MoveOn.org has a new ad out that beats on the McCain "100 years" meme. For some reason, they don't want to allow it to be embedded, but it is up on YouTube. Watch here.
Update: They've removed the no-embed restriction. Here it is:
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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2 comments:
(reposting, apologies for dups if any)
I'm a bit conflicted on this whole 100 years thing.
On the one hand I can see why the DNC are running this issue against McCain. It is his major weakness at the moment, and it is certainly worth persuing. It also distracts from some of the negative Obama stories going around, and putting Iraq back on the agenda will certainly help Obama.
On the other hand the tactics are slightly dodgy. McCain almost certainly doesn't want the current situation in Iraq to continue for 100 years. So it is unfair to misrepresent his views as such.
The real problem with McCain's position is that he things it is possible to be "in Iraq" but not at war. That Iraq can magically transform into a Japan or Germany anytime before he gets impeached is just fantasy.
This is probably the correct attack vector but I guess it's close enough to the message being delivered by the DNC/MoveOn ads that it doesn't really matter.
I just hate it when candidates that I support get misquoted and misrepresented, don't want to see them use the same tactics.
Alastair:
Re: possible duplication: I've noticed that clicking "Publish" is weird on Blogger lately, too. Sorry about that. However, clicking twice doesn't seem to cause duplicate posts.
Re: McCain ads: I can see your point. In an ideal world, I would not be in favor of these ads. I understand what McCain was trying to say.
Since this is not an ideal world, here are two reasons why I do like these ads, and do support hammering on the "100 years" meme:
First, the Republicans have been playing the game like this for at least twenty years. The Democrats have tried staying above it, tried compromising, and finally tried doing nothing, for fear of being attacked. They let the right make "liberal" a bad word and worse, let liberal values be caricatured as consisting entirely of their weak points ("tax and spend," "elitist," "welfare queens," "weak on defense," "politically correct," etc.). No matter how conciliatory the Democrats try to be, the Republican attack machine never lets up.
Add to the failure of the Democrats to stand up and be different a population that is disgusted, uninformed, or apathetic, and a media that cares only about superficialities. Part of this happened for other reasons, but a large part, in my view is due to the Democrats' namby-pambyism. The end result is that the country is, and has been, in decline in any way you care to measure it. Whatever the causes, the reality is clear -- the only way to combat the right wing in this country is by beating them at their own game, by fighting fire with fire. The leftosphere has been demonstrating the effectiveness of this for a few years now -- we've got some awakening in the MSM, we've re-energized the cynical and apathetic, and we're getting big wins among the younger set.
We're also, slowly, finally convincing the country that they prefer the Democrat point of view on most issues; what remains to be achieved is to make them understand that the candidates and the policy positions match.
This McCain "100 years" thing is working in that fight fire with fire spirit, and its effective is shown by the amount of whining it is provoking from the Republicans.
The bottom line is: you can't govern if you don't win. I don't like to resort to "the ends justify the means," but the Republicans (and sheep-like populace) have left us no choice.
The second reason I like these ads is one you touched on: McCain is living in a dream world if he thinks peaceful occupation of Iraq is going to be anything like South Korea or Germany. Those countries had plenty of reason to value our presence early on and have had a long time to get used to us over the long haul. Also, they're much more similar, culturally, to the US. So, no matter how you slice it, a plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years is just plain boneheaded. Even if it worked, it wouldn't work, if you see what I mean.
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