Obama grabs shovel, starts slinging mud

[yojimbo]

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama highlights McCain scandal

The ad in the above link is what this is all about? This is Obama getting down and dirty?

Get real? That seems more germane to the issues of this election that any of the bollocks McCain/Palin have been spouting.

[Voyager]

@Squink

The choice might also be winning with a clean campaign vs achieving a blowout of epic proportions by striking back when attacked. A congress with 62 Democratic senators has got to be sounding pretty good to Obama right now.

Yes, but strategically it makes more sense to minimize potential losses than maximize potential gains - especially because he is just as much the president with one more electoral vote than 100 more.

As for Congress, increasing his turnout would help. How would that be affected by him not responding (and maybe appearing weak and depressing people) vs responding and stirring up the base. If the majority of voters were so into clean campaigns that they’d change their vote for them, we wouldn’t be in this mess. 2000 and 2004 strongly argue otherwise.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Maeglin

He protected one constituent at the expense of all of the rest who had to foot th bill for the S&L failure. Some might think this is revelatory of his character.

When I am Emperor, I believe I shall make you Minister of Understatement and Euphemismry.

[descamisado]

@Simplicio

ETA (missed edit window, so seperate post): And while we’re discussing why this is a stupid tactic (ahem) for McCain, its even stupider to broadcast ahead of time that they’re going to start playing this game. Had McCain’s campaign suddenly started airing a bunch of Ayers/Rezko ads today, it would’ve been a big story and taken the Obama people at least a day or two to match it with the Keating thing. Instead the McCain camp decided to leak that they were about to go negative days ago and gave the Obama people time to have a counter-punch ready to share the headlines today.

Oh, I have a feeling the Obama campaign knew this was coming.

[Fear_Itself]

@Sinaijon

You don’t react with a certain amount of ‘WTF?’

No, but I do react with considerable IAFT!

[pepperlandgirl]

@5-4-Fighting

Oh, I have a feeling the Obama campaign knew this was coming.

According to the domain information, the keatingeconomy domain was registered 9/25. I expect the campaign made it was available in their bag of tricks. Actually, I prefer to think of it as a giant spreadsheet of tricks, with all the insane shit McCain could pull, plus several contingency plans for each one. “Oh, McCain is making insinuations about Obama’s character based on a connection to Ayers–time to pull out plan 7b!”

[BrainGlutton]

@Sinaijon

But Obama is ahead in the polls and pulling away! All indications are that he will win easily. He didn’t need to drudge this up.

Is “drudge” a Freudian slip there?

Short answer: Obama is trying not to repeat Kerry’s mistakes in 2004. From the start it’s been his policy not to take it lying down.

[Frostillicus]

Because Obama is not, I repeat, NOT a pussy. He understands the Chicago Way.

- YouTube

[gonzomax]

@jayjay

Because McCain announced his intention to start throwing the phantom images of Ayers, Wright and Rezko at him. At least the Keating 5 actually happened. McCain was admonished and censured. The only reason nothing more serious happened to him was because he was in a jurisdictional limbo at that point. The issues with Keating happened while he was in the House. By the time everything came out, he was in the Senate. The Senate couldn’t punish something that happened in the House, and the House couldn’t punish a senator.

How lucky John McCain was!

And, if you actually ask the people who’ve been behind Obama from the start, most of them are going to tell you that it’s about fucking time he started throwing some actual punches.

Palin has been all over the Ayers bullshit. That is her job the rest of the way.
McCain was the most guilty and most deeply involved in the Keating affair. He vacationed with Keating, took his wife,children and babysitter along. His wife invested a ton of money in one of Keatings shopping malls. He was against regulation before anti regulation was cool. Now he has to pay for being a sleeze.

[GIGObuster]

Well, I was thinking that bringing the Keating 5 back was just only to counteract the mud being thrown by McCain, So this was only par for the course, I now see that Obama or his advisers noticed that McCain is in “I’m never wrong” mode now and this Keating 5 move has already produced a new totally unnecessary blunder from McCain.

When the scandal was ending, McCain then said: “The appearance of it was wrong,” McCain said. “It’s a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do.”

Today, a really dumb reply came from McCain’s lawyer regarding this Keating 5 move, as this guy in AmericaBlog.com points out:

http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/mccain-now-saying-keating-five-scandal.html

Holy crap.

I’m listening to the McCain campaign conference call about John McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five scandal. McCain’s lawyer just said that the Keating Five investigation was “political” as it concerned John McCain. He shouldn’t even have been admonished by the Senate, his lawyer says.

Then McCain’s lawyer dropped the real bomb.

The Keating Five Investigation was “a political smear job on John [McCain].” WTF? He called Howell Heflin, who led the hearings, a “stooge” of the Democratic machine out to get poor, innocent John McCain.

This opens up the entire question of McCain’s supposed contrition. If McCain thinks he did nothing wrong, and that it was wrong for the Senate to scold him for his actions during the Keating Five Scandal, then he isn’t contrite at all, he isn’t sorry at all. He’s learned nothing. You can’t turn a new leaf when you don’t think you did anything wrong. This is one hell of an admission.

The correct way to reply to this IMO was to say something like “that was in the past, I was admonished and I got my title of Maverick by acknowledging in public that it looked wrong and I should not have done it.”, instead now Obama has a new angle of attack: McCain admitting **now **that he really did not learn anything regarding the Keating 5.

Instead of enhancing the Maverick persona the false Maverick did show up for all to see.

[Yookeroo]

@RTFirefly

I’ve got no problem with negative advertising. I’ve got a problem with dishonest advertising, or political advertising whose purpose is to make an election turn on trivialities rather than the real issues voters face.

@Fish

I think that Sinajion is trying to set up a false dichotomy.

His argument appears to be, “Never say anything negative about your opponent, ever. Never mention indiscretions from their past, even if they are relevant to the economy. Never mention any failures of judgment directly related to the current economic crisis. Never say anything negative, in any way, forever. Also, never defend yourself; never respond in kind when your opponent starts to drag your name in the mud. If you cannot uphold these ideals, you are just as bad as the dirtiest, lyingest, mudslingest, Karl-Roviest politician.”

If this is his position, then it is a false dichotomy.

Nobody is saying that Obama should be McCain’s punching bag. Nobody ever said that Obama should entirely ignore the Republican smear machine — John Kerry tried it, and it didn’t work. Instead, Obama smothers any flames before they can ignite. This is judged prudent.

When John McCain starts bringing up tenuous, barely relevant connections to people who may once, possibly, have done or said something wrong, people Obama is not responsible for, Obama has every right to point out direct relevant connections to John McCain’s own personal mistakes. The allegations against Obama mean virtually nothing; how is Obama to blame for actions of a 60s radical when he, Obama, was eight years old? But McCain was directly, personally, unequivocally involved in the S&L scandal. Apples and oranges.

The two are not equal, in my mind. The difference is like saying, “So what if I murdered somebody? You once talked to the wife of a murderer, so you’re just as bad!”

McCain is trying to establish that he has credentials of experience and good judgment. Is it unfair to bring up examples of his past BAD judgment?

Right. You can go negative and be be clean at the same time. A dirty campaign insinuates that your opponent wants to teach kindergartners all about sex. A dirty campaign lies. There ain’t a thing wrong with going negative as long as it’s honest and relevant.

[Kimstu]

@Fish

I think that Sinajion is trying to set up a false dichotomy.

His argument appears to be, “Never say anything negative about your opponent, ever. Never mention indiscretions from their past, even if they are relevant to the economy. Never mention any failures of judgment directly related to the current economic crisis. Never say anything negative, in any way, forever. Also, never defend yourself; never respond in kind when your opponent starts to drag your name in the mud. If you cannot uphold these ideals, you are just as bad as the dirtiest, lyingest, mudslingest, Karl-Roviest politician.”

If this is his position, then it is a false dichotomy.

I don’t think it is. I roundly disagree with most of what Sinaijon is arguing here, but I don’t think that’s the position he’s arguing from.

I think what he’s trying to debate is the question “Is it wrong, and/or stupid, to use negative tactics in a campaign that you are currently winning?” (And by the way, I agree that Sinaijon is using this question to some extent as an opportunity to get in some anti-Obama jabs about how disappointing this all is with regards to Obama’s perceived character, but I think the central question itself is serious and legitimate.)

And my response to that question is “It may be, depending on circumstances, but given recent history and current events, no Republican candidate who’s running a strongly negative campaign himself has a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing anyone with two brain cells to rub together that he is sincerely concerned about this issue on grounds of principle.”

You live by the attack ad, you die by the attack ad. The segment of the Republican Party that I refer to as the Power-Mad Pit Bulls, a segment which unfortunately seems to be currently dominating the GOP and much of political discourse in general, has absolutely zero credibility on this issue by now.

@GIGObuster quoting McCain's lawyer

The Keating Five Investigation was “a political smear job on John [McCain].” WTF? He called Howell Heflin, who led the hearings, a “stooge” of the Democratic machine out to get poor, innocent John McCain.

Wow! Gee, it was pretty ballsy of that ruthless anti-McCain Democratic machine (and doesn’t it make it seem so much worse that the outrage was perpetrated by a “machine” instead of actual individuals!) to take down four Democratic senators in its relentless dedication to “smearing” John McCain, wunnit? Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, I guess!

This is right up there with blaming the current financial crisis on the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act. The Power-Mad Pit Bull flacks have evidently lost any vestige of shame they may ever have had about misleading the public. At this point, they apparently will just gleefully make up whatever shit they think might be useful, and expect their followers to believe and repeat it without question.

[nameless]

We can let Obama speak for himself on this issue perhaps.

[

@ABC News

Joyner noted that the Obama campaign launched a Web site, keatingeconomics.com, going after McCain for his role in the S&L crisis of the late 1980s/early 1990s, and his role in the Keating Five scandal. “Of course, Charles Keating was a savings and loan guy out of Arizona,” Joyner said. “Doesn’t this put you in the position of going negative, taking away your message of running a different kind of campaign?”

Said Obama: "One of the things we’ve done during this campaign: we don’t throw the first punch, but we’ll throw the last. Because if the American people don’t get the information that is relevant about these candidates and, instead, in the last four weeks, all they are hearing about are smears and Swift Boat tactics, that can have an impact on the election. We have seen it before, and this election is too important to be sitting on the sidelines. If Sen. McCain wants to focus on the issues, then that is what we focus on. But if Sen. McCain wants to have a character debate, that is one that we’re willing to have."

](http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/obama-on-attack.html?390283)(bolding mine). If McCain is dissatisfied with the tone of the race, I suspect Obama will be willing to follow him to higher ground. So as far as I can tell, the onus is on McCain to get there.

[Voyager]

@Kimstu

I don’t think it is. I roundly disagree with most of what Sinaijon is arguing here, but I don’t think that’s the position he’s arguing from.

I think what he’s trying to debate is the question “Is it wrong, and/or stupid, to use negative tactics in a campaign that you are currently winning?”

The trouble is, a campaign is not a high school football game, where it is improper to run up the score. Things can shift very rapidly, and so it would be unwise for Obama to rest on his lead. Not only that, but he doesn’t want the story to become why he isn’t responding to attack ads. The story now might be that he’s tough, it might be about the Keating Five, or it might be about how the McCain campaign is out of ideas. All of these are wins for Obama.

[suranyi]

@Voyager

The trouble is, a campaign is not a high school football game, where it is improper to run up the score. Things can shift very rapidly, and so it would be unwise for Obama to rest on his lead. Not only that, but he doesn’t want the story to become why he isn’t responding to attack ads. The story now might be that he’s tough, it might be about the Keating Five, or it might be about how the McCain campaign is out of ideas. All of these are wins for Obama.

Not only that, but Obama doesn’t just want to win. He wants a landslide, a mandate, a crushing end to the Reagan Revolution.

Ed

[Fubaya]

@Sinaijon

This is also false. It was very specifically found that he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary for Keating. Rather, he was cited because meeting with the regulators might appear unethical.

This is just par for the course with McCain. He was in the room where other senators were actively interfering with an investigation and he was just sitting around fucking off.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Friends, the next President will make some very large and confusing decisions regarding America’s financial infrastructure over the next 4 years. We could avert our attention away from John McCain’s judgment during the 1980s financial crisis. But that would be immoral.

Contrary to the OP, the US Senate ethics committee did not give McCain a clean bill of health. From the Senate report: “Senator McCain exercised poor judgment in intervening with regulators without first inquiring as to the Bank’s position in the case in a more routine manner.”

McCain was briefed. He could have called off the wolves. But he decided not to. Instead he sat in silence while DeConcini -speaking for all 5 Senators in the room- turned the screws on the regulators who uncovered this criminal enterprise.

Let’s not forget: this was one of the largest cases of banking fraud ever: it eventually cost the taxpayer about $3 billion. Managers at the bank persuaded about 21,000 mostly elderly clients to shift their savings away from FDIC-backed deposits and into uninsured bonds of the bank. Those investors lost everything. So this isn’t one of those media gotcha-gotchas.
A different man might have adopted a more skeptical stance towards deregulation in general and dubious financial practices in particular after that shameful episode. But John McCain would have none of it: even as of March 2008 he was calling for less intrusive federal accounting rules. I-yi-yi.

I applaud Barack Obama for bringing this matter to the attention of the American people.

[choie]

Why is he “slinging mud” as you call it? Because these are the ugly, cretinous thugs he’s up against:

From Dana Milbank’s article in yesterday’s Washington Post:

@Washington Post

Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

@Washington Post

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of “Palin Power” and “Sarahcuda” T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. “One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” she said. (“Boooo!” said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ " she continued. (“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)

“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.

Here’s a video of a McCain rally where McCain asks “Who is Obama really?” and gets a shout of “A TERRORIST!!!” back. McCain makes a little “oooh you so bad!” face and gives a little smile, saying nothing against this slur.

And finally, tonight the chairman of Pennsylvania’s GOP sent out an email proclaiming: OBAMA - A TERRORIST’S BEST FRIEND. Utter bullshit, utterly repulsive.

These are the vile, vicious acts of a desperate and flailing campaign and its all-too-easily incited believers. They are truly scary. And you think Obama should quake at sharing a little of McCain’s actual past, which happens to be relevant to today’s economic issues?

Screw that. Obama is not gonna tread meekly, daintily forward and let McCain/Palin’s ugliness stand unanswered. If he can bring the conversation back to his strengths by revealing more of McCain’s weaknesses, I say let him, and hallelujah for a Democratic candidate who’s willing to “throw the last punch.”

[magellan01]

@Dan_Norder

That’s not a fact. It’s an opinion, and a bizarrely inaccurate one at that.

Inaccurate? Not according to the opinion of the senate appointed investistigator, Robert Bennett, who, by the way, is a Democrat:

“At the completion of my investigation, I filed my report with the committee. I recommended that no further action be taken against Senators McCain and Glenn principally because once they learned that there was a criminal referral, they stopped aggressively doing Keating’s bidding with the regulators.”…

“After reviewing my report, the committee voted on October 23, 1990, to hold a public adjudicatory fact-finding hearing in the matter as to all five senators. This was perhaps the first time the recommendation of a special counsel not to charge a senator was rejected. This was pure politics as the Democrats on the committee did not want to cut McCain loose so that only Democrats would remain in the proceedings. If Senator McCain was not going to be cut loose, in retaliation the Republicans were going to keep Senator Glenn in the proceedings. McCain was the victim of politics, and poor Glenn was held captive to the decision on McCain. So much for nonpartisanship.” – Democratic Keating Investigation Counsel Robert Bennett

[magellan01]

@gonzomax

McCain was the most guilty and most deeply involved in the Keating affair.

:rolleyes:Yet the prosecutor, a Democrat, disagrees with you. Imagine that.

What a conundrum: to believe gonzomax’s take on the facts as he’s digested them and filtered them, or the man who actually uncovered the facts and reported to the Seante.

Yup, a conundrum I tell ya!