is very much like falling in love when one is young. The girl may turn out to be rotten, but the experience of love is so valuable it can never be entirely undone by the ultimate disenchantment.
Howard,
You are close to correct in characterizing the moving votes issue, but you do not fully comprehend it because the concept is larger than just moving undecided's to McCain. The correct characterization is whether the Ayers connection or the Born Alive Infant Protection Act will affect voters or potential votes in one of the following ways: (1) move from undecided to McCain; (2) move from Obama to McCain: (3) move from Obama to staying home; or (4) moving from undecided to staying home.
I think these issues will move some people in each of these categories, particularly undecideds to McCain.
Your speculation about racist voters has little to do with this issue, other than to the extent there are a significant number of persons who would not vote for Obama under any circumstances because he is black (actually biracial), if some of them cite Ayers or Born Alive that will inflate any polling attempt to determine the effect of these issue.
brian, there are going to be, give or take, 120M voters this fall out of a potential of 200M voters or so; in a sample that large, you will find every possible motivation imaginable for voting (or not).
but your claim is that mccain will "win comfortably" because of billy ayers and born alive: nonsense. if i grant you the most extreme reading - "i'm really undecided but now that i know that obama breathed the same air as that weatherperson i'm for mccain" - it's still not going to lead to a "comfortable win."
and i'm not going to grant you the most extreme reading, because there's no reason to grant it: there's simply no historic precedent for believing that this kind of puerile trivia moves voters.
99% of americans, for example, have no idea who billy ayers is (i'm willing to bet you never heard of him before the right-wing robots started filling you in), and there simply isn't anyone who doesn't already have a position on abortion....
Howard,
I'm not sure I know what "puerile trivia" is, but my guess is that it is anything that hurts your guy. You probably thought the ads by swiftboat veterans for truth were similar "puerile trivia" but
now you probably think they beat your boy Kerry. What about Al Gore's sighs and claim that he "invented" the internet.
It is not that the specific Obama issues move huge numbers of voters; it is that they may well move enough to flip the swing states to McCain and produce a "comfortable" victory. We'll see.
I would add the Biden quote that Obama is not ready to be president as another vote mover; it seems that standing alone should have been enough for Obama to pass on a choice like Biden who under any circumstances is not going to produce any signficant additional votes for Obama. It reinforces a perception/concer already held by many voters.
Here is another anti-Obama ad generated in response to him attacking McCain on his houses. It is in Texas, which Obama has no chance of winning anyway, but it may spread to other states.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31038_Texas_GOP_Ad_on_George_Oba...
If you want more bad news about your guy Obama and whether his mocking of McCain for the houses was a good idea, look at Joe Klein (who passionately wants Obama to win) says about a focus group he attended (I thought "change" had worn out its usefulness, but Obama seems so stuck to it that he won't let go):
"Yet again, negative ads work. The 21 independents were given hand-dials and asked to respond to a series of campaign ads. They responded more forcefully to McCain's negative ads than to Obama's. The best example was this past week's housing debate. The Obama ad mocking McCain's seven houses was effective only when it focused on the mortgage crisis.The McCain response, claiming that Antoin Rezco, the corrupt Obama contributor, had helped pay for Obama's house was far more effective--the indpendents hated the (somewhat exaggerated) idea that Obama cut a deal with a sleazeball to buy his house. (And as for McCain's Paris/Britney ad--the key wasn't the charge that Obama was a celebrity, but the sight of him speaking to that vast crowd in Germany, which at least one member of the focus group compared to a Nazi rally.)
--"Change" as a theme is over. Too vague. And Obama's rhetoric has begun to seriously cut against him. "No more oratory," one woman said. "Give us details." (There may be a racial component to this, by the way, as some white people associate soaring oratory with African-American leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson.)"