A
smear group headed by a former Bushie and Tea Party compatriots is running “educational”
ads denouncing the President for “recklessly leaking information” about the
raids that killed Osama bin Laden.
Swiftboat,
anyone? The tactic that torpedoed John Kerry in 2004 now has Barack Obama in
its crosshairs. If you have an opponent who served his country honorably, do
what Karl Rove did then: trot out veterans to discredit him while your own man’s
shortcomings go unnoticed.
Ironically,
the commercials come right after an HBO “Newsroom” episode highlighting how
tightly news of the bin Laden raid was controlled until the White House
announced it that Sunday night. But in this kind of campaign warfare, facts don’t
matter.
Respected
Washington Post columnist Dan Balz observes that “all restraints are gone, the
guardrails have disappeared and there is no incentive for anyone to hold back.
The other guy does it, so we’re going to do it, too...
“Neither
side has had to look far for an excuse to attack or cry foul. Obama’s allies
took the campaign over the edge last week and his team did nothing to stop it.
The most egregious example of a campaign out of bounds was an ad prepared by
Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting the president.
“The
ad linked Romney to the cancer death of the wife of Joe Soptic, who lost his
job and health insurance when a steel company that Bain Capital took over while
Romney was at the firm later went bankrupt, after Romney left Bain...
“Obama
campaign advisers at first tried to distance themselves from it by saying they
didn’t know the details of Soptic’s situation. In fact, they had used him in an
ad earlier this year and put him on a conference call with reporters at the
time.”
Cancer,
bin Laden, whatever. Pick a subject and start improvising a narrative from it.
Facts don’t matter. After Citizens United, anyone can get away with saying
anything.
Meanwhile
in the media slaughterhouse the pigs are squealing louder than ever.
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