Joe Klein is not very happy about it and notes that at one time, John McCain could be counted on to stand up against such sludge. John Kerry defended McCain when conservatives attacked the Senator's war record in 2000. But McCain isn't just being silent on the Coris stuff. He is sending out Joe Lieberman to follow the Mark Penn advice to paint Obama as an alien.
Klein calls out McCain:
"But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the 'putting America first' front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action...you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary--and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency--what sort of country--that will produce."
It is really amazing, and says a lot about John McCain that he was outraged when this sleaze was used against him, and rightfully so, but has decided to dip into that well. Bush and Rove's attacks (which Bush told McCain were "just politics") were so over the top bad and sleazy that they make hard core political hacks queasy. Telling South Carolina white Republicans that John McCain might be unfaithful to his wife, and with a black woman? That is a level of cynicism and poison that is hard to fathom. Rove, of course, should always be remembered as someone who not only did that to McCain in SC, but also spread rumors that McCain had cracked under interrogation and betrayed his country, that Ann Richards was a lesbian, and that an Alabama Judge with a background helping children was a pedophile. There is a special spot in hell for that kind of person.
Klein says that Democrats don't normally make these kinds of attacks, that these are the realm of Bush Republicans. But I know that there are Democrats who are willing to stoop that low. Mark Penn comes to mind. According to internal Clinton camp emails, he wanted to paint Obama as foreigner and alien, and just subtly suggest that he wasn't one of us. Very Rovian. (Hillary Clinton, to her credit, pushed back--either out of conviction or pure politics. I have no idea which.)
No, it isn't that Democrats are somehow more moral than Republicans. I know far too many Republicans (and too many Democrats) to ever suggest that. But there is something wrong here, and I am not sure how to explain it. It is almost that many conservatives are so convinced of their morality, that they are completely blind to this kind of tactic when it happens to the opposition candidate. Democrats, perhaps, are more cynical and expect this kind of stuff. I don't know. This reminds me of the contradiction and paradox of Bush running as the most visible Christian politician since Jimmy Carter and yet overseeing the most unChristian policies one could imagine. He takes credit for being a Jesus supporter, but governs more like Rome (if Rome was highly incompetent, of course). And the Republican Christians focus on his Jesus part, and miss the fact that in that famous time, Bush would have been enabling the Roman attacks on Christ, and Karl Rove would have spread rumors that Jesus was gay.
It is a world that does not make sense and is not sustainable. Republicans may have to make a choice--be the party of morality and conviction, or be the party of brutality and scorched-earth tactics. There was hope as Bush's star faded, that Republicans might move away from this kind of politics. McCain's recent swing toward the awful suggests that hope was premature.
Grownup Republicans? The choice is yours.
4 comments:
As much as I like to point out that "both sides do it," I am dismayed that the Republicans seem to be doing it more in this election. I wish it were not true, but there is just too much evidence.
I wish this were an easy decision. I certainly don't want to reward bad behavior (sorry about sounding parental), but the alternative may be a candidate that doesn't resort to nasty tactics, but may want to implement policies that I do not support. In some ways, this reminds me of Edwards infidelity discussion. Can someone be a good leader and still use the tactics you describe in the original post?
I am not suggesting that the Republicans are being good leaders right now, but just trying to show what a complex issue this is.
Interesting point, Steve. I agree that it's possible to strongly oppose the way a politician campaigns yet support that same person's policy proposals.
Back in 2000, I was one of those undecided voters who was really taken with that version of John McCain. (Once he was slimed out of the primary, I was back and forth between Gore and Nader.) Now, seeing McCain wage essentially the same kind of campaign that Rove and Co. ran against him, I can't help but feel like he sold out.
Maybe I am drawing a false distinction between public and private behavior (at least in a "offense against whom" sense), but this is much more illustrative of a leader's fundamental character than a sex scandal is. As Klein suggests, there are so many real policy differences that it would be possible to run on the issues. The fact that McCain is choosing not to suggests that whatever moral, ethical, and policy principles he may have had have been sacrificed along the road to the White House.
Truly, I am not so much angry as disappointed.
I think there's a difference between the nasty tactic of giving unreasonable weight to true things (e.g. Clinton's affairs) because the public will disapprove, and the Rovian tactic of making up lies about the other candidates. I disapprove of the former, though I suspect someone could still be sleazy in that way yet be otherwise competent. But the latter is a huge red flag in my mind. If McCain and his advisers are lying to us now, what's to keep them from lying to us once they're in office and have even more power?
Being dishonest to voters or your constituents certainlly is different than being dishonest to your spouse or family, though I have a hard time trusting either.
It is unfortunate when candidates are more interested in hyperbole and superficiality, as opposed to substantive discussions on the issues. I wonder how much is them and how much is a reflection of how lazy and easily influenced some voters are.
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