Posted on 03/24/2008 3:24:13 PM PDT by poinq
. . . In GOP circles, the incendiary video clips of Obama’s former pastor are seen, not surprisingly, as a gift that will keep on giving. And indeed, the furor around them has caused Republican strategists to rethink their preconceptions about whether Obama or Hillary Clinton would be a more formidable general-election opponent against John McCain. “Once, there was a clear impression that he would be tougher,” a senior McCain adviser tells me. “But, after these past few weeks, I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
On a microcosmic level, Obama’s handling of the Wright imbroglio will give rise to accusations of dissembling. The Friday before the speech, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t in church when any of those sermons were issued … I had not heard him make such, what I consider to be objectionable, remarks from the pulpit.” But in the speech itself, Obama declared, “Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.”
Now, it’s true that you can parse these statements so that they are not strictly in conflict. Yet the fact that Obama and his campaign have thus far refused to specify what inflammatory sermons he did witness raises a red flag. And to Republican ears, the apparent inconsistencies and revisions ring familiar bells. As Pete Wehner, who ran the Office of Strategic Initiatives in George W. Bush’s White House, observed last week, “This story, which seemingly changes in every retelling, is beginning to resemble nothing so much as Bill Clinton’s evolving explanation about his draft notice.”
Of course, Obama’s refusal to disown Wright presents an even larger target—and one that dovetails perfectly with the campaign that the GOP was already planning to wage against him. “There will be two fundamental issues,” a top Republican operative told me over lunch a few weeks ago. “First, that Obama is way too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief, which is an argument that not only polls incredibly well but has the virtue of being true. And second, that he’s too liberal.” When I asked if that meant an attempt to turn Obama into the new Mike Dukakis, this strategist replied, “That’s right.”
When most of us recall the Dukakis campaign, what we remember (beyond that picture of the governor in a tank, looking like Rocky the Squirrel) is Willie Horton. But equally devastating was the insidious way that Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes managed to turn a pair of related trivialities—Dukakis’s membership in the ACLU and his veto of a bill that would have required all Massachusetts schoolchildren to recite the pledge of allegiance—into damning indictments of the governor’s patriotism.
Which brings us back to Obama. The hard guys of the Republican Party have no intention of trying to paint the hope- monger as a closet black nationalist. They intend to portray him as insufficiently allegiant to his nation. They will weave together Wright’s “God damn America” with Michelle Obama’s statement that this is the “first time” she has been “proud of my country,” Obama’s eschewal of the American-flag lapel pin, and a piece of video that captures him standing at a campaign event without his hand over his heart during the national anthem. And, in fact, a trio of right-wing activists have already thrown together a video doing just that: For a picture of what the fall campaign will look like, just go to YouTube and type in “Is Obama Wright?”
Obama knows that this is coming. He has his answer ready: that a lot has changed in twenty years; that voters want to move past the kind of politics that “uses patriotism as a cudgel”; that they are burning, yearning, to declare, as he put it in his speech last week, “Not this time.” One hears him say these sorts of things and hopes, audaciously, that he is right. Then one sees the Republicans licking their chops and fears that he is not.
Actually it was re-gifted from Hill and Bill
How many more videos from the last 20 years are out there?
Obama, truly, is the worst of the two between himself and Hillary. As my grandmother used to say, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
Some of us were observing not so very cynically on Day One that the biggest effort in the press would be not to investigate this little stinker but to blame it on the Republicans. Good to see Heilemann has his marching orders.
Those around here who are anti-Sean Hannity: note well that he has been welcoming the B.Hussein Obama candidacy for a long long time, and stating he would be an easy candidate to defeat.
ODumbo is a supremely flawed candidate, a leftist extraordinaire, who will be easily defeated by any GOP candidate who choses to fight him.
Well, the only reason they have "preconceptions" is because they're all such typical white guys.
I was wondering a few days ago when the Dems would start calling this ‘swift-boating’ and blame it on the VRWC.
Speaking of Bill Clinton’s draft notice: Has anyone ever seen proof that Barack Hussein Obama registered for Selective Service (aka “the draft) as he was required to on his 18th birthday? All males born after December 31, 1959 are to register. It is, I believe, a felony not to register and exempts the individual from many federal benefits. It would also play into the “Obama isn’t patriotic” theme.
http://www.sss.gov/PDFs/Who%20Must%20Register%20Chart%20Fit%20page10_07.pdf
“Swiftboating” aka “Vicious Truthing” or “sliming with facts” or somesuch.
As the leftist radicals always say, “Speak Truth to Power baby — Truth to Power.”
The problem for Obama is that most of these speeches on youtube didn't happen 20 years ago. So far it looks like most of them happened during his children's lifetime and he subjected them to it.
Put away the popcorn ... get out the Toaster!
Congressman Billybob
“Then one sees the Republicans licking their chops..”
Run Obambi run!
Great question. Inquiring minds want to know; could be a winner.
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