October 21, 2008

10/21: Joe Steps In It

Conservative bloggers are having a field day with Joe Biden's recent remarks, in which he predicted that if Barack Obama is elected, "we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy". Righty bloggers are describing Biden's comments as a "mega-gaffe" that destroys whatever benefit Obama may have received from Colin Powell's endorsement. Matt Lewis mockingly praises Biden for "making a compelling case for why Obama should NOT be president," while Hugh Hewitt predicts that Biden's remarks will become "the focus of the American electorate for the next two weeks." However, it's unclear whether Biden's ill-advised remarks will have a significant impact when so many Americans are focused on the economy.

Liberal bloggers, meanwhile, are slamming John McCain after his campaign manager Rick Davis declared that "they are reconsidering using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as an issue in the last two weeks of the presidential race". Davis suggested that Rep. John Lewis had opened the door to the Wright issue by comparing the atmosphere at McCain's and Sarah Palin's rallies to the atmosphere at George Wallace's events. Liberal bloggers are describing Davis's rationale as "ridiculous" and are arguing that the McCain camp is trying to pre-emptively justify the use of "race-baiting" tactics. However, most liberal bloggers aren't too worried about the prospect of the McCain camp bringing up Wright, since they believe that such a move would not work and would look desperate.

BIDEN: Gaffe-tastic!

Conservative bloggers are mocking Biden after he predicted that if Obama is elected, "we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy":

• NRO's Rich Lowry: "Biden: Obama's Inexperience Will Prompt International Crisis. That's reassuring."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "So according to Biden, by voting for McCain, you'd be sparing the country this manufactured international crisis."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "I was under the impression that Biden's job was to reassure American voters to go with the exceptionally inexperienced natsec pick. Not to let them know that he was going to not only be tested right off the bat, but that he would probably flunk."
• Michelle Malkin: "Keep talkin', Joe. God bless ya for telling the truth about your running mate's dangerous inexperience."
• Townhall's Lewis: "Wow! Joe Biden is making a compelling case for why Obama should NOT be president."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "On the very same day he told us that Colin Powell should have ended all questions about Barack Obama's national security bona fides, Joe Biden comes along to tell us precisely why we should be scared of Obama as commander-in-chief. [...] Well, golly, if Obama is so untested that we will have a series of international crises -- at the very time we are in a financial meltdown -- which will make the Cuban Missile Crisis look like a walk in the park, shouldn't we vote for the other guy who will keep all the miscreants in their place?"
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Joe Biden continues to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Barack Obama. In a stunning statement, Biden acknowledged that Obama's lack of foreign-policy experience will provoke America's enemies into creating an international crisis. [...] Isn't this an argument for electing someone with more experience? Why should we elect a man who will embolden our enemies and push us to the brink of disaster? Biden seems convinced that electing John McCain will make our enemies abroad much less sanguine about provoking us -- which is one of the best arguments yet heard for electing McCain."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Biden has now topped himself, as only Biden can, with a gaffe that constitutes a timely warning that deserves wide notice among the voting public."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Here's Joe Biden making a 'gaffe,' which in D.C. terms means that he's accidentally telling an embarrassing truth: there are nations in the world that don't like America and they see Barack Obama as a weak, naive, wet-behind-the-ears empty suit whom they can easily manipulate and intimidate. Incidentally, they're probably right about that."
• Townhall's Hewitt: "Senator Joseph Biden made remarks yesterday which should be the focus of the American electorate for the next two weeks (when they aren't considering the implications of Senator Obama's desire to 'spread the wealth around,' and the reliability of Senator Obama's promises measured against his spectacularly broken pledge to accept public financing.) [...] When even Joe Biden tells you what is going to happen under a President Obama, there's no way to deny the reality of the defeatism and retreat represented by a vote for Obama-Biden."

MCCAIN: Going Back On His Promise?

Liberal bloggers are criticizing the McCain camp after campaign manager Rick Davis said that "they are reconsidering using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as an issue in the last two weeks of the presidential race":

"Look, John McCain has told us a long time ago before this campaign ever got started, back in May, I think, that from his perspective, he was not going to have his campaign actively involved in using Jeremiah Wright as a wedge in this campaign. Now since then, I must say, when Congressman [John] Lewis calls John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire group of supporters, fifty million people strong around this country, that we're all racists and we should be compared to [ex-AL Gov.] George Wallace and the kind of horrible segregation and evil and horrible politics that was played at that time, you know, that you've got to rethink all these things. And so I think we're in the process of looking at how we're going to close this campaign. We've got 19 days, and we're taking serious all these issues."

• Ezra Klein: "Is anyone surprised that in the final weeks of the race, when they're trailing by 5-10 points, the McCain campaign is 'reconsidering' their refusal to make an issue of Jeremiah Wright? And why wouldn't they? What could be more mavericky than first adopting a principled refusal to deploy Jeremiah Wright then reversing course and using him as part of a straightforwardly racist effort to close the gap in the final days of the election?"
• Booman Tribune's Steven D: "McCain wants us to seriously believe that his Rev. Wright attacks will all be the fault of Rep. John Lewis, because Lewis called McCain out for his demagoguery and his deliberate (or at the very least grossly negligent) attempts to incite anger among his supporters? Who's the Patriot, John? Where's the man of honor? Because from where I sit, all I see is one more power hungry, nasty, 'play to people's fears rather than their hopes', greedy, little politician with a bad temper [...]. And all the Joe Non-Plumbers in the world can't save you from who you really are: a dirty, race baiting scumbag."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "These dudes are worthless. Calling them Nixonian would be a compliment, because they're not even good at running the [Richard] Nixon game. Please, no BS about how McCain's heart isn't in it. Whatever. I so want them to go there. And throw in the drugs while they're at it. I want these dudes to throw the whole book at Obama, and then I want him to bury them. This isn't about a hatred of McCain, it's about my utter and complete disgust with Northern Virginia not being the 'real Virginia,' with small-town American snobbery, with neo-red-baiting, with Obama monkeys, and Obama bucks. End this now. Let's close this chapter -- not because it will be the end of our problems, but because we have huge actual problems that we should be fighting over."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Why did Rep. John Lewis have to go and make the honorable John McCain start race-baiting?"

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "John Lewis never said [that McCain supporters are all racists]. He said that the atmosphere at several Palin-McCain rallies was reminiscent of the camp followers of Wallace. And Lewis was right. Using John Lewis as a reason to unleash another round of thinly-veiled racism and guilt by association would, however, be a fitting end to the McCain campaign. And to his entire reputation, or what's left of it."

MCCAIN II: Too Little, Too Late

Several liberal bloggers believe that bringing up Wright two weeks before the election would do little to help McCain and may even backfire:

• MyDD's Josh Orton: "Let's set aside the ridiculous notion that Rep. Lewis forced the McCain campaign to consider malicious race-baiting. More fascinating is that Davis is telegraphing this smear before it happens. Negative AND inept. And boy did the competitive primary help Obama -- now that everyone knows about Wright, there's not a reporter around that would see such tactics from McCain as anything but desperate."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I think if McCain reverses course on this now, it's likely to backfire. First, everyone in America has already heard all about Wright -- voters who are going to base their vote on the former pastor of Obama's former church decided a long time ago not to support Obama. Second, the more McCain tries to move the campaign away from the economy, the more he cedes the one issue most on the minds of voters. And third, pivoting to Wright in the final two weeks would reek of desperation, reinforce the 'erratic' meme, and shrink McCain's stature at the very moment he needs the opposite. I wouldn't be especially surprised if the Obama campaign hopes McCain does go this route."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "I find the idea that they've been holding back from this out of a sense of virtue a little non-credible. Rather, they presumably haven't been talking about Jeremiah Wright because it's not clear what they're going to say about it. When Hillary Clinton brought this up, her main point was that (a) this was an electoral vulnerability that the Republicans would exploit and (b) Obama didn't have a track-record in big-time politics that showed he could handle the attacks. Neither of those, however, can actually be the point of a McCain attack. With, say, Willie Horton, the point was that [Michael] Dukakis was soft on crime. With Wright the point is...what?"

MCCAIN III: Uniquely Sleazy?

Marshall calls the McCain campaign "the dirtiest and most dishonest campaign" of the past 35 years:

"I don't think there's any question that McCain's is the dirtiest and most dishonest campaign, certainly in the last 35 years and possibly going much further back into the early 20th century. You may say, wait, Willie Horton? The Swift-boat smears? What about those? But here's the key point, one that is getting too little attention. President [George W.] Bush's father didn't run the Willie Horton ad. And this President Bush, however much they may have been funded by his supporters and run with Karl Rove's tacit approval, didn't run the Swift Boat ads. These were run by independent groups. Just how 'independent' we think they really are is a decent question. But even the sleaziest campaigns usually draw the line at the kind of sleaze they are wiling to run themselves under their own name. In this case, though, the kind of toxic sludge usually run by one-off independent groups in very limited ad buys makes up virtually all of McCain's presence on TV. Even setting aside this distinction, McCain's campaign has charted new territory in deliberate lying and appeals to racism and xenophobia. But this distinction itself is too little recognized."

Benen agrees with Marshall: "Josh's point about independent groups getting their hands dirty so the candidates don't have to is important, but I'd add that one of the factors that amplifies the sleazy nature of the McCain campaign is its willingness to jump from one detestable attack to another. [...] Obama's a rookie. That didn't work? OK, he's a 'celebrity.' That didn't work? How about, he's a partisan Democrat who won't stand up to his party. Nothing? All right, he's insufficiently supportive of the troops. Or he's a pervert who wants to bring sex-ed to kindergarteners. Or a terrorist-sympathizer. Or he's a socialist. All the while, the subtext of McCain/Palin rhetoric vacillated between Obama's race, patriotism, and/or being 'foreign,' but it's never come together in a coherent way. I labeled all of this 'pinata politics' back in August, hoping to capture McCain's habit of appearing blind-folded, swinging a bat wildly in every direction. The effect, though, has been the same -- by struggling to come up with a consistent line of criticism, and ratcheting up the hate and fear whenever one line of attack failed to move the needle, McCain's position as the sleaziest candidate in a generation is secure."

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum thinks George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign was just as sleazy as McCain's: "Yes, the Willie Horton ad in 1988 was officially an independent expenditure, but the 'Revolving Door' ad was very much a Bush-Quayle production. Lee Atwater promised to make Horton a household name, and he did just that. Bush Sr. spoke about him frequently in speeches. And [Michael] Dukakis's patriotism was a major theme too, as the Bush campaign hit him over and over and over about his stand on the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact, I'd say 2008 is a surprisingly faithful replay of 1988. On the Republican side it's been sleazy, it's been issue free, and its biggest feature has been a young, attractive, unqualified, base-pleasing conservative vice presidential choice. The big difference is that Obama is a better candidate than Dukakis and 2008 is a far more Democratic year than 1988. On the sleaze-o-meter, however, I think it's pretty much a draw."

Meanwhile, several liberal bloggers are denouncing McCain in particularly harsh terms:

• Atrios: "I've never been a fan of John McCain. I never had a mancrush on him as most of the 'liberals' in the media once did. But there was a time not all that long ago when I thought that a McCain presidency would at least be a marginal improvement over the Bush presidency. Now I believe it would be much, much worse. [It's a] frightening prospect."
• Drum: "I was never a fan of McCain, even in his 2004 semi-liberal incarnation, but I did have at least some respect for his positions and his character. As Republicans went, especially compared to the sad sack crew they put up for the presidency this year, he wasn't too bad. But now? If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pull the lever for either McCain or Bush, I'm not sure who I'd choose. [...] Compared to McCain's barely suppressed rage and erratic, free-form bellicosity, the 2008 model George Bush almost seems like a statesman. It takes a very special talent to make people like Atrios and me come to that conclusion. John McCain is obviously a very special talent."

OBAMA: After The Bank Bailout, GOPers Have The Nerve To Play The Socialism Card?

Many liberal bloggers think the McCain camp is demonstrating hypocrisy by accusing Obama of advocating "socialism":

• dday: "It is remarkable to see McCain play the socialism card on Obama, days after voting for a $700 billion dollar bailout of the banks and the largest government intervention of the last 100 years. The institutional memory doesn't even go back three weeks anymore? Furthermore, he characterizes Obama's refundable tax credits as 'welfare,' neglecting the fact that his own refundable tax credits, the centerpiece of his entire health care plan, which go to the same low-income members of society who supposedly 'don't pay taxes,' are not welfare but 'reform'."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "The appropriate response to any Republican who calls Obama a socialist after eight years of Bush and after listening to McCain's own proposals is outright ridicule. Laugh in their face. Mock them. They have zero credibility, and the word socialism no longer has any meaning, at least not in American politics. That the Republicans still have not realized this on the very day that [Fed Chair] Ben Bernanke is on the hill advocating more spending in order to stimulate the economy is just extra precious."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "If John McCain wants to accuse someone of being a socialist, he needs to start with George Bush. [...] Given what's happened over the past few weeks, McCain's attack rings hollow."
• Yglesias: "Not that anything about the current 'socialism' rhetoric is meant to be taken seriously, but isn't the closest thing to socialism on the American policy agenda the status quo situation in...Sarah Palin's Alaska? You have collective ownership of valuable natural resources that generates lots of revenue for the state, and then the government makes 'spreading the wealth around' through the Permanent Fund, etc. its main priority. It's actually, for all the flaws of Alaska politics and public policy, a pretty good system. But I think the best way to think about it is that it's an example of a somewhat special case in which socialism is a good idea. Of course another time where you need a dose of socialism is if, for example, there's a financial system emergency and the government needs to partially nationalize large banks in order to recapitalize them. But that's been brought to us by George W. Bush with the support of John McCain."

In a separate post, Cole writes: "Over the past few years, we have watched major corporations dump their pensions and move hundreds of thousands of people off private health insurance on to medicare and medicaid at the government's expense (Delta Airlines comes to mind, I believe United was another one from the 2005 PBGC mess), we have doubled the national debt and passed the MASSIVE prescription drug plan, we have watched the government nationalize several industries, the government is currently nationalizing the banks, the Republican party candidate is proposing spending near a half trillion dollars allowing the government to buy private mortgages, and the right wing is running around screaming 'SOCIALISM' because Obama is proposing increasing the top tax rates a few percentage points. That is funny. Sad and depressing, but funny."

Conservative blogger Ross Douthat doesn't think this line of attack is particularly effective: "For a week or so now, I've been listening to smart conservatives suggest that Obama's 'spreading the wealth' remark might really, really hurt him...and I have a question: Hasn't Obama been promising to spread the wealth throughout the entire race -- a race he seems to be winning at the moment? His signal domestic-policy proposals are 1) a series of tax cuts and tax credits aimed at Americans making less than $250,000 a year and 2) a big-ticket health care reform aimed at expanding coverage; both of these plans, he promises, can be paid for with tax hikes on the richest 5 percent of Americans. This agenda isn't a big socialist secret; it's more or less the basis of his campaign. I suppose it's possible that the 'spreading the wealth' turn of phrase throws the redistributionist aspect of Obama's agenda into relief in a way his campaign promises haven't. But it seems to me like a generic restatement of a message that's central to the Democratic campaign: Namely, that the rich haven't paid their fair share under Republican rule, and that people making over $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes so that most Americans can pay less, to the IRS and in health-insurance premiums."

OBAMA II: The Prince Of Welfare?

Many conservative bloggers are arguing that Obama's proposal to cut taxes for 95% of Americans will result in welfare for Americans who don't pay income taxes. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel recently made this argument:

"...Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he 'cut' zero? Abracadabra! It's called a 'refundable tax credit.' It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as 'welfare,' but please try not to ruin the show."

• NRO's Cliff May: "OK, so we all know that taxation without representation is a form of tyranny. But as Kimberly Strassel and others have been pointing out, '40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes.' What if, not implausibly, in the next administration that number rises to 51% or more? At that point, the majority of Americans not paying taxes would elect leaders who decide how much the minority must fork over to the government -- to be redistributed to the majority through government programs and services. A majority of American would enjoy representation without taxation. This is probably not a form [of] tyranny that [Thomas] Jefferson, [James] Madison, [Benjamin] Franklin et al. envisioned."
• NRO's Andy McCarthy: "Cliff, I actually think it's exactly the form of tyranny the Founders feared. As an increasingly sizable majority pays no taxes, the minority's representation becomes ever more illusory. The minority will be taxed, its property rights will be eroded, and it will have no meaningful say in the matter. A tyrant is a tyrant, whether he's a king or a block-voting majority of dependents. As Obama and his ACORN friends used to say when he was a community organizer signing up half of Chicago, 'It's a power thing.'"

Liberal bloggers are rebutting this argument by pointing out that "a worker can be a 'taxpayer' whether or not they owe any income tax". Obsidian Wings' hilzoy writes: "How can you cut taxes for people who pay no income taxes? Magic? Welfare? Or maybe -- just maybe -- people who pay no income taxes pay some other kind of tax. I know, I know: how could there be any sort of tax other than the (federal) income tax? I have heard that in distant lands there are strange, exotic taxes, like the 'sales tax', the 'property tax', 'state and local income taxes', the 'capital gains tax', 'use taxes', 'permit fees', other fees, the 'severance tax', the 'occupational privilege tax', the 'estate tax', the 'gift tax', the 'federal excise tax', and even the fantastically named 'generation skipping transfer tax'. But surely we have no such outlandish customs here! We who live in a country that has only one sort of tax, the federal income tax, can only stare in wonder at those benighted countries where people actually pay taxes whenever they buy a shovel or realize capital gains. Oh. Wait."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is Sarah Palin The Right's Howard Dean?

The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini:

"I'm rooting for Sarah Palin, and in temperament she is nothing like [Howard] Dean. But she is situated similarly politically, and this is worth exploring further. Howard Dean emerged when the Democratic Party was in full capitulation mode. Dean was the only semi-sorta-mainsteam candidate who said 'no' on Iraq. This in-your-face style galvanized the Democratic base, but party mandarins gasped. Dean couldn't have been more different in style than the 'seven dwarves' running against him.

The party elite seemed vindicated when Dean self-destructed. But a little over a year later, Dean was elected DNC Chairman with surprisingly little fuss. How was this comeback even possible? Whatever Dean's faults, there was a sense that the party elite had bankrupted itself by running a series of poll-tested me-too triangulators. Dean's easy victory at the DNC was the precursor of the grassroots' long-term victory over the elite, culminating in the evisceration of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Does any of this sound familiar? And who seems to be the flashpoint in this elite-grassroots war currently raging in the GOP? Like Dean, it's Sarah Palin. [...]

Sarah Palin's legacy as the VP nominee will matter inordinately in defining the Next Right. If the experience is seen as a constructive one (much like Dean), reminding us that it's possible to get regular activists excited about being Republicans again, that Barack Obama ain't the only one who can pack the arenas, and injecting a positive vibe into the GOP at the grassroots level, then I am optimistic about the GOP bouncing back. If instead the lesson of Palin is that we need to pick safe, uninspiring candidates (who will get utterly clobbered by Obama's $1 billion+ re-election campaign, btw) who don't offend Christopher Buckley, then I fear we are in for a long winter indeed."

LEST WE FORGET: You Know the Paper Doesn't Actually Go Through the Phone Line?

From Overheard in the Office:

Boss (giving papers to peon): Would you please fax these for me ASAP?
Peon (taking papers): Sure thing.
Peon (faxes, brings back papers): Here you go.
Boss: I thought I told you to fax these!

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 21, 2008 01:45 PM