In our Dec. 11 post How Long Will The Right Let Us Love Obama, we discussed how the right consciously and over time systematically destroys Democratic and Progressive leaders.
We were prompted to write the post because of a national poll of favorability of leading politicians had just been released and Senator Barack Obama, the brightest new star in politics, was the highest ranked Democratic politician in the poll.
As we studied the poll, we asked why our other great leaders were seen unfavorably by so many? We wrote,
"With complete respect to Senator Obama, where are the long-time Democratic leaders who have dedicated their lives to the service of our country? Where are the other possible Presidential contenders? What about Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry? Where are Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid? Are they not leaders that deserve at the very least to have decent favorability ratings?
... Our point here is not whether you will vote for them, or volunteer for their campaign, or give them money, but do you, the American voting public, have a favorable impression of these leaders?
We went on to make the claim that we believe our impressions of our leaders have been negatively impacted by the right wing's $mear machine."
"This is what the machine does to Democratic and Progressive leaders. It smears, and attacks and destroys them. It leaves millions of Americans with an uneasy feeling about John Kerry or Hillary Clinton, a bad taste in the mouth, "I don't know. I just don't like him." It's emotional. It's not rational. But it is very, very real.
And it's not just these our most recent leaders. As we wrote last week, President Jimmy Carter left office virtually in disgrace. What about Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis? Are they perceived as what they really are - respected leaders who are both true American success stories? Hardly. They are perceived in the "conventional wisdom" as jokes and afterthoughts.
Those powerful negative stereotypes were carefully created by the use of brilliant marketing, coordinated messaging, virtually unlimited budgets and a complete lack of morals."
Of course, we could have added that the mainstream media in many instances actually assists the machine in the smearing under the "two sides of the story" journalism 101 mantra. But we didn't have to - in fact, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post did it for us when he called us out and mocked us, writing,
"HuffPosters Dave Johnson and James Boyce devise a novel explanation for Obama's popularity: ... Hardly ... Boy, that must be one powerful machine."
Sadly, exactly as we predicted, the rise of Senator Obama and the media attention paid to him has led directly to a rise in attacks. As the most dynamic young politician of either party to burst on the national scene since John Kennedy captured the attention of the country over forty-five years, Senator Obama is a real threat to the right. Of course, as is usually the case, the attacks were not on his record or his career - in fact their pettiness and immaturity speak for themselves.
On December 18, this appeared from a widely-read right-wing blogger,
... His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.
And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.
... So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?
About the same time, similar smears started circulating in the stealth, word-of-mouth channels. Reminiscent of the whisper-campaign that destroyed John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primaries, e-mails containing the following are circulating widely:
Essential facts ALL should know concerning Barack Obama
Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.
When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a radical Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a Muslim school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school."
Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education. Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Osama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.
Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.
Naturally this vile story isn't just spreading by e-mail. In fact, as of this writing, a Google search for 'Obama' and 'Muslim' yields 873,000 results. Of course many or irrelevant or are even refuting the smear. But scanning the first several pages of results shows websites that are almost all spreading this smear, and this indicates that a good percentage of those results probably reflect this smear. Along these lines, a search on 'Obama', 'stealth' and 'Muslim' yields over 50,000 results. And searching 'Obama', 'ideologically' and 'muslim' yields over 40,000. One result would be too many for decency.
Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?
Dave Johnson is a Senior Fellow with the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream working on progressive messaging, and a Fellow at the Commonweal Institute, where he researches and writes about the activities of the conservative movement (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
If you were talking about a person who behaved this way instead of a nation, you would say that the person had a pathological personality with a gaping character flaw and severe adequacy issues.
Well, you can say it about America, so full of itself and its self-proclaimed greatness. It reminds me of some lyrics from a song called Big Boss Man:
You ain't so tall,
you just big, that's [just about] all
American will tell you that we are the envy of the world living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. But *only* Americans will tell you this. How pathetic. You might say that these criticisms apply only to the right, but the left barely exists. So, yes, the right is our bad angel, but our good angel is languishing on life support.
by
Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 at 9:39:25 AM
While this article accurately depicts the RW smear machine
& its vicious filthy M.O,, it's entirely mistaken in portraying the Dem Party victims of these smears as "our great leaders." All the mentioned Democrats, such as Obama, Kerry, Bill Clinton, Gore etc are spineless mealy-mouths who haven't to this day had the guts or integrity to stand up against Bush Jr's immoral war & assault on democratic rights.
Every single Bush Jr crime, from theft of the 2000 election, to torture, waging a war of aggression based on lies, warrantless spying on US citizens, rescinding habeas corpus, "signing statements," and openly asserting a claim to a presidential dictatorship -- all of this has met with no serious opposition or critical analysis by these spineless Democrats.
The article authors are upset, as well they should be, with the media collaboration in the Rightwing Smear Machine. But it was the Clinton/Gore admin that allowed the Telecom Act of 1996 to become law, without opposing it, or even warning the American public of the danger of allowing media giants to assume unprecedented levels of size and concentration. And to this day, none of these spineless mealy-mouths has spoken out about the diseased state of the US corporate media -- which they themselves failed to oppose when it was still possible to do something about it.
Thus one sees that these "leading" Democrats helped give birth to the smear machine, and then, even after being victimized by it, have failed dismally to bring any critical attention to it! Certainly this is a tragedy for the public, but it's hard to feel too sorry for the unprincipled cowards of the Democratic Party, who helped make the US media what it is today -- a deeply degenerate form of modern-day "Pravda."
It's dirty to imply that Obama is an Al Qaeda agent, but it's delusional to imagine that he is a heroic political figure who has earned the right to be "loved." What he is, is a pleasant personality, and star equivocator, whose main talent is adroitly avoiding taking strong principled stands on anything.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1552 comments [255 recommended, 5 rejected]) on Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 at 1:10:59 PM
The Republicans have built up a well-oiled smear machine. The complaint I often hear about Democrats is they they are "too nice" and too interested in policy and governing and DON'T want to smear their opponents.
The "they all do it" line is a tactic to keep people from wanting to get involved and vote. But no, they do not all do it.
by
Dave Johnson (49 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 8 comments) on Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 at 3:27:21 PM
You're right about the Democrats behaving as if complicit. The author sees a distinction between the parties, you wonder if it is an act. I don't think it matters whether the Democrats are victims or co-conspirators. They are ineffective either way.
And the smear machine reflects America's collective character. You may prefer a more decent citizenry and leadership, but until we have one, don't expect the American people to stand up and object to the apparent uncivil treatment of the left by the right, or for the right to feel remorse and to stop without being compelled to do so. Like I said, these are the American people. If you're looking for heroes and geniuses, look elsewhere.
No, trash talk seems about right coming from the American megaphone. This culture functions like a gigantic Jerry Springer Show anyway, so there is no real expectation of civility or decorum from the unscrubbed American masses, and no hope of its leadership giving them better if they don't insist on it.
America is what it is, not what it used to be, not what we would like it to be, and nothing that we can admire or respect. Political slime is as American as baseball now, and it is all one-sided. The Democrats play the Washington Generals to the Republicans Harlem Globetrotters, and we wonder if the game is fixed or lop-sided. Who cares? Let's find better teams to root for. Somehow, I don't mind the Democrats being trashed. They're hardly on our side. No one with talent or power is. Not even Bill or Hillary.
If Thomas Jefferson were revived today, he would probably consider his life's work a failure. I doubt that he would be impressed by Barack Obama.
by
Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Sunday, Jan 28, 2007 at 4:24:34 AM
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