McCain on Ayers

John McCain continues to run ads and robocalls linking Obama with William Ayers. Chris Wallace on Fox News, of all places, points out that McCain hired the same firm for these robocalls that slimed him in South Carolina in 2000. McCain claims that they are different, that the Ayers ads and robocalls are true. In this clip, note a contradiction in McCain's position. He claims that he doesn't care about Bill Ayers, but that he thinks that the American people should know what Obama's relationship with him is, and that Obama has not been clear about that. But if he doesn't care about Bill Ayers, why does he care about Obama's relationship with him?

McCain is technically correct that the robocall is true: Bill Ayers was involved with bombings in the US. But the implication that Obama somehow approves of that behavior is ridiculous: Obama has repeatedly condemned them. For most of us, that stuff is long in the past.

But for McCain, they're not in the past. McCain is still very much stuck in the '60's. Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground when McCain was a POW. That's how he sees this issue: while he was sacrificing for his country, Bill Ayers was committing acts of treason. Most of the rest of the country has long since moved on. We've dealt with the legacies from the '60's in a lot of different ways. We've sorted out the good - civil rights, feminism, Jimi Hendrix - from the bad - LSD, protests that went too far, communes that fell apart.

McCain cannot and will never forgive someone like Bill Ayers for what he did during the '60s. Protesting is presumably fine; as a Senator, he's subject to vitriolic disagreement from his constituents all the time. But using violence in politics, particularly against the Pentagon and Capitol, are unpardonable for McCain. This is why he sees a big difference between the attacks on him in 2000 and his Ayers robocalls. The attacks on him questioned his character and attacked his family. His attacks on Obama about Ayers are, literally, about patriotism and whether someone loves or hates America. He thinks Bill Ayers hates America, quite literally, and all of the arguments about water under the bridge, rehabilitation, etc. have no meaning for him. For him, once a domestic terrorist, always a domestic terrorist.

Here's the video:

Obama on Clark on McCain

Apparently the kerfluffle over Wesley Clark's comments about John McCain still has some people all hot and bothered. We really are in a slow news environment, aren't we? Where's a good teenybopper starlet mental breakdown when you need it? Aren't we in the middle of two wars? Has the weather done anything seriously weird recently? Isn't there ANYTHING that can distract the press from this?

Barack Obama, fortunately, has his priorities straight:



Actually, I have to make a distinction. The actual comment from Wes Clark was not that big of a deal, and Clark made it clear that he has a great deal of respect for John McCain and his record of military service. But it does touch on a larger issue, which is the relevance of John McCain's personal story for his campaign to be president. That's a serious issue, but it's gotten the rapid-fire "gotcha" treatment from the press.

This is a great reminder of Michael Kinsley's dictum that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. John McCain is clearly a courageous man, and in the interview with Bob Scheiffer, Clark made it clear that he considers McCain a personal hero. But what he said is technically true: being shot down is not a qualification for being president. Demonstrating courage while a POW and being tortured is indicative of his bravery, which is relevant for being president. But being shot down in the first place was an accident, and being the victim of an accident, however unfortunate, is not indicative of any personal qualities. You don't do anything when something happens to you.

So: being in an accident: not relevant for presidential aspirations. Surviving said accident with extraordinary courage and dignity: highly relevant.

I actually think McCain missed a great opportunity here. I think he could have said that Clark was right, and that being shot down does not qualify him to be president, and that he's not asking people to vote for him for president because of that, but because of his ideas and his character. I think McCain could have scored major points for honesty with that.

But he didn't, and that speaks to a larger dynamic within this campaign. Talking Points Memo put together a montage of right wing pundits on TV blowing this way the hell out of proportion. You can see it here; I don't want to post it on my blog. All of the right wing commentators rushed to McCain's defense, defending his aggreived sense of honor. Given that they were going to do that, McCain had no other option but to claim to be offended. I think McCain is trapped by his own story. Blowhard conservatives are going to use any excuse to claim that liberals are somehow attacking or dishonoring the troops. McCain just about has to go along. If he doesn't participate in perpetuating the idea that liberals don't support the troops, etc., etc., right wing pundits are going to be either confused or furious at him. I think McCain could have scored points not only for honesty, but also for humility, if he had made the distinction that I made above: that being shot down itself is not an act of heroism. But then no one in the press would have been able to feast on this controversy.

What's gotten lost in all of this is that Wesley Clark is one of the highest ranking military officials on the public scene. The man was Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. He was wounded in Vietnam and waged war in Yugoslavia. He's a Rhodes scholar who was valedictorian of his class at West Point. His comment was, as Obama said, "inartful," but he also went out of his way to praise McCain's record of military service. Anchors at Fox News are not going to get to him. He has an impeccable record of supporting the troops - he WAS one of the troops for most of his life. I don't think he's going to back down, and I don't think he should.

Another part of this that has gotten lost is that this is a dispute between two military men. If Clark had said this within the military, I think everyone would automatically understand that Clark respects McCain's record, but that that does not make him immune to criticism, because everyone in the military is serving their country. Clark's problem is that he did not make this comment in the mess hall at Fort Knox. He made it on national television.

This is one of the great taboo subjects of this race. To what extent does John McCain's unique status as a POW and victim of torture qualify him to be president? He's clearly a man of great personal courage, which, for many people, is reason enough to vote for him. But for others, that is not enough. American voters have the right to decide whether or not to vote for McCain based on his war hero record. They have the right to decide that that is not enough. Which is exactly what Wesley Clark was saying.

Fox News and the Baby Mama drama

I try not to write too much about Fox News, because I just have very little interest in paying much attention to it. But lately, they seem to be getting themselves in trouble. The latest brouhaha, over the use of the term "Obama's Baby Mama" to describe Michelle Obama, requires a response.


Here's a good description of the problem:

In addition to being insulting, the phrase "baby mama" is also inaccurate. The Urban Dictionary defines "baby mama" as"the mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved."

However, I should note that Fox has apologized. Credit where it is due.

“A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment,” Fox's Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said in a statement to Politico.

I'm a firm believer in applying the principle of innocent until proven guilty, so I try not to pass judgment unless the evidence is clear. But the evidence this time around is strong. This was not a slip of the tongue. Someone had to make a conscious decision to put this on the air. And they clearly thot that they could get away with it. I don't want to try and figure out what the rationale was. I do think, however, that there may be a generational divide:

A Fox staffer said that others internally were bothered by describing the potential first lady and very accomplished women — as the senator's "baby mama."

I'm going to assume that the people who were bothered by this were younger people, who grew up a little more sensitive to these issues. As an Obama supporter, I try to believe in the possibilities of forgiveness and understanding.

What I have not seen mentioned is that Fox seems utterly clueless about the double standard of applying this to a black woman. Would they ever use the term "baby mama" to describe Laura Bush? Or Nancy Reagan? Or Barbara Bush? Or Rosalyn Carter? No.

So here's a suggestion for commentators, conservative or otherwise: if you are wondering about the propriety of using a particular term to describe Barack or Michelle Obama, try to imagine using it to describe Ronald or Nancy Reagan. Then you won't be subjected to damning ridicule.

That "terrorist fist-jab"

In this campaign, one quote keeps running through my mind. From Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock,"

"What mighty contests rise from trivial things"

I swear, one of these days we are going to hear about somebody finding something ominous and potentially terrifying and unAmerican in the way Barack Obama crosses the street. We currently have a mini-controversy (or mini-mini-mini-controversy) about how Michelle and Barack did a fist pound last Tuesday, as they embraced on stage. Seriously. Someone on Fox News, apparently completely unaware of any recent developments in American culture, went on the air to wonder if this was a "terrorist jab." Joe Scarborough, who is a former Republican representative in Congress, had a great deal of fun with this on his show on MSNBC. This is how ridiculous it's getting - a former Republican is making fun of Fox News.

Go to this page on HuffPost to watch the video on Morning Joe. It even has Ali G interviewing Pat Buchanan. God bless competition among news programs. Every now and then idiots are made to look like idiots.

Obama on Fox News

I didn't watch Obama on Fox News, but I caught excerpts on Talking Points Memo and Huffington Post. I've heard some people, notably Kos, complain that Obama is legitimizing Fox News by appearing on it, and that all they're going to do is spin his comments and make him look bad. So they see it as a net negative - Obama doesn't get anything out of it, and Fox has footage that they can manipulate for their own purposes.

Too bad. He did it, and I think he was fine. I like the fact that he started out joking with Chris Wallace, and the questions and answers that I saw were thoughtful on both sides. It highlights the fact that Obama is serious about this post-partisan new kind of politics. There is one thing about Obama that many people on the left don't appreciate: he isn't afraid of Republicans or conservatives, and he's confident in his ability to win some of them over. Going on to Fox News is a good way of doing that. Some of the people watching him will see a human being with a sense of humor that listens and thinks and doesn't fit the stereotype of the old-fashioned liberal. And then some of them will think he's trying to pull the wool over their eyes, and will find reasons not to like him. But if he didn't go on Fox, he wouldn't reach those people who are willing to listen to him.

And I think Obama understands something about Fox that many people don't. This is mostly conjecture on my part, but my guess is that Fox is not a monolithic corporation dedicated to one cause. Corporations, even ideologically defined and determined ones like Fox, have a lot of different people in them, and those people do not necessarily agree with each other, or even with the company they work for. And even the agenda of the organization as a whole can be fluid. If Obama actually does become president, Rupert Murdoch might want something from his administration. Murdoch is not Rush Limbaugh; he's conservative, but he's first and foremost a businessman, and a very good one. Pushing a conservative point of view has been a good way for Fox to make money, but if the agenda interferes with the money, Murdoch will go after the money first.

I think Obama probably won a few voters, and convinced a few more to at least consider listening to him. And he neutralized some of the attacks on him.