Brent Bozell III
June 25, 2008
The general election season is under way, and the leftists are already
displaying their hypocrisy. They've launched pre-emptive warnings
against a Republican "swiftboating" of Barack Obama at the same time
they're making up wild allegations about the villainous
ultraconservative plots against goodness planned by John McCain. The
supposed civility police in the media are emphasizing the Obama
warnings of a right-wing onslaught, but not the nasty leftist attacks
on McCain. Once again, Republicans are painted as the agents of
character assassination, while Democrats are angels whose style is
sweet civility and whose substance is the refre****ng truth.
Obama's campaign is putting up its dukes with a new website called
"Fight the Smears." It's topped by an inspirational quote from Obama's
June 3 victory speech. "What you won't hear from this campaign or this
party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge or
patriotism as a bludgeon." In the words of the Almighty Barack, Team
Obama pledges to steer clear of negative personal attacks, and avoid
seeing their opponents "not as competitors to challenge, but enemies
to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans,
but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first."
The Democrats and the media are going to take a holiday from
demonizing conservatives and Republicans? Ridiculous.
Try this exercise. Sign up for Fight the Smears electronic "Action
Wire" alerts, and you receive this message from Obama's fundraisers:
"Now take the next step and make a donation to help push back on the
petty and divisive methods of our opponents."
So much for not demonizing the opponents.
Already, Obama's army of left-wing slime merchants is up on the
television airwaves running ridiculous commercials. Did you see the
one from MoveOn.org? It features a quavering blond mommy talking about
how her baby makes her heart pitter-patter fiercely, but she's gravely
concerned the baby might be going to war. "John McCain, when you say
would stay in Iraq for a hundred years, were you counting on Alex?
Because if you were, you can't have him."
What a pile of ridiculously inaccurate assumptions. First, we have an
all-volunteer military. Second, even if President McCain were elected,
he wouldn't serve in office for 18 years so he could make sure all the
liberal babies of 2008 are sent to Iraq. USA Today was one of the few
media outlets to suggest this ad was a foul ball. The Wa****ngton Post
declared it "dramatically and personally" illustrated McCain's open-
ended approach to Iraq better than Obama had done.
Just as Obama's media allies are silent about the left's hypocritical
approach to negative campaigns, so, too, are they silent about nasty
left-wing videos on YouTube. Robert Greenwald's "Brave New Films"
collective has a commercial suggesting that under John McCain,
contraceptives would be banned in America. They call their campaign
"The Real McCain."
The ad is set in "President McCain's Women's Health Clinic." When a
woman asks the perky blond nurse about her contraceptive options,
she's handed a list. When the woman protests it's a blank piece of
paper and repeats that she asked about birth-control options, the
nurse cheerily replies: "And at the McCain Clinic, you don't have
any."
Then a graphic reads: "John McCain voted against requiring insurance
companies to cover prescription birth control." The fallacious
argument within is that if the government doesn't pay for
contraceptives, or force insurers to pay for contraceptives, then no
contraceptives are available. There's no "option" to purchase your own
condoms or birth-control prescriptions? Where are the media smear-
fighters on this obvious howler?
Or take a virulent campaign called "I'm Voting Republican" from a firm
accurately called Synthetic Human Pictures. Their Republicans are
synthetic caricatures. A male doctor proclaims, "I'm voting Republican
because I don't really want a cure for AIDS and breast cancer. They're
just gays and women." This video clearly isn't meant to be factual,
just vicious. This video has 2.3 million views at YouTube.
Cynical liberals think that the only way Obama can lose is for
conservatives to take their well-traveled "low road" with negative
ads. They've utterly forgotten -- if they ever acknowledged -- the low
road they've traveled with millions of dollars in harsh ads against
George W. Bush in the last two election cycles. Negative campaigning
doesn't always work. But the media always see negative campaigning as
a game only Republicans and conservatives play.
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