Does McCain Speak for His Campaign When He Makes a Racially Charged Attack on Barack Obama?

[McCamy Taylor]

Get this. The John McCain Campaign took the opportunity to make a racial slur (based upon the public perception among some groups that Blacks are dishonest) while it accused Obama of playing the race card.

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me: You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's essentially the argument they're making."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said that amounted to playing "the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck." Mr. McCain concurred.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/01/race-turns-into-insult-contest/?page=2

It takes cojones to turn an accusation that your opponent is making unwarranted charges of racism into a racially charged attack. Especially when your campaign is the first one to mention race. But John “I do not speak for my campaign” McCain managed to do it, portraying the Senator from Illinois as a criminal, a card shark, just one day after this video atrocity.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/barackobamavideos/youtube/obama-celebrity.htm

Now, I don’t know what the rest of you think about this one, but I know what the creator was trying to do. It will be easier if I walk you through it. Forget the talk about “two most famous people in the world”. The two most famous people in the world are the Pope and George W. Bush. Brittney and Paris were chosen because they are the two most famous white women who don’t wear panties . Now, note the two prominently placed phallic symbols. First, something that looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (????) and then the Washington Monument. Oh man! We all knew those Black men are well endowed, but who would have guessed. That final shot of Obama has him doing the classic rubber neck as in Wow! Look at that babe! with the big booming gong or drum or some other kind of instrument that is supposed to symbolize the sound No! as in Lock up the white women! There is a Negro in town!

Now that you have read my analysis, please watch it again.

The guy who made this ad should be ashamed of himself. John McCain should be ashamed of himself. Is this a political campaign for president or a National Lampoon movie?

That was fun. Let’s try another. Let’s try “John McCain, Country First” With a punch line like that, you know that they tried to slip in some imagery designed to excite the bigots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49hC9TpP_rY

This is the one about how Obama does not go to meetings about Afghanistan or visit sick troops because he can’t take cameras, so it is mostly good old fashioned lying (which is not racially biased). But note that “going to the gym” is a euphemism for a shot of the Senator playing basketball. Bonus points for an image of Obama flashing a full set of white teeth, just like in the first video. If you do a Google image search, you will find that the racially charged caricatures of Obama always feature great big teeth even though Obama only smiles about half the time. The other half, he is trying to look serious and presidential. More on that later.

Back to the war of words. The Obama campaign has been reluctant to bring up the issue of race. The Democrats can win this one on the issues and on not being the Party of George Bush. So, the McCain campaign has been forced to interject race into the race----by falsely claiming that it was accused of racism so that it could then turn around and accuse Obama of “playing the race card” while making yet another racially tinge slur. The New York Times gets a gold star for figuring this one out. Unfortunately, the article is entitled “McCain says Obama Is Playing Race Card”. That is called Having Your NeoCon cake and eating it too .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/us/politics/01campaign.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1217567073-h7np6n4vqfllxFE9hkD1nA

And with its criticism, the McCain campaign was ensuring that Mr. Obama’s race — he is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas — would again be a factor in coverage of the presidential race. On Thursday, it took the spotlight from Mr. Obama when he had sought to attack Mr. McCain on energy issues.

The Washington Post has also been quick to celebrate the return of “race” to the race.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/content/article/2008/08/01/campaign.html?hpid=topnews

During the primary, the press was on Obama’s side. However, now the press gives McCain 50% favorable coverage and Obama only 25% favorable coverage. Does that mean that blatantly racist attacks will be permitted in a country where the press continues to regard crimes committed against Blacks as less newsworthy than crimes committed against Whites? I am not usually a gambler, but I like the odds on this one.

Here is what Dana Milbank did to earn the title “idiot”. (Let’s be accurate. He isn’t an idiot. He is a “tool”.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902068_2.html?hpid=topnews

In the latest issue of the New Republic, Gabriel Sherman found reporters complaining that Obama's campaign was "acting like the Prom Queen" and being more secretive than Bush. The magazine quoted the New York Times' Adam Nagourney's reaction to the Obama campaign's memo attacking one of his stories: "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others." Then came Obama's overseas trip and the campaign's selection of which news organizations could come aboard. Among those excluded: the New Yorker magazine, which had just published a satirical cover about Obama that offended the campaign.

Maybe Milbank hasn’t heard the sobering statistics about the media bias against Obama. Most of us would act like uppity Negroes if we knew that three out of four reporter who interviewed us were only doing so in order to find some way to take our words out of context in order to write a bad story about us.

I am not the only person who believes that the charge that Obama is too presidential when he is running for president is a racist attack. Why was that oh so dignified John Kerry never accused of trying to be more like a president than W., the Village Idiot from Texas? The answer is simple. It rubs John McCain and his redneck supporters the wrong way to see a “boy” being treated with more respect by world leaders than an old white guy. Here is Rachel Maddow on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnaKlgo9y1E

For those who like to keep up with political trivia, at 3:37 you can hear David Gregory accuse the Clintons of introducing race into the race and you can hear him claim that Bill Clinton called Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale” something that every journalist except, apparently, David Gregory now knows is not true. David Gregory is an idiot.

If you get scared at the sight of a Black man flashing his big white shiny teeth against a shadowy background with the words NO! splashed across the screen in big letters while a voice over keeps saying the word No and people chant NOBAMA! ---all this accompanied by scary sound effects straight out of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre flick and choppy editing then you will love this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiTpS4MK3D8

“Pump” about how Obama single handedly raised gas prices, dooming us all. But wait! We’re saved! Here comes the white knight! It’s John McCain! The music changes to something calming, soothing. The light becomes white and almost angelic.

Did I say “White Knight?” Something about the director’s frequent juxtaposition of a black screen with the yellow gas pumps surrounded by a heavy black border early on and then the “scary” Obama off to the side reminded me of the KKK----which just naturally makes you think of D. W. Griffith. Now, I wonder why a John McCain ad would put me in mind of Birth of a Nation ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEnt8YQsJw&feature=related

Hmmm. Maybe that is why. Look what this director studied at film school and used as his inspiration for “Pump”. Griffith creates drama by using frequent black screens, too, to suggest danger and allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. And the gas pumps are just like the squirrel from the memorable scene early in this clip. The ending of “Pump” is a bit like Griffith’s ending to the film, which you can see in the YouTube link below. All that angelic light surrounding our race savior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ-gmL_wflc&feature=related

Obama as sex god. Obama as Harlem Globetrotter. Obama as Gus from Birth of a Nation . Do you think that the press will finally notice when the McCain campaign does a commercial of the Democratic nominee spitting watermelon seeds at disabled veterans while counting the money his whores have made for him?

The John McCain campaign should be ashamed of itself. Unfortunately, his campaign is like that scene from Apocalypse Now where they come to the last military outpost before total chaos, and Martin Sheen keeps asking people "Who's the CO?" and someone tells him "Aren't you the CO?" If John McCain does not speak for his own campaign, that means that no one is in charge, so there is no accountability, no standards, no ethics, no shame. The campaign is being run on the Enron principles of Everyman for himself and If someone will buy it, then sell it . It is no way to run a company and no way to run a country.

[opihimoimoi]

1. To be Deceptive is to be Defective....Rabbit punches, low blows, groin kicks,

brass knuckles,upper cuts...the fight goes on...

Reality Vs Insanity

[PATRICK]

2. Harold Ford Jr. redux

The visuals(devoid of ANY rational content that existed to spur the Ford sex/race ads) of Brittney and Paris Hilton are trying to repeat the job done against a somewhat similar "classy" black politician.
So brutally simple everyone misses it. But then the MSM is trained to miss these easy logical constructs.

The copy of the strategy reveals both instances for what they are, but mainly the GOP feels it worked in Ford's case and will work again. Question what you will about blowback and disgust and sheer absurdity, these things are calculated for overall effect. The fact they must be shrill to dare project the "race card" on Obama is the classic misdirection of a lousy magician with frayed sleeves and moldy tricks.

It is not too difficult to see where this is going. More sex and Dems stories even though it is the GOP perverts and lawbreakers still running for office. More delving into the GOP archives for things that bump polls in the night. If I were the stalwart Dems I would dig there myself and have rapid response material and ads all ready for the inevitable raising of the classics. A loser always acts predictably or rather more predictably in leaning heavily on old stuff that worked before. By the same token, anything new is less likely to work. Were it not for the MSM dumbness and support network in intentionally and gullibly(what a bestial combination!) doing McCain's work with the least criticism imaginable his campaign would be as toast as the natural reactions of most people are and are fixed- toward an Obama victory this fall.

[autorank]

3. k*r Nice work, excellent points.

""Do the American people want to elect the world's biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an
American hero?" Celebrity wouldn't hurt in California;) (I'm a native son so I have liberties)

This is Rove playing checkers instead of chess. Pretty lame ass stuff. The people are beyond this
except those who truly will vote on the basis of race but they're lost anyway.

Three questions for your consideration:

1) The scant, barely perceptible pro Obama press period: was this a set up for the trashing of
Obama? I think so. They started up their crap while he was in Europe and are now on a roll.
Stewart's seven or eight corporate media talking head montage of insults tonight really brought it
home. The set up gives them plausible deniability, which they can play until their orders change, if
they ever do.

2) Are they so desperate that they're fixing the pre election polls against all logic?
Every time a president or presidential candidate has gone to Europe, it's the same tune from
corporate media - the inevitable bump in the polls of going to Europe on a high visibility tour.
Now Obama goes and hits it out of the park, especially in Germany, and corporate media starts its
rebound from the imperceptible (noticed by them only) pro Obama press period of hours. What's the
first tear down item on the agenda - did Obama's huge reception in Europe hurt him in the polls.
What are they smoking to allow them to believe this crap. They are so contemptuous to try to
sell this garbage.

3) Along the theme of #2, was the reviving of the "Bradley effect" the first seed in the set up
for stealing this election? It wasn't demonstrated anywhere in the primaries that I've seen,
particularly when you look at the vote count v. exit poll stats (and correct Obama up to the
exit polls that were valid). The reintroduction of "the Bradley effect" should signal both the
intent to steal this election and also a sense of desperation on the part of the McBush campaign.
They'll use that, I believe, when they feel they have nothing left but outright manipulation of
the final vote counts.

Just a few thoughts.

[Jakes Progress]

4. Woke this morning to Matt

(GE drone) Laurer grilling Axelrod over why Obama was going negative and accusing a hero like mccain of being a racist.

Obama needs someone besides Axelrod doing his pr work. He comes off as pouting. With that shock of hair combed over his forehead and the cheesy mustache, he resembles a sort of dissolute, older Hitler. Why do strategists think they need the limelight? This election is not going to hinge on issues but on public image, and we are up against the pros at GE. Gotta have a better game than I saw this morning.

[Wetzelbill]

5. Not only that McCamy, but notice how they explicitly show Obama

playing basketball and they mention "to the gym." He couldn't bring a camera so he went to the gym.

A racist tactic is to show black people being flashy, always trying to hog a camera and showboat when he should be concentrating on the task at hand. It's an attempt to make Obama look like a big-mouthed Black guy who is all show but can't live up the the strong sturdiness of the quiet humble white guy. It's why some people think blacks can't be quarterbacks in football. Here Obama is the flashy wide receiver who is mostly show, while McCain is the steady Peyton Manning who is smart, tough, humble and gets the job done.

And also, it's important to note the most predominant stereotype along with the Well-Hung Buck who is going to screw all the white women and that is the stereotype that Black men are only good for physical things. Obama can shoot baskets and go to the gym, but he doesn't even have the leadership or intellect to go visit the troops. They want you to think that Obama is the equivalent of the player who physically can do things, but that McCain is the equivalent of the coach and owner who uses his brain and know how to actually put everything together. Black people are only good for sports and physical things. They're paid to run, jump, hit etc, not to use their dumb brains. Let the smart white guy do all the thinking.

Moreover the juxtapositions to the black backgrounds and the black framing and the horror music etc etc. You have to remember we are trained to believe that whiteness is the standard for everything. Something dark is scary! Don't walk down that DARK alley. But it's down to everything, what color rice do most people eat the more nutritious brown rice, or white rice? What sells better, brown coffee filters or white ones? Which is considered better, white chicken meat or dark chicken meat? Anything dark is supposedly dirty. There is just something to it, it's not supposed to be as good. It has a filthy stigma to it, right? Even among black people, it's more ideal to have lighter skin and straighter hair. Black people often think other black people who are darker look "too African." Black children prefer white dolls over black ones. If put a black and white doll in front of a black kid and ask them which one is "good" they almost always pick white, and if you ask which is "bad" they pick the black one. It's because the idea of whiteness being the standard has been beat into our heads. If that sounds like white supremacy, well yeah, it is. We almost all have a touch of white supremacist views in us, even black people. Just the same as most men have a touch of sexism in us, because we have it all beat into us since birth. The whiteness as the standard in this country has been ingrained in us through colonialism. White Supremacy is the primary ideology of Modern Colonialism. How does Obama fit into that? Well you said it, basically. The white status quo don't like the idea of this guy being president, he doesn't really know his place. They may not come out and say racist stuff, but you know it jerks their chains. Especially when you have a perfectly good old white guy ready to be president too. Obama shouldn't be president, because that makes him the standard, he shouldn't beat McCain, because someone inferior shouldn't beat the white standard.

But he will beat him. And these guys are crazy over it. It throws their whole belief system out of whack.

on edit:
This is a must watch video, it shows the black kids and the dolls thing I mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fEy0q6yqc

[Lilith Velkor]

6. I recently saw a film in which a White Knight went bad

so a Dark Knight had to stop him.

[demokatgurrl]

7. No, he's speaking for himself. n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

8. If my journal is too long, TPM says the same thing in a fraction of the time

here

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/mccain_accusing_obama_of_playi.php

However, you do not get to watch all the amusing/infuriating propaganda attack ads with theirs which prove that McCain is a lying sack of shit who will do anything to become president.

And thanks to fellow DUer for reminding us that McCain did an ad in which he put Obama's face in U.S. currency to show how "funny" it would look---which means that this was what Obama was talking about and McCain knew it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6567663&mesg_id=6567663

[McCamy Taylor]

9. And NYT editorial is good, too. It covers the "dealing from bottom of the deck" smear as well.

http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/say-what-john-mccain-barack-obama-and-the-race-card/

But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.

It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.

The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

[budedis]

10. Of course the dark side will use race and fear and anything else

that they think will sway the masses. The rich bastards who own the media and everthing else cannot possible win an election without such tatics. Thanks for pointing out the greatest American phallic symbol, erected in the honor of the "father" of our country. And that good ole leaning tower is even more phallic since it started leaning before constuction was completed it is curved too, just like most real phalli (phalluses).