October 30, 2008

10/30: Sex, Lies, and Videotape

As one might expect, liberal bloggers were impressed by Barack Obama's 30-minute TV ad, whereas conservative bloggers (that is, the few who watched it) hated it. Lefty bloggers are describing the ad as "pitch-perfect" and "flawless". One liberal blogger thought that the ad "accomplished exactly what it needed to do: soothing skittish white undecided voters without alienating current supporters". Righty bloggers, on the other hand, found the ad "overtly manipulative" and "a bit nauseating". Several of them are predicting that it will backfire.

In other campaign news, conservative bloggers continue to criticize the Los Angeles Times for refusing to release a video of Obama praising Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 banquet. Erick Erickson claims that the video features "Obama condemning Israel" and urges his readers to call the Times and tell them to release the tape. Liberal bloggers, meanwhile, are pointing out that John McCain chaired an organization that "funded the organization Khalidi founded and served on to the tune of $448,873 in 1998". They're accusing McCain of demonstrating "breathtaking" hypocrisy by attacking Obama over his ties to Khalidi, since "McCain's connections to Khalidi are much closer than Obama's".

OBAMA INFOMERCIAL: A Home Run

Most liberal bloggers thought Obama's 30-minute TV ad was very effective:

• The Huffington Post's Leah McElrath Renna: "Although only time will tell, it appears that the Obama infomercial accomplished exactly what it needed to do: soothing skittish white undecided voters without alienating current supporters."
• Nate Silver: "This really is basically the Democratic convention compressed into 30 minutes. I think people forget that Denver was really quite a strong convention, even if it got overshadowed in the media narrative a bit by St. Paul."
• Mark Kleiman: "Home run. He should smile more, but other than that I wouldn't change much."
• BooMan: "I thought it was pretty good. I certainly don't think it will hurt."

Other liberal bloggers were really impressed by the ad:

• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "Wow, well I watched that half hour Obama spot last night, and it blew me away."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "This thing was, in my mind, flawless. To bring the climax of one of his live rally speeches into everyone's living room -- this was a homerun."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "I really want that man to be my president. No surprise, I'm committed and have been for a long time, but this still blew me away. And, my mother just called to tell me that she was got teary-eyed."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Remind me to stop doubting the Obama campaign. [...] Today's worry was that the ad was overkill, that it was unnecessary, etc. It literally bothered me all day long. But then I watched it -- and I honestly thought it was great, and even sincerely moving at times (I'm basically a sucker for stories about his mother). Like everything else they do, it was pitch perfect. It wasn't focusing on Obama (as I feared it would), but upon the struggles of working families and how an Obama administration would address them. I didn't hear the word McCain once. So I'm done doubting. I'm done saying [Obama strategist David] Axelrod needs to do this or that. My measly pundit powers pale in comparison. I'm like a rope on the Goodyear Blimp."

digby is feeling good: "If you had a chance to see the infomercial and then the Midnight Rally with Obama and Bill Clinton, then you saw what Democrats look like when they're winning. It's been a while since anyone but conservatives have been in this position and it's nice to see. They are firing on all cylinders right now, making the case with style, looking very confident. I'm always hesitant to allow myself to get too excited, but tonight I felt that glow of anticipation when you start to believe the bad guys might really be vanquished and better days might be ahead. It's heady stuff."

OBAMA INFOMERCIAL II: Terrible. Just Terrible.

Most conservative bloggers didn't watch Obama's 30-minute TV ad, but those who did were not impressed:

• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "I thought the ad stunk. It looked too staged. It felt and sounded too staged. It sounded like a cheap salesman hawking vegomatics on the Shopping Network. Promises upon promises, tear-jerking stories upon tear-jerking stories: It felt so overtly manipulative that I think it may have backfired with a lot of people. Even if it was a small net plus for Obama -- and I doubt even that -- I think the McCain campaign was probably expecting something a lot more effective than that. One other thing wrong with it was that it played into the whole Obama 'cult of personality' thing that was hurting THE ONE in mid-to-late August. Look for the race to continue to tighten."
• NRO's Mark Steyn: "The show itself was slick only in a drearily generic way. The waving wheat and music made it seem like a standard campaign commercial, only longer -- 'It's Morning, Noon And Night In America,' which is a big enough problem thanks to the media's Obama cultists without the candidate himself piling on. As for the King Barack Meets [Insert Name Of Downtrodden Subject Here] stuff, aside from the fact that I don't recognize the hellhole this country apparently is, there's something faintly ridiculous in doing it in the middle of the Phillies winning the World Series. Maybe on Super Bowl Sunday, instead of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunctioning, Obama could come out and interview people about how our entire rotten society is malfunctioning."
• NRO's Mark Hemingway: "As for the format of the special itself, aesthetically it was a bit nauseating with all the soft focus and generically uplifing music constantly swelling in and out. As for the content: I'm sorry...it's not that I don't care about those experiencing hardship -- quite the contrary -- but the last thing that should be driving America's voting habits is a half-hour of Manipulative Portraits of Downtrodden Victims of Shadowy Governmental Forces. Whatever our problems are right now, America is not one big breadline. To be fair, all politicians exploit these anecdotal cases but I think Obama's special really pushed the boundaries of my bile duct here."
• Michelle Malkin: "Gag: A slideshow of glowy, Messianic photos flashes by. Obama hugs. Obama empathizes. Obama heeeaaaaals. All hail the Lightworker. Fixer of Souls. Spreader of Wealth."

Power Line's John Hinderaker explains why he "boycotted" the ad: "No, I didn't live-blog it, I boycotted it. After all, it was paid for with money that was obtained, at least in part, through the Obama campaign's participation in criminal fraud. The least I could do was not watch it. Plus, I was pretty sure it would be excruciatingly boring when it was not infuriating."

OBAMA: Release The Tape, LA Times!

Conservative bloggers continue to criticize the Los Angeles Times for refusing to release a video of Obama praising Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 banquet (a Times spokesperson says they will not release the video "because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it"):

• RedState's Erickson: "What if the Los Angeles Times had video of John McCain toasting a known Islamic terrorist? What would the reaction be if the Los Angeles Times told everyone it had the tape, but refused the release the tape? And what if credible people who had seen the tape reported that other terrorists were in the room? This is not a hypothetical. This is actually happening. Only it involves Barack Obama. And the Los Angeles Times has admitted it has the tape."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Times' owner Sam Zell and every single editor and reporter at the paper are thus now complicit in a decision to manage the news so that voters are not informed of all that might influence their choice of president. The videotape might be as bland as skim milk, or as incendiary as even the most inflammatory Jeremiah Wright sermon, but the content doesn't matter. The paper is suppressing the news and using Orwellian language to claim otherwise. The silence from other MSMers tells us all we need to know about their commitment to the mission of getting important facts before the public."
• Hinderaker: "The Times' claim that it can't release the video because of a promise made to its source raises a number of questions. First, is there any support for the claim that such a promise was given? Is it documented in any way? Or is it something that a Times reporter made up just this week to protect Obama? Second, why would the paper's source have extracted such a commitment? The source evidently thought the event was newsworthy and wanted it reported upon. He or she gave the video to the Times. What sense would it make to give the paper the video so as to enable a news story to be written, but demand that the video itself remain secret? [...] Third, has the Times tried to persuade its source to allow the video to be made public, even in edited form as suggested above?"
• RedState's Jeff Emanuel: "Much like the Obama campaign could have nipped the lunatic fringe's obsession with his birth in the bud by simply releasing his birth certificate -- something it continues to inexplicably refuse to do -- the LAT would be best served, if this tape really is as innocuous as the public is expected to believe, by simply getting this over with and letting it be seen. Likewise, the Obama campaign would seem to benefit more from leaning on the Times to go ahead and release the tape already, so as to end the mounting speculation about its contents and prevent more fallout from the perceived coverup of this event -- if, that is, the video's contents are as innocuous as we have been led to believe. After all, they might not be, and until the LA Times and the Obama campaign deign to release the video for all to see, we will have nothing to do but continue speculating about just what it may contain that so many are so desperate that none ever see."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "I was skeptical at first that anything useful would come from it even if it was released, but now that Maverick's made an issue of it to build suspense, a clip showing The One demonstrating that first-class temperament of his by sitting there placidly while some tool recites a poem 'accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians' would be fun viewing during the run-up to Tuesday. Think of it as a proxy for the Wright attack McCain refuses to make: Same basic parameters -- Obama cuddling up to a radical whose criticism of America and its allies is a bit more fragrant than voters are accustomed to -- but safely stripped of black/white racial politics and ensconced within a defense of Israel. If the tape surfaces, you won't need to play connect the dots by bringing up Wright and [William] Ayers. Voters will do it themselves."

MCCAIN: Two Can Play The "Guilt By Association" Game

The Huffington Post's Seth Colter Walls reports that McCain also has ties to Khalidi:

"In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well. During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars. A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, 'West Bank: CPRS' on page 14 of this PDF.) [...]

Of course, there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama."

Liberal bloggers believe that McCain is demonstrating enormous hypocrisy by attacking Obama over his ties to Khalidi:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Now, just to be clear, what's wrong with McCain having directed thousands of dollars in grants to Khalidi's research center? Not a thing. As far as I can tell, no one has questioned Khalidi's scholarship or the work of the Center for Palestine Research and Studies. McCain and his cohorts, however, believe there's a lingering scandal about Obama having gone to Khalidi's going-away party some years back. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, even for them."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "All indications are that McCain's connections to Khalidi are much closer than Obama's. But if Obama's relationship to Khalidi is somehow disqualifying or dangerous, then McCain's is even more so, and reporters should ask him about it when he chooses to bring up Khalidi's name."
• Ezra Klein: "This, of course, just goes to show how absurd it is to suggest that Khalidi is some sort of radical polemicist. The guy is such a credentialed and respected scholar that even right-leaning organizations have funded his work, simply because it's good work. They may not agree with his personal conclusions, but Khalidi's scholarship gets taken seriously."

Liberal bloggers are also criticizing McCain for comparing Khalidi to a "neo-Nazi":

• Atrios: "If I were [Khalidi] I'd be calling my lawyer and filing a defamation suit against McCain."
• Benen: "For McCain to compare a going-away party for a college professor as analogous to associating with 'a neo-Nazi outfit' suggests McCain's moral compass is so irreparably broken, he probably shouldn't seek national office."
• Serwer: "Scott Horton describes [Khalidi's] work as promoting 'civic consciousness and engagement and the development of democratic values in the West Bank,' which sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Unfortunately, to McCain, it sounds like Nazism, which begs the question of why exactly he gave the group so much money, and whether McCain himself has been replaced by some kind of robot controlled by a right wing blogger in a secret compound somewhere.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What It Will Take to Build a Rightroots Movement

The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini:

"If you're a conservative blogger, the question you need to ask yourself is this. Is the main purpose of your blog to express your personal opinion? Or is its primary purpose to build political power for a cause? If you cannot answer yes to the latter, you're probably not going to be comfortable with making the changes necessary to make online conservatism a political force to be reckoned with.

This is not a criticism, but an observation. Most conservative blogs are still stuck in 2003 -- both in terms of the overwhelming focus on media criticism and punditry, and the tendency to outsource electoral politics to the Republican Party. This was in some ways legitimate response to what was happening in 2003-4, when media surrender-monkeys were undermining the War on Terror, Republicans had a kick-butt political operation, and Kos was going 0 for 16. [...]

Building critical mass behind an independent online movement on the right will probably require new people. The old blogs that have been with us since 2003 will not go away. But they'll need to be joined by people who care more about Indiana's 8th district than Islamofascism, and MN-SEN more than the MSM."

LEST WE FORGET: Poor Mets Fans

From Overheard in New York:

Pilot: We are now arriving at JFK airport in New York City, home of the Yankees.
Met fan: That's not right...(yelling) What about the Mets?
Pilot: No one cares.
Rest of passengers: (cheering)

-- Jet Blue Flight

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 30, 2008 12:38 PM