Tit for Tat
Kevin Drum wonders what the deal is with all these efforts to bait John McCain into bringing up Bill Ayers in person at Wednesday’s debate:
I guess the Obama folks figure there are three things that could happen. First, McCain does nothing and ends up looking like a coward. Second, their taunts get under McCain’s skin so badly that he goes over the edge and does something really stupid. Third, McCain takes the bait and decides to bring up Ayers at the next debate.
The first two possibilities are obviously good for Obama. And the third? I guess they must be really sure they have a dynamite response ready in case McCain decides to unload next Wednesday. Either that or they’re trying to fake McCain into thinking they have a dynamite response, thus scaring him into not bringing it up. Or else, by being so obvious about it, they’re actually trying to sell McCain on the fakeout theory — and then when he falls into the trap and brings up Ayers, they’re going to crush him. Or….um…..you get the idea. Basically, they’re just playing mindgames with the old guy. I wonder if it’ll work?
I don’t think they’re just playing mindgames . . . I think all indications are that they really do think they have a dynamite response by the name of Charles Keating. Whatever you think of Obama’s association with Ayers, McCain was clearly much closer to Keating than Obama ever was to Ayers. And, again, though the Keating 5 scandal is “ancient history” in news cycle terms, it happened much more recently than any Weather Underground bombings. And though the S&L crisis of the 1980s is of only tangential relevance to the present-day banking crisis, it’s still much more relevant than anything Ayers did. And last, McCain was accused of actual Keating-related wrongdoing, whereas nobody has tried to allege that Obama was actually involved in any of Ayers’ bad acts.
69 Responses to “Tit for Tat”
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October 10th, 2008 at 9:42 am
your right — these guys are crazy and radical — here’s my take on it:
http://culturedecoded.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/the-mental-factor-of-politics-how-one-mindset-can-change-thousands/
October 10th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Right. Guilt by guilt > guilt by association.
Still, I’m not sure this is the card Obama really anticipates playing in response to McCain bringing up Ayers at a debate. The problem is: the media just seems completely disinterested in discussing Keating. It’s old news to them. Maybe that would change if Obama slammed McCain on the scandal during a debate, but I’m not sure.
I think he’s more inclined to point out that McCain is doing this because he doesn’t have any good ideas of his own. Full stop.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Instapolls on the last debate showed that personal attacks didn’t register well with the viewers. And the whole Ayers line of attack over the past couple of weeks has been a complete dud.
So Obama should be happy to see McCain to bring it up in the debate.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:46 am
And though the S&L crisis of the 1980s is of only tangential relevance to the present-day banking crisis
It’s not tangential; it was a preview version of the one we’re in.
max
['Every element is there, including Alan Greenspan.']
October 10th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Re “And though the S&L crisis of the 1980s is of only tangential relevance to the present-day banking crisis,”
————
This is NOT True. The point is that John McCain cost the US Taxpayers $167 Billion in 1989 ( roughly $300 Billion in today’s dollars) by interfering with Federal regulators who were trying to restrain credit fraud in real estate.
20 years later we have the same type of massive irresponsibility, fraud, and theft going on — and John McCain did NOTHING to prevent it.
Which means that John McCain is a bald faced liar when he says he will clean up Washington — he’s had 26 years to do so and has allowed 2 costly trainwrecks to occur.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Oh, I’m sure some swift boat 527 can be funded to run spots a few days before the election saying Obama and Ayers jointly run a meth lab in a Chicago flophouse basement. Anything to flip 1/2 percent of the rube vote in a couple close states is worth a try.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Obama doesn’t need a “dynamite response” in Case #3. As others are pointing out, these attacks play poorly among the relevant audience for the debates, which is relatively nonpartisan undecideds. So what Obama is trying to do is force McCain to take his red-meat-for-the-base arguments and personally put them before the debate audience, with the likely backlash benefiting Obama.
But on a deeper (or perhaps more shallow) level, Obama is calling McCain a p@ssy. That is because Obama knows that the substance of all this ultimately doesn’t matter, but rather what matters is who comes off seeming the weakest in these exchanges. And in fact, McCain’s base knows that too–they are begging him to be more aggressive in the debates because they think he looks weak, which he does. But again, the trap for McCain is he can’t push this stuff in the debates without losing more support among undecideds.
In short, McCain is screwed as long as Obama stays calm but tough, because McCain simply can’t please his base and undecideds at the same time.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I think they’re going to trot out the “this is what you’re concerned about? People are losing their homes, their livelihoods and their retirement, and this is what you’re worried about?” meme. I think McCain’s about to step into a public shaming.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Every time we let the Republicans in charge, we lose a huge sector of the financial system. Hoover, S&L’s, today. I think that’s pretty god damn relevant.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Re DTM’s comments “these attacks play poorly among the relevant audience for the debates, which is relatively nonpartisan undecideds.”
————-
I think this is partly right and partly wrong. Partly right in that voters are impatient with the bitchy little snarks that don’t say anything and are a distraction.
But I think it is wrong in that voters see a Great Depression coming with the MASSIVE stock market losses we’ve seen and the lack of effect from a $1.5 Government intervention.
They will want someone’s head on the pike –and if it is not McCains then it will be Obamas. Certainly Bill O’Reilly and the other right wing propagandists are burning up the airwaves trying to pin this mess on the Democrats.
I TOLD you 2 years ago that this crash was going to happen and that the Democrats better make preemptive attacks to hang the blame around the neck of the Republicans. Else THEY would be the ones stuck with the bag of used cat litter.
But as always, the Democratic leadership is more focused on protecting the whores within its own ranks than in standing up for the common citizens. They always cut and run when confronted with battle by the Republicans.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I’m still waiting to find out how McCain’s son became a Savings Bank (ie S&L) president and what really happened with its failure.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:11 am
This has been my argument with the whole Rezko/Wright/Ayers charge of “associations.” I don’t find this a compelling reason to not support Obama. But I am prepared to accept that a compelling argument can be made that such associations do reveal character and judgment and ought to be taken under consideration.
It’s just that I feel that if that is the standard, and if we apply it equally to John McCain and Barack Obama, I would still end up supporting Obama. If the argument is Bill Ayers versus Charles Keating, I certainly wouldn’t argue that murder is less of than financial fraud, but I would argue that McCain is more complicit in Keating’s crimes than Obama is complicit in Ayers’.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Saying that Republicans should be accountable for the major failures of their past leadership is NOT a personal attack.
Saying that what politicans have done –or have failed to do — in the past is an indicator of what they will do in the future in NOT a personal attack.
Why do we let Republicans frame any criticism of them as either unpatriotic or partisan bickering?
October 10th, 2008 at 10:12 am
My republican friend has been convinced that Obama is a “radical leftist”. No facts suffice to rebut this nonsense, so long as Fox keeps repeating it.
This fear mongering is all they got left.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I’d like Obama in the next debate to turn to McCoward and say: “I’d just like John McCain and Sarah Palin to remember, while they’re calling me a terrorist and traitor and whipping their supporters into an angry frenzy, that I have two young daughters at home.”
October 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Kevin Drum hasn’t been impressing me lately. The Ayer’s connection is so fragile that I am surprised it has persisted this long. The Keating 5 incident is accompanied by pledges of everlasting support. One is much more substantive than the other.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Does Kevin’s attempt to over-game this have anyone else thinking, “Never go up against a Calpundit when death is on the line”?
October 10th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I think you should add that the exchange would go something like this:
McCain – You’re a freakin’ terrorist and I think you’re unfit to be president.
Obama – [Insert brief Ayers explanation here] Then, you’re a grumpy old man with no clue how to solve America’s real problems and you’re obsession with this non-scandal reflects how little you regard the average American voter.
This will kill McCain because a) he’s drifting toward negative net unfavorables so no one believes him anyways, b) Americans really don’t buy this scandal, c) he’s losing female voters by the busloads in part because he hasn’t demonstrated that loveable, care bear-like McCain that apparently existed sometime in 2000, even though eyewitnesses have yet to produce the video footage.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Damn you all!
John McCain is a good man!
October 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
By the way, I want these dumbass Republicans and right wing toads like Hannity to come up with a formal untouchable enemies list, one which lists each and every individual with whom tangential relations unrelated to your public policies are a death sentence for national leadership.
You print your list, and we’ll print ours.
I bet you you’re gonna lose a sh*tload of your remaining Southern and Western Republicans who have palled around with white supremacists, militia nuts, and Aryan separatists (who, by the way, have killed far, far more innocent Americans than the ’60’s violent left ever dreamed of harming).
October 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
My republican friend has been convinced that Obama is a “radical leftist”. No facts suffice to rebut this nonsense, so long as Fox keeps repeating it.
Fox is trying to break the nation in half, and their half is going to be really tiny. Pat Buchanan was smart, Fox is not.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Don Williams,
I honestly can’t figure out what you are talking about. The attacks I was referencing were the ones about Ayers, and those attacks do nothing to help McCain try to pin the blame for the economic crisis on Obama.
Now if we were talking about something like McCain’s attacks on Obama’s mortgage GSE connections, then your comments would make sense. But of course Obama has beaten the living daylights out of McCain on that issue every time it has come up, thanks to McCain having the lobbying crew for the mortgage GSEs actually running his campaign. In fact, that was all about to blow up in McCain’s face even worse than it already had when he was forced to make his disasterous “suspend my campaign” stunt.
So, I agree with you to the extent that it was crucial for Obama to lay the blame for the economic crisis at the feet of McCain. But he has already won that battle, which is precisely why McCain has been forced to switch to talking about Ayers et al, which as noted is a losing strategy anyway as long as Obama stays calm and tough.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:30 am
McCain will look like an ass when he brings this up. It’s not a real argument, it’s entirely innuendo. He’s got no actual argument here — “Senator Obama, you’re a terrorist because somebody you were on a committee with was a terrorist 40 years ago,” just will not wash. In front of a group of non-true-believers, it will sound petty, beside the point, and meaningless. Just watch the CNN lines if he tries it.
I say, win-win for Obama, whatever he does. He’s doomed.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Perhaps Mr. Yglesias would like to comment on his favorite columnists’ piece in todays’ Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100902328.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Re the Pop View
Actually, there is no evidence that Mr. Ayers killed anybody or participated in killing anybody. Not only was he never convicted of anything but he was never indited for anything.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:34 am
“I certainly wouldn’t argue that murder is less of than financial fraud, but I would argue that McCain is more complicit in Keating’s crimes than Obama is complicit in Ayers’.” (emphasis added)
Excuse me. Obama is not “complicit” at all in Ayers’ crimes, not one little bit. Even the man who prosecuted Ayers takes this position in a letter to the New York Times today.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I’m not sure they need a dynamite response. I get the impression, based on media coverage so far, that the Ayers smear has been heard by a lot more people than the “defense” against it, which is really pretty simple (lived in the neighborhood, sat on charitable boards started by Reagan Republicans and other conservative captains of industry, etc.). If McCain brings it up in the debate, Obama has a chance to answer the smear and call it what it is, a smear with no substance, in front of millions and millions of people.
Smears work best when they’re pushed by outsiders and stay just below the surface of the actual campaign. The Swift Boat attacks worked against Kerry partly because Bush never personally brought them up. Kerry couldn’t respond to Bush directly. If McCain brings them up in public, Obama gets to tell the whole story, and hammer back at McCain at the same time.
And if McCain doesn’t bring them up at the debate, they get to keep calling him a coward for not having the balls to say it to Obama in person. I think Obama’s in a pretty good position with regard to the Ayers line of attack.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:35 am
My Republican friend too was showing me some web site that has pictures of Obama in a menacing poses with text in Russian and some other foreign languages superposed on the pictures. I did not read what was written on the we site but it is clear that the right has provided enough evidence, of course false, that the ‘educated’ people can use to vote against Obama without appearing to be overtly racists or bigoted.
Here is to hoping that the Obama’s lead is large enough to negate the effect of such thuggery.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I hope the response to choice 3 is not Keating, but rather a sense that the attacks will look bad in a debate, and Obama can look reasonable in dismissing them rather than festering.
One of the few compelling parts of the last debate was when Obama demanded rebuttal time for an issue of foreign policy, and McCain smirking at the fact that this would increase time on his issue of foreign policy tried to cow him by insisting he would get a rebuttal too. Obama gave his rebuttal, McCain proudly insisted on his right to a rebuttal, but then clearly had nothing to say during it. It was McCain’s worst moment on foreign policy because his bluff was called.
(Obviously it was the dynamics that was interesting and not the content since I don’t even remember what they were talking about).
October 10th, 2008 at 10:39 am
In the light of day I don’t think any rational voter cares about Obama’s association with Ayers. It may be in Obama’s interest to address the matter directly. The contrast between Obama’s laying out the facts of the matter and McCain’s seething complaint will not serve the latter well.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Don Williams, always wrong about almost everything.
Don, the voters are, thankfully, blaming the Republicans. In my opinion, they are doing so to perhaps an even greater extent than the facts justify, but, given the horror that would occur if the genocidal madman and his sidekick Hitler in a dress were elected, combined with the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the modern GOP, I’m not going to start complaining that the GOP is getting a little more than its share of blame for the current unpleasantness.
Unrelatedly, while it’s pretty clear at this point that the recent criminal incitement (yes, I mean that literally; McCain and Palin should be incarcerated immediately for their criminal incitement to violence) is an electoral loser for the GOP, I am very concerned that it will lead to violence (and, at this point, it is clear that McCain and Palin are not merely being reckless with regard to that possibility, but are actively trying to bring it about. All I can say is this – if they are successful, I hope that the violence is repaid ten million fold. Ten million eyes for an eye.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:43 am
In the light of day I don’t think any rational voter cares about Obama’s association with Ayers.
They’re not enough. Obama needs a majority.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Tyro,
The undecided emotional voters don’t care either. They are freaked out by the economy, and don’t have the room to be freaked out by Ayers.
Heck, even the nutjobs at the rallies don’t REALLY care about Ayers–McCain and Palin had them at “Hussein”.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
It’s probably considered out of bounds, but it should be noted that McCain’s initial foray into politics was bankrolled by a former bootlegger & convicted criminal. Also, a personal friend & mentor of McCain’s once tried to have a reporter killed because of a story he was working on.
I’ll assume McCain’s father-in-law has & has had a lot more influence on McCain than Ayers has had with Obama.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
And really, people: If Bill Ayers is so bad, how has Commandante Bush not clapped him in irons, sent him to Guantanamo Bay, and waterboarded the guy? Why does he walk free on American streets, free to pursue the education of our nation’s precious youth. I mean…W.T. F.???
October 10th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I certainly wouldn’t argue that murder is less of than financial fraud, but I would argue that McCain is more complicit in Keating’s crimes than Obama is complicit in Ayers’.
I think it’s really important to point out that Ayers never murdered anybody. The only people who died because of the Weather Underground were three of their own in a botched bomb making game. After that happened, Ayers and company “went underground” and started to do these ridiculous “safe bombings” where they would call in bomb threats, get the buildings evacuated, and then maybe blow up their m80s. They were pretty damned weak-ass terrorists.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:23 am
C’mon, the wingosphere spent weeks if not months obsessed over the possibility that Obama faked his own birth. If he could do that at age zero, just imagine the malefaction he could commit from thousands of miles away at age eight!
October 10th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Charles Krauthammer says Obama’s association with convicted felon Tony Rezko provides “a significant insight into character.” What about McCain’s association with his mobbed-up convicted felon bootlegger father-in-law?
October 10th, 2008 at 11:29 am
The Keating thing just doesn’t seem to gain traction in the media. After the initial reports on the documentary and website that the Obama put up, it seems to have gone out of circulation. I don’t really see any columnists writing about it.
Contrast that to the Ayers allegation. It’s so well-orchestrated – Palin mentioned it first, then McCain, pretty soon Fox is talking about it like 24/7, then conservative columnists, it’s like a floodgate opening. Republicans just seem a lot better at this attack business, and they have been for years. It’s like everybody falls in line and attack once the talking points are distributed. I know, I know, there are exceptions like David Brooks, Ross Dhoutat etc, but even those folks at NRO are selling this line of bullshit, and I just find it hard to believe that people like Rich Lowry actually believe in their hearts of hearts that Obama is a terrorist or radical. And that makes it worse; they don’t even have ignorance as their excuse, just blatant, manipulative cynicism.
That’s my dilemma, though – I don’t think I want Demcorats to sink to this level, yet I can’t help feeling a little worried that this might actually work. They are running with the Ayers thing now, plus the ACORN voter fraud registration stuff and the illegal donation stuff, and all 3 things are all over the news. I know a lot of people are saying that oh, it will never work, people will see through it etc etc, but I don’t think we should be too confident of that.
Meanwhile the Keating thing just seem to disappear. Where are the follow ups on that? Most of the time, I believe it is a tribute to the left/progressive/liberal (whatever you want to call it) ideology that people who identify as such do not act just as a shill for Democrats, as those on the right seems to for the Republican. But this one time, I really, really, wish we have more people carrying water for the Democrats. I want to read op-eds in major newspapers hitting McCain on Keating, his temper, his judgment etc etc. I just feel like we are being too relaxed because of the poll numbers and Obama can still actually lose this thing. And seeing the vision of America that McCain and Palin have shown they would this last week, I’m really, really scared. If he wins, the next four next could be worse than the last 8 years. Can you imagine that?
October 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Josh Marshall says the real story here is McCain’s moral cowardice, which struck me as a bit harsh:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/223116.php
October 10th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I think that you guys are reacting to this Ayres stuff on a pretty absurd level. Ironically, the smartest reaction on this comes from the sane conservatives. This stuff isn’t getting any traction among the undecideds, and it won’t get any traction. It doesn’t need a substantive response.
What it really, really concerning about this – and, again, some of the people who seem to “get” this the most are the sane conservatives – are (1) the very real risk of incitement to violence, and (2) the long term damage to our polity, as already huge and disturbing divisions in our society are being exacerbated.
THAT’S what we should be talking about, instead of navel gazing about the relative “merits”, or lack there of, of the Ayres attacks vis a vis the Keating attack.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am
By the way, McCain is very much trying to paint Obama as being complicit in doing something nefarious with Ayers. His latest ad says Obama “worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied.” No further explanation. His previous web ad started: “Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They’ve worked together for years. But Obama tries to hide it.” It goes on to imply the Annenberg Foundation is some sort of radical front organization.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Hopefully Obama’s response will be very simple: put up or shut up.
McCain’s attacks rely on what is not known, not on what is known. McCain doesn’t know s*it, but keeps implying that he knows something.
This is a key feature of the attack, because no matter how much anyone tries to answer it, answers only tend to support the original attack: Obama is hiding something. We don’t know enough about this secret relationship.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I think it’s a very effective way of undermining two parts of McCain’s narrative: first, the “Straight Talk” – if he’s for straight talk, why can’t he say it to Obama’s face ? and second, the idea that McCain is exceptionally courageous – Biden’s formulation makes it particularly clear that smearing someone behind their back and not saying it to their face is the behavior of a cowardly punk, not even a regular guy, let alone a hero.
In that respect it’s a subtle variant of the “bitch slap” theory – if McCain isn’t tough enough to have it out with Obama face to face, how’s he going to deal with Putin or other genuinely hostile leaders ?
It’s also win-win in that the connection with Ayers is so thin and so innocuous that it means nothing. The Wright affair was considerably more dangerous to Obama – and he dealt with that head-on with his terrific race speech.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I think bringing up G. Gordon Liddywould be better — he’s had fundraisers for McCain, McCain’s been on his radio show. And Liddy’s advocated the assassination of Federal law-enforcement officials — and is, in the word of the day, unrepentantabout it.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
What’s Obama’s “card”? Easy, he just repeats what he’s already said. And gives a date to every time he’s said it. Expose McCain’s point as a contrivance and McCain as a demagogue. Quietly and directly, without apology and almost without counter-accusation.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“So what Obama is trying to do is force McCain to take his red-meat-for-the-base arguments and personally put them before the debate audience, with the likely backlash benefiting Obama.”
Yes! The big thing about this Ayers thing is that people are pretending that Obama refuses to answer questions about the issue, when he’s actually spoken to it before and would speak to it again. But Obama bringing it up randomly is playing right into their trap–get the candidate to publicize the smears against him. Unfortunately many Americans are so paranoid that an unrebutted rumor seems *more* plausible to them because they heard it through the grapevine and the person that the rumor refers to is not on TV right now in front of them explaining all away. “I just heard that Obama is a Muslim on an email and now I turn on the TV and Obama refuses to respond!”
They know McCain doesn’t like to throw out these tawdry things in a debate. And Obama has about a dozen devastating reponses.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
How long before McCain just asks, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
October 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
@#44 no, don’t bring up Liddy. Instead, bring up McCain serving on the board of a neo-nazi organization in the 1980’s, and failing to disclose it as required (Congresspeople are required to disclose posts they hold).
October 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
“I think bringing up G. Gordon Liddy would be better”
The irony of Liddy is that he’s *too good* an example to bring up–people have accepted him into decent society, to book deals and movie deals, to such an amazing extent that even though he’s completely frank and unrepentant about his crimes, it would be hard for anyone to get outraged about it. The guy’s buddies with Al Franken, for heaven’s sakes. And yet there’s really nothing that distinguishes him from Ayers, except Ayers was largely accepted by leftists and liberals in a certain part of Chicago, whereas Liddy was tolerable if not beloved to everyone who’s anyone in DC and Hollywood.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I don’t even think Keating is the main response. McCain has acted in support of anti-semites, overt racists, people who have shot abortion doctors, central and south American death squads, a major donor and backer of McCain just happens to be the guy who put Obama and Ayers on his charitable board together in the first place, his running mate is symnpathetic to and married to a secessionist, Palin believes in witch-hunting, literal actual witch hunting, and that’s just what I can think up off the top of my head.
I would be very, very disappointed with Obama if McCain tries this little stunt, and all Obama counters with is *yawn* Charles Keating. McCain and Palin are more closely associated with far, far more radical people than Bill Ayers.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
good god – Ayers is just tinder for anyone who has issues with Obama. It’s nothing that will convince the undecided that’s why they use it at partisan rallies and not at the debates.
However, by the next debate, McCain may decide that since he won’t win he needs to solidify his base for his future power with the party. If that’s the case, he may very well play this card.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
While the following is implicit in what I said earlier – it’s really blindingly obvious. If McCain brings Ayers up at the debate – a huge mistake he almost certainly won’t make – the response is both obvious and devastatingly – a variation upon Obama’s current, correct, devastating response – that Ayers is solely an attempt to change the subject from the economy, which would be insulting to the voters in the best of times, but, given the current crisis is incredibly irresponsible and displays a lack lack of leadership which by itself should disqualify McCain from the office he seeks.
Now, that devastating response should probably be accompanied with a short substantive response, but that response is trivially easy and almost irrelevant. The response probably shouldn’t be accompanied by references to Keating, Liddy, etc., because that would undercut the primary response. Which isn’t to say that those associations shouldn’t be brought up in other contexts, by surrogates and/or 527s.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
“Say it to my face” means “I’m not afraid of your accusation and there’s nothing to it.” It confronts the accusation directly and defuses it.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
If this Ayers strategy can be made analagous to the infamous Wiilie Horton attack, the MSM might bite on that analogy and a huge political gain might be realized
October 10th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Not only has nobody tried to make the case for Obama’s involvement in Ayers’ radical activities, but more importantly the charges were dropped against him and he was never convicted for any crime!!! Why is this not being mentioned left, right and center?
Because it doesn’t make a difference in this country. Keating was sentenced to time in prison for a crime that McCain was directly involved with.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Keating is pretty weak stuff compared to the Alaska Independence Party. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Obama hasn’t yet thrown this back in Palin’s teeth as a primetime ad, unless he’s saving it to spring on McCain in the debate. It would be utterly devastating.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Matt, what you fail to realize is that Bill Ayres is still a terrorist. Therefore, Obama maintaining an ongoing association with an admitted terrorist. In fact, he’s probably going to appoint Ayres Minister of Propaganda or Education Secretary as we call it here.
McCain, OTOH, has confessed his K5 sins and he’s repudiated his confession–really covering his bases–and therefore K5 is indeed ancient history.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
And on and on you guys go. I’m really glad, in a way, that I self identify as a libertarian these days rather than as a liberal – you guys really make me tired. I’m not going to repeat myself, except to say that the fact that self described liberals and progressives seem to be taking the Ayres nonsense MORE serious than does the average non-ideological swing voter speaks volumes.
On a related topic, ALL of these conversations parsing how certain events, issues, arguments, are going to effect the election are increasingly irrelevant. I am not of an optimistic temperament by nature (for example, aside from a brief moment when the exit polls suggesting an improbable upset, I never believed for a moment that Kerry had a chance), but, barring the proverbial live man or dead woman being found in bed with Obama, this election is over. I realize that the typical progressive/liberal has been too beaten down by the politics of the past generation to realize it, but presidential candidates don’t come back from the kind of deficit that McCain is facing with 3 1/2 weeks left under the best of circumstances, and the circumstances (including a brain dead McCain campaign that seems to be pinning its hopes on inspiring a crazed lone gunman) couldn’t be worse for McCain.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
McCain is associated with Bush, who is an unrepentant failure.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Actually, Matt, I think the reasoning is quite simple. I think McCain gets mad at the mention of Keating, and don’t think that McCain will take it well in person. McCain talks about Ayers to Obama, Obama responds with Keating and McCain, and I don’t know what McCain will do. The nightmare for McCain is that he loses his temper, on stage and live TV and calls Obama out using some four thru six letter words.
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April 16th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Good evening. Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
I am from Iran and now teach English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Indigo a leading domestic indian airlines which offers always cheap affordable, on time and hassle free operation at the low cost, discount airline tickets.”
Best regards
, Elvin.