That didn't last long.
McCain launched another ad today, and even though his past several ads have been totally dishonest and infuriating, nothing approaches what he does in this one.
[blood. boiling.]
It's an "education" spot. The ad warms up by pulling some out-of-context quotes from newspaper articles to claim Obama is bad for "supporting the public school monopoly" or some bullshit, but that's just the pretext for bringing up the most dishonest and offensive attack I think I've EVER seen in a political ad.
McCain's shop takes an awkward photo of Obama, silhouettes it out of its setting, and uses it as the visual for a claim that basically accuses Obama of being, at best, a leering pervert—or, at worst, a fucking child molester.
[voiceover] Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners.
Learning about sex...
...before learning to read?
Barack Obama.
Wrong on education. Wrong for your family. "
That's a goddamn outrage.
I know exactly what that claim is misrepresenting, because right wing asshats tried to make hay with this a year or two ago... In Illinois, Obama supported a program that has nothing to do with "sex education" in the sense McCain implies—it was a program to teach children about inappropriate touching to help protect them from predators.
Accusing a man who is the father of two young girls, who supports commmon-sense precautions that are commonly taught in schools and communities nationwide, of being some sort of perv or sex offender.
John McCain "approves this message."
What a fucking desperate, pathetic, piece of shit of a man he is.
UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has the video,
FOLLOW-UP: I'm not settling for some weak-ass statement from an Obama campaign spokeperson. This calls for a direct response from Obama himself. Not in response to a reporter, but buy a fucking spot and ram this shit down McCain's throat. When McCain hasn't been trying to paint Obama as an arugula-eating elitist, he's been working the scary, angry black man angle.
Time for Obama to be angry alright. But with a twist McCain will regret. Nothing is more powerful or righteous than an angry parent. McCain just opened the door for Obama to rip his goddamn head off. Will he do it?
UPDATE 2: The Rude Pundit is on the same page...
We know the game here, the racial politics, the fear of sex that's rampant on the right. John McCain has finally released his rage and hatred, and it is a sight to behold. Watching McCain unleashed is like watching a starving tiger in a pen of gazelle. It ain't gonna be pretty. The Rude Pundit imagines McCain seeing the faces of his captors in everyone he looks at, and he's got a bayonet.
Unless the Obama campaign starts throwing shit at McCain, it will be over. Yeah, Obama wants to change politics, but ask anyone who has ever tried to subvert a system: you gotta do it from the inside. And if you cringe at the idea of Obama stepping into the muck and mire of post-Atwater poltics, then ask yourself: will he get more done by keeping his shoes clean and losing?
[...]Stay angry. Again: The McCain campaign just said that Barack Obama wants to teach 6 year-olds how to fuck. That deserves a little more of a response than it's "perverse" or whatever shit the Obama campaign just put out.
[...] In other words, Obama campaign, as so many others have advised, go on offense, and that means you have to offend.
13 comments:
Will he do it?
Bet he won't.
--e
I'm afraid you're right.
This is the moment though.
It's the Dukakis "what if that guy raped your wife" moment...
It's the Kerry Swift Boat moment...
At a certain point, being right only gets you so far. You have to show that you don't take this kind of shit. Stand up and fight. If he cannot show backbone (here and in general) he will lose.
He will shrug it off, saying that this is what they do. He won't get angry, he simply doesn't do fury. He'll do bemused scorn, and it will be devastating.
Egad that's an ugly ugly ad, even by GOP standards. It's a sad commentary on the state of our country that a sizeable portion of the electorate actually will believe that Obama wants to turn our kindergartens into brothels.
Oh and concerning the "lipstick on a pig" nonissue, Obama could've have tossed in the word "fascist" in that sentence and Rickey would've been cool with that.
Better be the most bemused scorn ever.
In my opinion, he doesn't need fury, but he needs to fucking stand up for himself. As a Dem he can't afford to go down the "above the fray" Kerry route on something like this. It will make him look weak.
At a certain point, being right only gets you so far.
Isn't it sad that is true?
Agreed, all around. It's good to be above the fray, but that, to me, means you don't engage in negative ads. But if an ad comes out like this, you have to stand up.
. . . and meanwhile, Lipstickgate gains momentum.
After the 2006 election (in contrast to the Disaster of '04) I thought maybe we were turning things back on the right track. But if McCain wins this thing, especially after seeing all the amoral, outrageous shit Team GOP is pulling, I really don't see how I can ever gain faith in this country again.
I mean that.
Rickey seconds Mike's sentiments. We're in the midst of a steep cultural and societal decline and this election is starting to seem like The Alamo more and more each day.
I'm with ya, boys.
With this election, the country has handed a choice of not just Presidents, but what this country represents. To us. And to the rest of the world.
On one hand is a guy that represents a historic departure from the past (whether you support him or agree on his potential for "change" or not) and who could do more to rescue our stature in the world just by virtue of who he is. A man who despite everything thrown at him, has remained cool, calm and consistent in his message.
OR, we can elect a perhaps once-honorable man who has sacrificed everything that might have existed about that myth in naked pursuit of his one last shot at power. Who represents the party and interests that have unraveled what was good about country. Who has made every decision of this campaign on electoral criteria rather than governance. Who is an ill-tempered, neocon hothead who wants to drag the globe back thirty years to a stalemate of military tension.
We will get exactly what we deserve.
If this country is stupid enough to throw away a chance for something better or at least different (whether Obama could possibly live up to that or not) and instead chooses what is so clearly an embodiment of all that has gone wrong with government and the country, then I wash my hands of it all.
It will make me wish I could could pick up my family and leave. To say, "these fucking ignorant lemmings are not who i am, and not what I want to be a part of."
I will never want to waste another second of my life on politics.
I will be thankful that I am a white, 40-year-old man, above draft age. That I am married to an intelligent woman, with whom I can make a good enough living, and we can hopefully raise our two daughter in such a way that none of us ever have to pay the price for the abominable policies that will be pursued by these fundamentalists thugs in the name of this nation of morons that continues supporting them.
It will be the final validation that, yes, this is a democracy, and there are more idiots than good people, and that this is what we want.
In a word?
Done.
I'll. Be. Fucking. Done.
...in such a way that none of us ever have to pay the price for the abominable policies that will be pursued by these fundamentalists thugs in the name of this nation of morons that continues supporting them
And that's exactly it. That's the saddest part of all this--the people who will bear the brunt of a poorly led administration will be the same deluded fools who the GOP duped into voting for them. They're the ones whose houses get repossessed, whose jobs get lost, whose kids are being shipped off to a war overseas. As much as Rickey loathes these people, he's also got to pity them a bit for their massive ignorance. Sorry if that sounded a tad snobbish, but it's how Rickey feels.
Not me. Once, in 2004 I could forgive the stupidity. This time? Fuck 'em.
If they vote for a ticket that has mysteriously evolved into something I would actually consider WORST than "four more years" because they are stupid, or racist, or reflexively Republican and it comes back to bite them in the ass, I say too fucking bad.
They ONLY people I will feel bad for, are the people impacted who DID vote for Obama and hoped enough other people would as well, who then get fucked over.
Anyone who chooses McCain/Palin deserves nothing but scorn and whatever misfortune befalls them.
Hey Mr. F. Want to see some real bullshit back in Michigan? Check this out.
Yeah, Jennifer I saw that somewhere today... despicable.
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