As the countdown to the 2008 US presidential election hots up, everyone has stopped pretending that they are higher forms of life and expose themselves as the usual mixed bag of political ambitions.
The Weekly Standard gives this take on the 6 degrees of William Ayres:
"So Obama's campaign is saying, on the one hand, that it's unfair to link their candidate to Ayers, although he served as chairman of a group Ayers founded and attended fundraisers at Ayers home. And at the same time the campaign is sending out emails attempting to link Mark Sanford to Ayers because they have honorary titles at the same 40,000-student university? That's funny.
Obama's complaints about the unfair linkage would be more convincing if they weren't citing sources attempting to do the same thing. And those complaints would be more convincing if Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is close to Obama, hadn't offered his take on Obama and Ayers:
"They're friends. So what?"
Oliver Burkeman critiques the latest ads in The Guardian:
"Well, here's one industry sector that can't be doing too badly at the moment, despite the economic nightmare: the composers of sinister backing music for political campaign ads. Above: the McCain campaign's new TV spot, entitled Dangerous, which -- can you guess? -- quotes Barack Obama completely out of context on Afghanistan. And below, the Obama campaign's web documentary on the Keating Five scandal (in which five US senators, including McCain, were accused of improperly seeking to get special treatment for a campaign contributor whose fraud was at the heart of the savings-and-loan crisis; McCain, eventually, was officially found to have shown only 'poor judgment'). The video is a borderline hilarious compendium of thriller-movie cliches, including the well-worn "sinister vibraphone music" gambit, and the "camera shutter" sound-effect used to imply that somebody's up to something. But it's also a powerful, albeit entirely partisan, condemnation of McCain's role in the affair. As a matter of campaign tactics, though, one can't help observing that the McCain ad is 35 seconds long, whereas the Obama documentary is 13 minutes, and that one of these might be better suited to today's cable-news-driven, ultra-low-attention-span political culture than the other..."
The Weekly Standard gives this take on the 6 degrees of William Ayres:
"So Obama's campaign is saying, on the one hand, that it's unfair to link their candidate to Ayers, although he served as chairman of a group Ayers founded and attended fundraisers at Ayers home. And at the same time the campaign is sending out emails attempting to link Mark Sanford to Ayers because they have honorary titles at the same 40,000-student university? That's funny.
Obama's complaints about the unfair linkage would be more convincing if they weren't citing sources attempting to do the same thing. And those complaints would be more convincing if Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who is close to Obama, hadn't offered his take on Obama and Ayers:
"They're friends. So what?"
Oliver Burkeman critiques the latest ads in The Guardian:
"Well, here's one industry sector that can't be doing too badly at the moment, despite the economic nightmare: the composers of sinister backing music for political campaign ads. Above: the McCain campaign's new TV spot, entitled Dangerous, which -- can you guess? -- quotes Barack Obama completely out of context on Afghanistan. And below, the Obama campaign's web documentary on the Keating Five scandal (in which five US senators, including McCain, were accused of improperly seeking to get special treatment for a campaign contributor whose fraud was at the heart of the savings-and-loan crisis; McCain, eventually, was officially found to have shown only 'poor judgment'). The video is a borderline hilarious compendium of thriller-movie cliches, including the well-worn "sinister vibraphone music" gambit, and the "camera shutter" sound-effect used to imply that somebody's up to something. But it's also a powerful, albeit entirely partisan, condemnation of McCain's role in the affair. As a matter of campaign tactics, though, one can't help observing that the McCain ad is 35 seconds long, whereas the Obama documentary is 13 minutes, and that one of these might be better suited to today's cable-news-driven, ultra-low-attention-span political culture than the other..."
Of course, in keeping with a better grasp of the blogosphere's desire for information, Obama at Keating Economics has a research page which is packed with 'ain't John awful' research.
His campaigners are also salting the media with items such as: Yesterday, Mr Obama's aides pointed out the past connections Mr McCain had with a private group that supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the left-wing government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra affair during the 1980s.
Although neither man is covering themselves with glory, it is mainly John McCain who receives negative press for his efforts.
Although neither man is covering themselves with glory, it is mainly John McCain who receives negative press for his efforts.
However, the final word may yet go to the Republicans, as they wake up to the fact that Obama's email fund-raising blitz probably saw some foreigners illegally donating to campaign funds.
Fact Check.org has sent out an email which calls a plague on both their houses:
We won't attempt to assess which side is more deceitful, a task that would require subjective judgments about the degree of untruthfulness and the relative importance of each misleading statement. But, sadly, each side is correct to say the other has used false attacks.
Old Fred Daly of Currabubulla was right - he who slings mud loses ground. Both candidates are on shaky turf when they hunt for dirt.
For the latest from the candidates go to the transcript of the Second Presidential Campaign Debate held yesterday.
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