“Confronted with reality, and the growing realization that they’d been caught blatantly lying to the media and the public, McCain campaign aides apologized yesterday for deliberately manufacturing a fictional smear. No, no, I’m just kidding. Confronted with reality, the McCain campaign continued to lie yesterday as if they hadn’t been caught orchestrating a massive scam.”
—Cutting the legs out from under McCain’s Landstuhl smear - The Carpetbagger Report
August 2008
July 2008
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“Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry.”
—new wording of Prop 8, as rewritten by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown
“In early 2003… I said something stupid on Tim Russert’s cable TV show—reluctantly saying ok, we should proceed with the attack. It was the only statement I made in favor of the war and I quickly came to my senses—but that’s no excuse. We have lost more than 4000 Americans, tens of thousands have come home grievously injured, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and wounded, and we are weaker, palpably and morally, as a result. I am not going to make the same mistake twice.”
—Joe Frickin’ Klein
“For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.
The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said. They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival’s patriotism.” —McCain Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence - washingtonpost.com
The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said. They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival’s patriotism.” —McCain Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence - washingtonpost.com
The most effective anti-smear message of the campaign - The Jed Report →
jedreport.com
One of the big challenges with defending Barack Obama — or anyone else, for that matter — against false, viral smears is that the last thing you want to do is to inadvertently reinforce the smear.
In late June, Professor Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton (mindgeek at Daily Kos), penned a New York Times op-ed describing how debunking falsehoods by repeating the falsehoods can in fact strengthen the original falsehood. Consequently, the best way to spread the truth is by leading with the truth to debunk the smear. For example, emphasize that “Barack Obama IS a Christian” instead of saying what he is not.
Today, Ben Smith posted a new mailer from AFL-CIO aimed at debunking several of the most prominent smears against Barack Obama, and it is by far the best effort I’ve seen during the entire campaign to combat the smears.
As you can see, instead of answering each smear in the negative, the mailer instead poses questions that can be answered positively. In this fashion, the flier is reinforcing who Barack Obama actually is instead of who Barack Obama is not.
“What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?”
—Monica Goodling, to Justice Department interviewees
“McCain launches an attack; Obama says the attack is false. Maybe reporters could help cut through the rhetoric and let voters know the truth? Well, they could, except the truth has a liberal bias.”
—When a presidential campaign gets caught lying, it should be news - The Carpetbagger Report
“We are in the midst of a political movement to concentrate private wealth into fewer and fewer hands while at the same time placing more and more of the burden for public expenditures on working people. If that sounds like half-baked Marxian analysis… well, shit, what can I say? That’s what’s happening. Repealing the estate tax (the proposal to phase it out by the year 2010 would save the Walton family alone $30 billion) and targeting “entitlement” programs for cuts while continually funneling an ever-expanding treasure trove of military appropriations down the befouled anus of pointless war profiteering, government waste and North Virginia McMansions — this is all part of a conversation we should be having about who gets what share of the national pie. But we’re not going to have that conversation, because we’re going to spend this fall mesmerized by the typical media-generated distractions, yammering about whether or not Michelle Obama’s voice is too annoying, about flag lapel pins, about Jeremiah Wright and other such idiotic bullshit.”
—It’s a Class War, Stupid: Election season will be packed with distractions, but the real issue is a matter of life and death | The Smirking Chimp
“This is of the most-prodigious mysteries of the gamer soul. Theoretically, we love multiplayer games because they offer a dramatic alternative to our shades-of-beige meatspace lives. They let us cast off our mundane existence and become a colorful, empowered hero. And what do we do with this second life? We behave like obedient workers in a Soviet collective outside Stalingrad, circa 1971. Comrade, your job is to collect potatoes. For seven years. We pay $20 a month for this privilege. What the hell is wrong with us?”
—Back to the Grind in WoW — and Loving Every Tedious Minute
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“Ask yourself how you’d feel about working for a corporation where the CEO doesn’t know how to use a computer. No matter how smart, someone who can’t open a web page, type a letter on a word processor, or compose an email message, is going to be fundamentally out of touch with the daily experience of every member of the knowledge economy.”
—Note to John McCain: Technology Matters
