The Teflon Senator?
Jan 24, 2007 Filed in: Politics
Obama Says He's Ready to Run, Right Wingers Start
Slinging Mud.
Throwing foul-smelling dreck at Democrats is an old
stand-by for the Right Wing Hate Machine, but with
the junior senator from Illinois, nothing seems to
stick.
The Radical Right fires its first shot across the bow
of Obama’s presidential campaign
It hasn’t even been a week since Illionois Senator Barack Obama announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee but already the Radical Right is hard at work. You get the sense that the right wing hate machine of the likes of Karl Rove is more afraid of Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton. Maybe that’s because Clinton is so much more familiar to them, and they know what they’re working with. Plus, Senator Clinton, before she even announced her intention to run for president, has the unique position among the candidates of already being hated by a substantial portion of the country. But with Obama, the machine isn’t quite sure what to make of him. What better way to find out than fling a bunch of crap and see if it any of it sticks.
According to the Karl Rove doctrine of divide, divide, divide again, then conquer, a typical smear campaign is composed of two parts: First, arouse fear among moderates with horrifying-sounding but difficult-to-refute labels, ie, Liberal, Soft On Terrorism, Tax And Spend, the same ones that have been kicking around since Ronald Reagan’s first election in 1980. Second, go after their strongest point and turn it into a liability. Thus, from 2004, John Kerry was a Tax and Spend Massachusetts Liberal, and Oh by the way, here’s some guys who served in the military with him who say he was a cowardly glory hound and didn't deserve his medals. So there, in one nice neat package, they stuck him with a troublesome label that he had to fight back against, and they took away any ammunition he might have tried to use against the draft-dodging George W. Bush.
Obama’s lack of visibility prior to two years ago makes him a harder target. And even the Radical Right knows that, as much as they would like to, they can’t go after him for being black, not overtly. So they have to work below the surface: He’s not like you, he’s different, he’s frightening, etc. Thus: Oh my Lord, he’s a radical Islamist, can you imagine what would happen if we had someone who sympathized with the terrorists in the White House? Lordy lordy. Next, undoubtedly, they'll go after him as a crack smoker, a thief, any stereotype they can come up with, hoping it will arouse closet racists to fear and thus not vote for Obama.
Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, as he states in his bestseller The Audacity of Hope. Insight Magazine, a monthly version of The Washington Times, began this smear campaign with the wildly false accusation that Obama attended a “madrassa” as a child, the implication being that in his early years he was schooled in radical islamic doctrine, and by implication a “madrassa” (also commonly translated as madrasah) is nothing short of an Al Qaeda training camp. This shocker was immediately picked up by, who else, Fox news. Great story for the Right Wing, except that it’s not true. Even better, it's not sticking.
The word “madrasah” is just Arabic for school. In modern times, it is used usually to refer to a univeristy-level program of religious studies. In certain regions of the world, notably Pakistan, madrasahs are gathering points for students and radicals who hate the West, some of the most notorious in Pakistan receiving financing from the Saudis. (But the Right Wing can never criticize the Saudis, because they are so closely connected with the Bushies.) The usual complaint about madrasahs is not that they teach students to build bombs, but that their methods of behavioral control are too strict. Many stories have come out of corporal punishment routinely used in some schools. But corporal punishment, sadly, is doled out just as readily at all of the other schools in those same areas, a fault of the local culture more than the particular school. In any case, the Jakarta, Indonesia school that Obama attended as a 6-year old child is still in existentence, and anyone who wants to know what kind of a place it is can hop a plane and find out. Fox and Insight had no interest in the truth, but CNN did, and found that it was and is a public school with no particular religious bend, and its students are of many faiths. In an additional attempt to get the most mileage out of this Right Wing hatchet job, Insight attributed the story to a source within Clinton’s campaign, probably hoping to get Clinton and Obama to start attacking each other.
Amazingly, none of it stuck. Clinton didn’t take the bait. Mainstream reporters (CNN, AP, among others) actually checked the facts, found them false, and reported them as such. The smear campaign was shot down as quickly as it was started. Where were these same reporters when all sorts of accusations, lies, and slander were being tossed around about Al Gore? And Obama, taking a lesson from Gore and Kerry about what happens when you don't fight back, fought back swiftly and decisively. What is it about the Illinois senator that, so far, makes him immune to this type of negative campaigning? Here’s a guy who won 70% of the vote when he was elected in 2004. Seventy percent! Politicians running unopposed don’t get 70% of the vote. True, his opponent was the irascible Alan Keyes, but luck seems to follow Obama like children following the Pied Piper. How long that luck can hold out is anybody’s guess, and having failed in their first character assasination attempt agaist Obama, the Radical Right will no doubt regroup and come up with something even worse to try next, but Obama seems to have a sheen not seen in the Democratic party since JFK. Whether that sheen can last until Novermber 4, 2008, remains to be seen.
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It hasn’t even been a week since Illionois Senator Barack Obama announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee but already the Radical Right is hard at work. You get the sense that the right wing hate machine of the likes of Karl Rove is more afraid of Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton. Maybe that’s because Clinton is so much more familiar to them, and they know what they’re working with. Plus, Senator Clinton, before she even announced her intention to run for president, has the unique position among the candidates of already being hated by a substantial portion of the country. But with Obama, the machine isn’t quite sure what to make of him. What better way to find out than fling a bunch of crap and see if it any of it sticks.
According to the Karl Rove doctrine of divide, divide, divide again, then conquer, a typical smear campaign is composed of two parts: First, arouse fear among moderates with horrifying-sounding but difficult-to-refute labels, ie, Liberal, Soft On Terrorism, Tax And Spend, the same ones that have been kicking around since Ronald Reagan’s first election in 1980. Second, go after their strongest point and turn it into a liability. Thus, from 2004, John Kerry was a Tax and Spend Massachusetts Liberal, and Oh by the way, here’s some guys who served in the military with him who say he was a cowardly glory hound and didn't deserve his medals. So there, in one nice neat package, they stuck him with a troublesome label that he had to fight back against, and they took away any ammunition he might have tried to use against the draft-dodging George W. Bush.
Obama’s lack of visibility prior to two years ago makes him a harder target. And even the Radical Right knows that, as much as they would like to, they can’t go after him for being black, not overtly. So they have to work below the surface: He’s not like you, he’s different, he’s frightening, etc. Thus: Oh my Lord, he’s a radical Islamist, can you imagine what would happen if we had someone who sympathized with the terrorists in the White House? Lordy lordy. Next, undoubtedly, they'll go after him as a crack smoker, a thief, any stereotype they can come up with, hoping it will arouse closet racists to fear and thus not vote for Obama.
Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, as he states in his bestseller The Audacity of Hope. Insight Magazine, a monthly version of The Washington Times, began this smear campaign with the wildly false accusation that Obama attended a “madrassa” as a child, the implication being that in his early years he was schooled in radical islamic doctrine, and by implication a “madrassa” (also commonly translated as madrasah) is nothing short of an Al Qaeda training camp. This shocker was immediately picked up by, who else, Fox news. Great story for the Right Wing, except that it’s not true. Even better, it's not sticking.
The word “madrasah” is just Arabic for school. In modern times, it is used usually to refer to a univeristy-level program of religious studies. In certain regions of the world, notably Pakistan, madrasahs are gathering points for students and radicals who hate the West, some of the most notorious in Pakistan receiving financing from the Saudis. (But the Right Wing can never criticize the Saudis, because they are so closely connected with the Bushies.) The usual complaint about madrasahs is not that they teach students to build bombs, but that their methods of behavioral control are too strict. Many stories have come out of corporal punishment routinely used in some schools. But corporal punishment, sadly, is doled out just as readily at all of the other schools in those same areas, a fault of the local culture more than the particular school. In any case, the Jakarta, Indonesia school that Obama attended as a 6-year old child is still in existentence, and anyone who wants to know what kind of a place it is can hop a plane and find out. Fox and Insight had no interest in the truth, but CNN did, and found that it was and is a public school with no particular religious bend, and its students are of many faiths. In an additional attempt to get the most mileage out of this Right Wing hatchet job, Insight attributed the story to a source within Clinton’s campaign, probably hoping to get Clinton and Obama to start attacking each other.
Amazingly, none of it stuck. Clinton didn’t take the bait. Mainstream reporters (CNN, AP, among others) actually checked the facts, found them false, and reported them as such. The smear campaign was shot down as quickly as it was started. Where were these same reporters when all sorts of accusations, lies, and slander were being tossed around about Al Gore? And Obama, taking a lesson from Gore and Kerry about what happens when you don't fight back, fought back swiftly and decisively. What is it about the Illinois senator that, so far, makes him immune to this type of negative campaigning? Here’s a guy who won 70% of the vote when he was elected in 2004. Seventy percent! Politicians running unopposed don’t get 70% of the vote. True, his opponent was the irascible Alan Keyes, but luck seems to follow Obama like children following the Pied Piper. How long that luck can hold out is anybody’s guess, and having failed in their first character assasination attempt agaist Obama, the Radical Right will no doubt regroup and come up with something even worse to try next, but Obama seems to have a sheen not seen in the Democratic party since JFK. Whether that sheen can last until Novermber 4, 2008, remains to be seen.
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