Ever since McCain brought that self-described bull-dog on the ticket, I’ve been astounded by the full-on character attacks coming from the republicans. They have been outright lying on issues from national security to taxes, and factcheck.org has been working overtime to combat it.
To give an example, let’s take Rudy and Palin’s joyous belittling of Obama’s time as a community organizer at the RNC. Now, I’m not saying that Obama should be elected only because he worked as a community organizer in his twenties, but I certainly think he deserves credit for his work and acknowledgment that his experience is relevant in making a decision for president. It is not laughable, to say the least.
(Not to mention that they don’t seem to realize that they’re comparing Palin’s experience over the last two years, to work Obama did in his twenties…or maybe they do, and they think we don’t).
In all this, though, I want to know if I’m being biased. Am I being unfair in my view that it the personal attacks coming from the right far outweigh those coming from the left. I don’t think that’s likely, since for some time I thought McCain would make a fine president, even voting for him in the SC primaries in 2000. Yet, over the last three or four months, my respect for him has diminished precipitously.
Anyhow, I want to know if there have been attacks on the character of John McCain in the same since that there have been on Obama, constantly questioning his patriotism his religion and his morals. What are the below-the-belt attacks from Democrats towards McCain? or have there been any?
So, I’ve been thinking about this throughout the day while you were all sleeping (I’m in Taiwan), and the closest thing I can come up with was something that many people took as an insult to McCain’s service, though I don’t feel that it was at all. This is of course Wesley Clark’s response to the question from, I think, Bob Schneider about whether or not being shot down and held as a POW is a requirement for being president.
I’m hoping someone will come up with some character attacks on McCain or Palin. After all, McCain has a new ad out claiming something along the lines that Obama wants to teach kindergartners about sex.
Here, I must make a crucial distinction. The attacks I’m talking about must be from people involved in the various campaigns. That is, the candidates themselves, or people speaking on behalf of the campaigns themselves.
Attacking Palin on the internet for saying that dinosaurs were lizards of Satan or something like that doesn’t count.
So, Quartz, what attacks on Palin’s character, what blatant lies about her record, are you talking about here?
That’s not what you asked in your OP and is a totally different question. Obama himself has behaved with great credit. Whatever Biden has said hasn’t made it over here.
It’s not a totally different question. It’s a clarification. The subject is unchanged. I’m looking for high-level, strategic attacks, not kooks online who think Palin’s a nothing more than a religious fanatic.
I have no doubt that McCain doesn’t believe the stuff he’s saying about Obama right now. He’s not like some of the conservative bloggers who think Obama really is a closet Muslim bent on destroying the United States.
So, in clarifying, again, I’m only asking about high-level attacks from people who are well-known and associated with the Obama campaign who intentionally spread malicious character attacks on McCain or Palin.
This article describes a recent comment of his that could either be construed as Obama using a colloquial phrase without thinking it through or calling Palin a pig. Which interpretation a person chooses likely depends on that person’s political orientation.
Regardless, it’s at least one case of a Democrat attacking a Republican. It doesn’t quite fit the OP’s request for an example of an attack on McCain, but it’s what came to mind.
There’s something of an apples/oranges or some other difference going on. Ready for a really crappy analogy? It’s been a McCain – Obama (Hillary) race for a while, and so attacks have come in a sustained, methodical, and calculated manner, much like sniper fire. Palin burst on the scene in all her Gotcha Ya abruptness, with very little having been said, written, or heard from her (relatively speaking). Faced with a small confrontation space and vast landscape of unknowns, a shotgun-like approach is much more legitimate — and appropriate.
She’s being held up as the perfect picture of a Ditto-head by one side, intentionally sprung on a surprised public (both sides) with very little time left to vett, and with scant time before e-day for the Democrats to sway voters away from the faux euphoria (faux euphoria in a support the party by circling the wagons sort of way). Given the compressed timescale, we’re seeing a campaign’s-worth of conjecture and criticism rolled into a few weeks; things that might have simmered in corners until the veracity is known before making it to mainstream criticism.
That is not an attack. At least to me. It’s an association people make because of Palin’s joke the other night at the RNC. The truth is, tons of people use the phrase, even McCain when talking about Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards when talking about McCain’s health care plan.
I’d be interested in whether or not others agree with me, but I don’t see that as an attack on Palin’s character as those leveled against Obama.
Again, I’m looking at direct attacks against Palin or McCain character, such as those we’ve heard questioning Obama’s patriotism, morals, work, etc.
Do you have room for some middle ground? Given Obama’s intelligence and the conventional insult of calling a woman a pig, it stretches credulity to think that he didn’t know what he was saying or its implications. Kind of like the “uppity” comment made by some yahoo or other, or a vast swath of don’t-play-innocent-with-me-mr.-macaca-whatever crap that tries for plausible deniability.
I agree that it was certainly not a direct insult, nor was it any actual character attack, but given the obviousness of the cross reference, there was a palpable insult – maybe nothing more sophisticated than a base “you’re a doo-doo head”, but there nonetheless.
So if McCain were to say “You know, Obama talks about change. He says he’ll bring change to Washington, D.C. But, he’s no different from all the other democrats on the far left. Let’s call a spade a spade. He’s just another liberal.”
Is that not a common phrase? Or is it an attack as well?
Exactly. Forget for a moment about the hair-splitting once/twice/thrice removed-ness of the original conversation versus your example. Also forget for a moment the pragmatic (damn that’s far from the right word, but I can’t think of it at the moment) differences in degree – making a racial slur is much more charged than an anamistic insult. Putting Snowball, Squealer and whatnot aside and jamming it into a purely sexist remark for the moment, I think you’re still on track–though there’s still the difference in degree. Not quite a character attack (I don’t know, maybe if he called her a brood sow things would be different), but clearly not an innocent remark.
Obama: “We need to serve the most vulnerable in our country!”
Ominous voice in a McCain ad: “Barack Obama says babies should be eaten.”
I don’t hold out much hope for Obama if the Dems don’t attack in the same way the Republicans have. I think the bulk of voters make their decision based on soundbites, and what they remembered from both positive and negative advertising. Retractions and fact verification, even if heavily publicized, seem to be ignored by the masses; consider the many that still believe Obama is Muslim, for instance.
I want to see Dems distort. I want them to sling not just mud, but shit. McCain took part in massacres on innocent Vietnamese villagers. Palin gave thousands of dollars to criminals and child molesters in Alaska. Whatever it takes.
The dems play like there are rules. the repubs play to win. McCain was swiftboated by Bush , through Rove. They swiftboated Kerry. They stop at nothing. Dems act like there are restraints. It allows them to lose. If Palin was a dem the repubs would have slaughtered her by now.
The repubs questioned McCains sanity, his hero status and everything else. The dems have not. We have allowed an incompetent hunter/breeder to get traction.
Try and remember what the Bush group said about McCain when they ran against him and then realize the dems are much nicer.
Which interpretation a person publicly affects to place on it depends on that person’s political orientation and integrity – the latter requires them to be “Republican” and “None”, respectively.
Attacks on an opponent’s position as unappealing substance dressed up in unconvincing trappings (which is the one and only legitimate interpretation of the phrase “lipstick on a pig” in this context) are not “character attacks”.
At first, I was thinking it was an innocent remark. But I think the “old fish” line right afterwards sure makes one think it was a Palin/McCain crack (with “old fish” being McCain). We’ll never know what he was really thinking, but it was, at best, a stupid thing to say. Probably won’t be the last, butI’d still say that Obama has run a much cleaner campaign overall than McCain has.
I’m finding it surprising that no one can think of any instances where democrats have attacked the republicans that in any resembles the attacks going in the opposite direction.
I was raised in a conservative household where I was taught more or less that the moral high ground was always held by the Republicans. Sure, they’re all politicians, but at least the republicans have a sense of a higher moral calling.
This hypocrisy and the fact that it’s not received more attention in the media is aggravating me to no end.
To be clear, I don’t doubt that my family and friends believe what they say about their party, but they need to be confronted with their party’s responsibility for the low-brow politics they/we so often decry.
