Obama Campaign Out of Control on Completely Outrageous Ad to Hispanics
Will the media roundly condemn this outrageous ad? Will the media condemn it as fanning the flames of racism? This from ABC:
Obama's ad features a narrator saying: "They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with…the intolerance…they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."
The screen then shows these two quotes from Limbaugh:
“…stupid and unskilled Mexicans”
—Rush Limbaugh
"You shut your mouth or you get out!”
—Rush Limbaugh
The narrator then says, “John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote…and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain…more of the same old Republican tricks.”
First of all, tying Sen. McCain – especially on the issue of immigration reform – to Limbaugh is unfair.
Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it’s unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn’t particularly care for McCain.
Second, the quotes of Limbaugh’s are out of context.
Labels: McCain, Obama, ObamaDishonest
posted by John Lott at 9:07 PM
5 Comments:
"Senator Barack Obama's national press secretary, Bill Burton, accused Sen. John McCain of "cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13417.html
He's been itching to play race in this election. Remember when he pre-emptively condemned McCain for pointing out that Obama didn't look like the other presidents on the dollar bills? (he meant that they were all two dimensional of course)
I'd agree that it's unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh. In theory, at least, the candidate isn't responsible for what other partisans say in their support or against their opponents. I'd say the same thing about Obama as well.
In truth, though, I think there's probably a good deal more coordination between the campaigns and their partisan supporters than we know or is legal. I don't have any particular support for that statement, just a nagging cynicism about political campaigns.
As for quoting Limbaugh out of context? It's not a fair tactic as it's generally used to distort the meaning of the statement, but this doesn't really represent a distortion of Limbaugh's views, and I have a hard time being sympathetic, since incomplete quotes and out-of-context quotes are a staple of his show.
Dear Clark:
As Tapper said, Obama is linking McCain to Limbaugh on an issue that Limbaugh was attacking McCain on "Vociferously." What is a comparable claim that has been made regarding Obama? You imply that the McCain campaign has made similar charges, please name one.
You are again using extremely general responses that just assert your position without providing a single argument to defend it. How concretely do you believe that these are not distortions of Limbaugh's views? Both statements are really the opposite of what Limbaugh believes and Tapper explains why that is true in detail.
If you read my comments, you'll see that I'm pretty much in agreement with Tapper. Even Tapper doesn't really go into detail about Limbaugh's views or leap to Limbaugh's defense or make a strong argument that it's not representative of Limbaugh's views... he's stating that the quotes are out of context... that it's a tactic to distort the meaning of the original statement, and I agreed with him. Tapper's blog is much more focused on whether it's a fair characterization of McCain's position.
And whether Limbaugh opposed McCain's position "vociferously" or not, what I said was "the candidate isn't responsible for what other partisans say in their support or against their opponents."
For an example of how the opposition has tried to link Obama to attacks that didn't come from him or his campaign, look at the reports about Sarah Palin's fundraising letter. (http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Sep04/0,4670,CVNPalin,00.html)
According to various reports the letter said "the Obama-Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain," even as her spokeswoman said that the campaign was not responsible for the smears.
I'm a little curious as to your phrasing... You say: "You are again using extremely general responses that just assert your position without providing a single argument to defend it." (emphasis added) I don't think that's at all an accurate characterization of my posts. I've expressed my opinion here and there, but when I've attempted to engage in serious discussion, I think I've offered plenty of citations where needed. I think it's fair to have a certain expectation that people that are going to engage in a serious political discussion have some familiarity with the arguments and evidence on all sides of an issue. And I also don't think that a political discussion has to be a fist fight. I've been disappointed here plenty of times, but I still think that it's a worthwhile exercise to try to talk about the issues.
I thought one of the criticisms of George W. Bush from the right was that he was, like most Texans, too friendly to Hispanics and too eager to accept "undocumented immigrants" (in particular offering amnesty to illegal aliens).
I am reminded of the punchline of the Non-sequitor cartoon: it's always election year in Hell.
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