Spoke Too Soon

by Josh Orton, Mon Jul 28, 2008 at 10:56:01 AM EDT

Yesterday, when MSNBC's First Read immediately debunked McCain's latest Obama lie, I hoped it was part of a trend.

But as compiled by Talking Points Memo, we see that most major news outlets failed to call out the false premise of McCain's ad attacking Obama for canceling his visit to a U.S. Army base in Germany. Presenting a lie and the truth as two sides of an argument is not journalism. It's stenography.

And as Todd notes, Hagel only seems to simply express disappointment that McCain isn't meeting his usually mythical high standards, admitting that, regarding McCain's smear ad, "I do not think it was appropriate."

When a passenger on a crowded flight brings a yipping dog on board, that's inappropriate. This is a smear.

And they keep coming:

The McCain campaign has just ratcheted up the rhetoric on this "controversy" with yet another misleading statement, this one in the name of Chief Warrant Officer (4th class) Michael J. Durant:

   "Over the last week, Barack Obama made time in his busy schedule to hold a rally with 200,000 Germans in Berlin, hold a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris, and hold a solo press conference in front of 10 Downing Street in London. The Obama campaign had also scheduled a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but this stop was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps, would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama."

   "I've spent time at Ramstein recovering from wounds received in the service of my country, and I'm sure that Senator Obama could have made no better use of his time than to meet with our men and women in uniform there. That Barack Obama believes otherwise casts serious doubt on his judgment and calls into question his priorities."

Marc Ambinder apparently super-glued on his villager's hat and decided that this strategy is actually smart Republican "partisanship" on the part of McCain. To Ambinder, McCain is engaging in "repetitive, reactive taunting of Barack Obama."

How inappropriate.

Update [2008-7-28 15:0:37 by Todd Beeton]:Credit where credit is due: Andrea Mitchell calls the McCain ad "literally not true."

Getting closer.

Tags: John McCain, traditional media (all tags)

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12 Comments

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Re: Spoke Too Soon

Obama needs lots of surrogates an a response ad out there - NOW.

by politicsmatters 2008-07-28 11:11AM | 0 recs
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Republican tells Ambinder he's nuts

BTW, a Republican strategist wrote to Ambinder to tell him that he's nuts -- that McCain's strategy of playing to his base is a really, really bad strategy.

Here's what a prominent Republican strategist e-mailed me about my contrarian defense of Sen. John McCain's election strategy:

   "Insane. The GOP base vote is not in play. That's why we call it the  base. He has it all; it is a generic vote and not candidate driven.  Show me a Prez election where the key outcome driver was partisan base intensity. It is a myth. The winning vs. losing outcome is whether he can get the others he needs to win; and a pure partisan approach -- let alone a nagging and off-putting tone -- is exactly the way not to get them. They have the strategy of a Congressional candidate running in a base suburb, and barely even that."

And this comes from a person who is sympathetic to McCain!
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/arch ives/2008/07/prominent_gop_strategist_to _me.php

So maybe we're flipping out prematurely and McCain's efforts are spitting in the wind -- and coming back right at him.

In other words, this faux attack - when clearly exposed - will undermine McCain's brand and his standing among independents.

by politicsmatters 2008-07-28 11:35AM | 0 recs
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Re: Republican tells Ambinder he's nuts

My impression is that Democrats, by virtue of losing past elections, have become conditioned to fear certain Republican sound-bite attacks that have worked in the past, irrespective of whether they still have any merit.  Democrats are still afraid of the GOP 2002 playbook even though they ran the same playbook in 2006 and it got them nowhere.

That said, I do not believe McCain is trying to win a "partisan base intensity" election.  I believe he is playing to the GOP base because he has earned a real problem with the base over the years, and that's where his footsoldiers and fundraising necessarily have to come from.  Once the base is more comfortable with him, I fully expect to see him run a more broad-based campaign.

I don't expect it to work, mind you.  But I don't kid myself into thinking that McCain intends to win this election solely on the strength of people who thought Bush was a fantastic president and we should stay in Iraq for 100 years.

by Steve M 2008-07-28 11:45AM | 0 recs
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Re: Spoke Too Soon

This is truly a disgusting and unacceptable smear.

Obviously this is nothing but pure political opportunism on McCain's part.  The election is a long way off, but when you launch a random broadside with so much disdain for the underlying facts, it smacks of desperation to me.

Still, it is important for all organs of the progressive machine to hit back and hit back hard.  Folks probably thought the Swiftboat attacks seemed fact-free and desperate too.

by Steve M 2008-07-28 11:12AM | 0 recs
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Re: Spoke Too Soon

It may be innappropriate but politics isn't bocce ball. It's up to Obama to get his surrogates on the street rolling this back.

by ottovbvs 2008-07-28 11:19AM | 0 recs
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Re: Spoke Too Soon

He visited wounded troops on this visit - in Iraq. Jack Reed spoke about it yesterday.

This isn't about a mistake he made -- it's about raw smear politics. And, yes, Obama has to hit back hard.

by politicsmatters 2008-07-28 11:29AM | 0 recs
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Re: Oh Oh - It's Biting - USAToday Poll Just Out!

didn't gallup show a 9 point lead ?

by lori 2008-07-28 11:38AM | 0 recs
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Obama ahead among RV

The Gallup tracker for today is +8 Obama.

This is the USA Today/Gallup, which somehow takes the same numbers and adjusts them. And Obama is ahead among registered voters.

Among registered voters, McCain still trails Obama, but by less. He is behind by 3 percentage points in the new poll (47%-44%) vs. a 6-point disadvantage (48%-42%) in late June.

Results based on the survey of 791 likely voters have margins of error of +- 4 percentage points -- so McCain's lead is not outside that range. Results based on the survey of 900 registered voters also have margins of error of +- 4 percentage points.

Gallup editor Frank Newport tells Jill that "registered voters are much more important at the moment," because Election Day is still 100 days away, but that the likely-voter result suggests that it may be possible for McCain to energize Republicans and turn them out this fall.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/200 8/07/gains-for-mccai.html

by politicsmatters 2008-07-28 11:41AM | 0 recs
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Jack Reed - We visited hospital in Baghdad
JACK REED:  Senator Hagel, Senator Obama and I visited the combat support hospital at Baghdad to thank those nurses, those doctors, to see patients that were there, to bring a bit of greetings from home and profound thanks. That should be in the ad that Senator McCain is running. I think Senator Obama made a very wise choice. Any suggestion that a visit to a military hospital would be political, he made the wise choice not to go. But when you were in Baghdad we made a point at the end of a very exhausting day to go in and see these magnificent young Americans and those doctors and nurses that give such tremendous care without a lot of fanfare, just to say thanks. He did it-the same thing. We went-we didn't stay in Kabul. We went to Jalalabad to see the soldiers of the 173rd. We stopped in Basra to see our soldiers down there. We went into Anbar province to see soldiers there. That is a completely distorted, and, I think, inappropriate advertisement.
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-excer pt-from-face-the-nation/
by politicsmatters 2008-07-28 11:38AM | 0 recs
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Nope

He has to all but call McCain a traitor. He has to impugn his character, suggest that he's crossed the point of no return and move the issue on from visits to John McCain's character.

McCain has to be bloodied and badly, or we'll have the same circus next week.

by Englishlefty 2008-07-28 01:27PM | 0 recs
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It is amusing that Ambinder

considers political dishonesty a partisan republican trait.  

by Tenafly Viper 2008-07-28 11:38AM | 0 recs
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Re: Spoke Too Soon

FWIW, NPR's Mara Liasson also said "it's not true that he canceled the visit because he couldn't bring cameras," mentioning that Obama did visit troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and saying that it was more about bringing campaign staff with him than cameras.  

Not as brutal as this great Mitchell piece, but it's something.  We may not have a trend, exactly, but it may be breaking some kind of bonds on news orgs when they realize they can in fact call a lie a lie -- and who knows where that could lead.

by bruorton 2008-07-30 07:26AM | 0 recs

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