Here's John McCain's Deputy Communications Director and official campaign blogger, aging frat boy Michael Goldfarb, being called out on the latest smear the Straight Talk ExpressTM is trying to peddle:
More from the Goldfarb Files of Fail here, here, here, here, and here.
(h/t: Twin, via email)
[Added] And.
7 comments:
What does it say about the McCain campaign that they now have this guy doing interviews? This is the first time I've seen him in this role since he joined the campaign. Maybe I've just missed his other appearances.
As Atrios said earlier today on his blog, it was wrong of Rick Sanchez to accept the premise that Khalidi is anti-Semitic.
And as Atrios also said earlier today, "If I were [Rashid Khalidi], I'd be calling my lawyer and filing a defamation suit against McCain."
Khalidi really should do that.
I have the sense that Goldfarb was sidelined for a while after some earlier fail, but I'm not sure. I'd also be willing to bet that his mien is not really the image the McCain handlers want on TV -- that stupid face and manner of speaking are not going to appeal to anyone except those other dumb white boys who are already firmly in McCain's camp.
Don't know anything about Khalidi, so I can't speak to the charge of anti-Semitism. Whether he is or not, it's hard for me to imagine how this would be the kind of thing that a court wouldn't just roll its eyes at. For better or worse, it's awfully hard in the US to make slander or libel charges stick for name-calling.
It seems like it would be nice, from a tactical point of view, to think about trying to derail McCain for a day by (making a fuss about) suing him, but at this point, I think it would be bad from the POV of getting Obama elected. It would just pour gasoline on the fire for the wingnuts who are already howling that Obama is going to shut down free speech.
Well, yeah. Khalidi would only do it after the election. And McCain would have to have actually violated the law to be prosecuted successfully. Calling him anti-semitic wouldn't be enough; I'm assuming there's more than that.
Good John Judis (sp?) video at TPM. I'd post it in the forum if I wasn't already actually about 97% sleeping.
I saw the ass earlier today in this CNN piece you post. At least he is self-aware enough to be embarrassed (if I'm interpreting the look on his face correctly as he kept saying "I think we know who we're talking about").
By the way, do you think there was no one in his muddled head, or maybe it was Farakan and he either couldn't come up with the name, or realized that saying it would indeed be slander since there is no evidence that Obama ever "palled around" with him? Whatever the case, he came off about as badly as a campaign rep can possibly manage, though Tucker Bounds has made a few valiant attempts to top him.
Twin said elsewhere he thought it was Jeremiah Wright that Goldfarb had in mind. That had not occurred to me when I first watched -- I thought Goldfarb was just trying to bluster his way out of having no name at all -- but it sounds like a good guess to me. Remember that in the last desperate attempt to maintain a shred of honor in the McCain image, his campaign has been "leaking" on a weekly basis that "McCain won't let us use Wright."
Farrakhan is a good guess, too. More plausibly for the anti-Semitic charge, certainly. But it didn't look like Goldfarb couldn't come up with the name to me; it looked like more like he just didn't want to say the name he had in mind, and I don't know why they'd be afraid to say "Farrakhan."
Except that it would be stupid, but when has that ever stopped them?
Maybe I've been watching too much Sarah Palin, but y'all are missing the code language at work here.
Goldfarb is a fat, dumpy, beta male shlumpus with a Jewish last name. Sanchez is a good-looking aggressive alpha male with a Catholic name on the attack.
Guess what image this invokes. We (actually, just Florida Jews) are intended to understand who the "second anti-Semite" is, the goy in Obama's corner, just itching to label Goldfarb as a neoconservative...or worse.
Still don't know? I'll give you a hint. Watch the video again and pretend that the guy on the left is speaking German.
Sometimes the real message is hiding in plain sight.
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