AMERICAblog: Could our side ever get away with an ad like this?
houstonray
· 1 year ago
Awesome video! God what I wouldn't love to see that on National TV...
sullivan
· 1 year ago
Brilliant!! Get this to MSNBC as soon as possible and spread it to all your friends now!
luvboxer
· 1 year ago
Great ad...this is what Barack should be running. Barack needs to get out there and start figihting... I'm sending this to everyone I know...We must get this out.
John Aravosis
· 1 year ago
See, I think McCain would say "it's funny" if McCain made an ad like this about Obama, but if Obama did this to McCain he'd be pilloried.
FatRat
· 1 year ago
You asked: "Why do they always get away with this kind of attack, and we never do?" I'm going to assume that wasn't a rhetorical question.
My hypothesis is group think. The HS football team will act as a cohesive group and dominates individuals or smaller groups. I've never heard of the HS chess club trying to dominate anyone. Republicans/football live in a different reality than Democrats/chess.
Will Rogers explained it succinctly. I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.
luvboxer
· 1 year ago
Help!!! Can someone tell me how to forward this ad. I have a list of people who should see this. Thanks so much
microdot
· 1 year ago
Nasty vile stuff, for sure, but it's all true, the big difference between the nasty vile stuff that passes for campaign publicity everyday from the McCain campaign! It's so nasty vile and viscious that it has to go viral! I just posted it on my blogsite! pass it on!
Hardy_Haberman
· 1 year ago
Well it's time we did get away with it! The myth of a liberal media and the GOP policy of repeating lies until they are accepted as truth needs to end. It's time to fight the lies with truth. Nothing in this ad is a lie, therefore I feel it's pretty darned good. Just cross posted it to my blogs.
sdarroch1
· 1 year ago
"Why do they always get away with this kind of attack, and we never do?"
Unfortunately John, the "media" are, for the most part, whores, bought, paid for, and directed by the same global corporations who are destroying the middle class, constitutional government by the people, and, oh yeah, the global environment. They will never treat progressive, truthful views with the blind credulity that they accord the most insane bloviations by their master's front men.
As for myself, I intend to show this excellent video to anyone who stops by, and email it to pretty much everyone I know.
"We must all hang together, or else we will surely hang separately."
canuck55
· 1 year ago
Amen to the above. The corporate media tow the corporate line. No memos to their news staffs needed. They hire the "right" sort of people who know what their bosses and their sponsors want and what will not get them into trouble.
bill__free
· 1 year ago
because they do it and do it and do it. truth be damned and they even like it if the coverage is about it being untrue. they always slip a known given truth in which gives them the right to get on theses shows and talk about how, "i wasn't sure about this", "my source was bla bla bla" (on the right). 100 lies, 200 distortions, 1 truth.
The dems should do it and do it and do it.
Grimmlok
· 1 year ago
Why can't we do this? Because nobody will be 'mean' enough to do it. There's not the spine to put it up, and then forcefully defend it.
Nobody will go on tv and radio and shout the Rethugs down when they have a hissyfit./
In short, cowardice.
jcgraham77
· 1 year ago
Oh I think we could totally get away with it. At this poing people are wanting blood. Pass the link on to all of your friends.
DAB
· 1 year ago
Uh, hasn't our side just made this video? And (given luvboxer's comment) isn't it already starting to go viral?
Your larger point -- the double standard used by the media -- is dead on, however. Or, rather, it's the path of least resistance they take and the Democrats don't offer any resistance. It's at that point in a conversation on Face the Nation or wherever that Democrats need to step up and defend the truth in something, even if they need to concede to a host that it was presented in an incendiary style. (Which turns the objections over the ad into one of taste, but establishes the facts as facts and lets us keep talking about it and making all the same points that are in the video.)
If they need to address why this makes some people uncomfortable, they can do that: "Bob, I can see how people who feel McCain's military service gives him a free past on anything to do with the military or foreign relations might be bothered by this ad, but I think the American people in general, like the US Naval Academy, are capable of recognizing that not every sailor should automatically get promoted to admiral -- or, for that matter, commander in chief."
And then subsequent Democratic talking heads can speak to the truth of THAT statement, and not undercut it by apologizing or disassociating from it just because someone who is campaigning for McCain doesn't like it.
Freday63
· 1 year ago
It doesn't need to be on National TV if it goes "viral" on Youtube and the rest of the internets!
ImpureScience
· 1 year ago
Excellent! Now, THAT'S what I'm talking about!
"Why do they always get away with this kind of attack, and we never do?"
I think it's because we're too 'rational'. Or not rabid enough. We figure that everyone will read/see/hear if the ad is run once or twice. It's not enough. We need more! More! Ad people know it takes repeated exposure to make an impression. In order to fight the regressives on this level we need a cottage industry built around addressing the low (and I do mean low) end of the campaign.
jr
· 1 year ago
we need to kick the wimps out of leadership positions of our party. Whoever made this video should be a top 3 person at the DNC
jeanieous
· 1 year ago
Maybe we can't get away with it the way the neocons do, but I'm sending it as a response to all the stupid libruls-are-dangerous emails. This is just what I was looking for.
sullivan
· 1 year ago
I agree, please tell us how to link this and send it to friends?
I got into an argument with a big burly illegal alien yesterday. I told him what they were doing for the apartment complex was illegal and that I was going to make a report to the EPA. He kept acting like he was going to hit me for getting his truck number and the name of the shit sucking business he works for. Then he was asking where I lived and I pointed at the sky and said, on that cloud and that I floated down here when I saw he was doing something wrong. Then he started driving off and I waved. He stops, backs up and we had a few more words and he calls me a "four-eyed cocksucker." Then drives off. I called the EPA and they don't even have offices here. Got someone in Dallas. Thanks wingnuts. Nothing will be done with them flushing raw sewerage into your lakes and rivers. Crazy Mexican is probably going to come back some night and murder me. I told the apartment complex that I thought they had the problem fixed or I would never have renewed my lease and to let me out of my lease. I don't want to be around the crap sucking and human feces on the parking lot, you're stepping into it and it's tracked inside your home.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
Oh, as he was driving off, I said he was the cocksucker.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
The problem is they have a huge problem with the drainage here into the city's sewer system so instead of fixing it, which would cost millions, they just hire the sewage sucked out. They were just pumping it into the storm drain until I called the EPA the first time. They think because we're poor they can do what they want and they basically can. Notobdy would want to be around shit sucking with big hoses a couple of times a week. It's a health hazard for everybody.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
It's one thing for you neighbor to have their septic tanks sucked out every ten years or so. It's another when you have them here now sucking out all the feces and everything else twice a week 20 yards from your front door. Oh, the EPA offices in Dallas, the person answering the phone sounded like a retard and you're just switched to a bush appointed crony and their answering machine.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
I have no doubt that an operation like that, they're just backing the shit sucking truck up to a bayou around here at night and emptying the tank. Eat it wingnuts because it ain't just happening here.
Lately I have been having a conversation with my brother-in-law about McCain. It seems McCain gets by because of 'common knowledge'. Of course he is honorable, trustworthy, good for America.
But when I ask specifically, what has he done to earn these labels? They think you are joking when you ask, because of course, everyone knows McCain is a good guy. McCain has never done anything in public life but enrich himself.
I guess his media strategy, all these years, has been a good one. Thats what we are fighting.
naschkatzehussein
· 1 year ago
I hope you use your connections, John, to get this all over the Internet. If we get enough viewers, as for example Jed's Tuzla YouTube, maybe someone would have to address it in the MSM. It's great, and it's all true so you can't even call it swiftboating.
straleno
· 1 year ago
To answer the original question, the reason Dems can't get away with stuff like this is that Republicans are understood to be bullies, liars and hypocrites, so OF COURSE they're going to be nasty and dishonest. It's expected. It's in character. Dems are understood to be wonkish, smart and generally more honest, so it's out of character for Dems to get nasty, and the powers that be don't like this kind of deviation. That's not our role in the body politic. It's a horrible double standard, but that's the way it is.
kladinvt
· 1 year ago
The link to this most excellent and truthful video is:
In the immortal words of Babu: "Tell your friends!"
OKBlue
· 1 year ago
I like this as a viral email, but I think with modifications it could be mainstream TV ad material. If the snarkiness and editorializing were removed, the facts are damning enough. How about making an ad that says that we all agree that McCain is a patriotic American, but here are some facts to consider before making him our next president. Then go through the litany. End with, "You decide. Is this the man who should lead our country?"
I really like the details of his school and military performance (including time in combat before being shot down). Even if you leave out the fact that he made propaganda material for the enemy that still casts appropriate doubt on his military expertise.
The viral email of the ad as it is would preach to (and mobilize) the converted, but a more subtle version might do a better job of convincing the undecideds.
tardigrade
· 1 year ago
One thing you said, "...and it would go viral across the country, ..." made me wonder if the Dems ready DO have the upper hand on the internet. Could it be that the Dems have some very adept adroit people on the net but, just not enough? That still, the vast majority of the Dems are not using the internet as a news source? So... if in the same numbers - as I think you point out, as the Repugs - even to just view such files, would in effect, would send shock waves strong enough that the Media would have to make comments to sound like credible source?
jimpharo
· 1 year ago
"Why do they always get away with this kind of attack, and we never do?"
Easy. Because we are afraid. We are afraid of the media backalsh. We are afraid of the popular backlash. We're REALLY afraid of all the wing-nut braying.
The other side has no such fear. They engage in the most outlandish shenanigans day-in and day-out, they get made fun of by people like us, and they could care less.
This is a self-inflicted wound. Were we unafraid, we would soon find the press coming along -- they merely pick up on the cues we give. If we were unafraid, we would take the braying of Sean Hannity as a signal that what we're doing is working.
I have had hope that Barack Obama wasn't afraid. Seeing his campaign the last few weeks, I'm starting to think I was quite wrong.
JTC111
· 1 year ago
Democrats don't get away with those kinds of ads because they're too quick to apologize when they make them. Republicans make those ads without apology and without remorse. They send out their marching papers and their people walk in lockstep. How else could they get away with propping up a draft dodger by ridiculing a war veteran for the purple hearts he received. The Dems SHOULD air those kinds of ads and when the Republicans cry foul, the response should be, "Well tell me what's not true? Did McCain graduate better than 5th from the bottom at the Naval Academy? Did he NOT cheat on his first wife? Did he NOT crash three planes as a naval pilot? Did he NOT vote against a torture ban bill? Did he NOT reverse himself on tax cuts for the richest Americans?" But we don't respond that way. We put our tails between our legs and apologize. And we lose presidential elections because of it.
ron071
· 1 year ago
The true strength of the voters will be shown on Nov. 4th. Then we will know if the corporate media ( MSM ) controls the minds of America.
WANT MORE PAIN ?????????? VOTE Mc SAME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JMOHR
· 1 year ago
Oh yes we could, can and should. We need to get together a grass roots campaign to distribute this video throughout the internet to as many households as possible. How could we put together such a project? How can we get it to those, especially Republican households where this should be seen? At the very least we should have it seen enough on You Tube to raise notice of it on a national level. Copies need to be distributed to every single media outlet possible.
Am I dreaming? I hope not. I just lack the technical skills to know how to make such a distribution. Lets put our heads together on this.
For the mainstream Democrats. They should denounce it just as loudly and effectively as does McCain. They should also respond on the POW issue in a very mild voice that they thought McCain acted in an "acceptable" manner for one who could not take the stress. On Keating, they should simply say the McCain admitted the impropriety of his conduct and that they hope he would adhere to good conduct despite the number of industry lobbyists in his campaign.
sullivan
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the link John.....250 people have just now received it!
JMOHR
· 1 year ago
What if we were to get several people in each state to send the video to the e-mail of each Republican campaign headquarters in every county. Then it could be sent to each local television station and newspaper. A mass effort would make it a news item and get it the kind of air time that it deserves.
ezpz
· 1 year ago
Now THAT's what we're talking about!
This is excellent!
The announcer sounds like Howard Kurtz, lol.
Plisko
· 1 year ago
Thanks for posting my video John. I agree with the dilemma you bring up. This video actually began as a spoof of what a right wing hit job commercial would look like if it attacked McCain and it slowly got modified into something that comes across more serious.
I discovered something very interesting as I was researching it. Most of the stuff about McCain's military past and "traitor" status is already posted on right leaning military websites and lots of POW's believe he is a traitor. Google "The US Veteran Dispatch" sometime. Interesting reading from a Right Wing Military perspective.
Just like there was some underlying resentment about John Kerry's words about Vietnam that the swift boat veterans exploited, there is a resentment about John McCain out there in some POW circles that just might be touched by this video.
As has been mentioned. My hope is that this video goes viral and that the Republicans begin their perl clutching outrage. That will force people to start defending McCain. There is nothing I would like to see more that the McCain campaign spending a week or two going defending something they thought was a given strength.
Thanks again for the support John, and Americablog readers!
Rob Mule
· 1 year ago
I wouldn't call this spot "brutal" when it’s merely accurate. One can't live or win by fearing retaliation. Here in the swOhio media market I've watched several Obama spots aggressively and factually attacking McCain's credibility, a new one just this morning. This is another most presidential aspect of Obama's character...He can work without the national stage blare Bush demanded on smaller but no less important aspects of overall policy.
OneManComotion
· 1 year ago
Because the "Liberal Media" is a myth invented by conservatives that has been working since the days of Goldwater. Our MSM is in place to keep the powerful intact.
mgardener
· 1 year ago
This is every single word of it is true and can be verified, it should be sent around the US and world! Truth is not pretty when somebody wants to hide something. I say make it big. We backed down about Bush and look where it got us. 8 years of a failed presidency. If we each sent it to 5-10 people and asked them to send it to 5-10 people it would spread quickly
ClayPotts
· 1 year ago
A stuck pig bleeds and reacts more forcefully. The religious right wants to believe it is OK with God that McCain dumped his first wife and married Cindy.
But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. (Matthew 5:32)
Saddleback Church will try to pretty up McCain's Christian character this weekend but they will be singing the praises of an adulterer doomed to Hell.
All Comments
My hypothesis is group think. The HS football team will act as a cohesive group and dominates individuals or smaller groups. I've never heard of the HS chess club trying to dominate anyone. Republicans/football live in a different reality than Democrats/chess.
Will Rogers explained it succinctly. I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.
It's so nasty vile and viscious that it has to go viral!
I just posted it on my blogsite!
pass it on!
Unfortunately John, the "media" are, for the most part, whores, bought, paid for, and directed by the same global corporations who are destroying the middle class, constitutional government by the people, and, oh yeah, the global environment. They will never treat progressive, truthful views with the blind credulity that they accord the most insane bloviations by their master's front men.
As for myself, I intend to show this excellent video to anyone who stops by, and email it to pretty much everyone I know.
"We must all hang together, or else we will surely hang separately."
The dems should do it and do it and do it.
Nobody will go on tv and radio and shout the Rethugs down when they have a hissyfit./
In short, cowardice.
Your larger point -- the double standard used by the media -- is dead on, however. Or, rather, it's the path of least resistance they take and the Democrats don't offer any resistance. It's at that point in a conversation on Face the Nation or wherever that Democrats need to step up and defend the truth in something, even if they need to concede to a host that it was presented in an incendiary style. (Which turns the objections over the ad into one of taste, but establishes the facts as facts and lets us keep talking about it and making all the same points that are in the video.)
If they need to address why this makes some people uncomfortable, they can do that: "Bob, I can see how people who feel McCain's military service gives him a free past on anything to do with the military or foreign relations might be bothered by this ad, but I think the American people in general, like the US Naval Academy, are capable of recognizing that not every sailor should automatically get promoted to admiral -- or, for that matter, commander in chief."
And then subsequent Democratic talking heads can speak to the truth of THAT statement, and not undercut it by apologizing or disassociating from it just because someone who is campaigning for McCain doesn't like it.
"Why do they always get away with this kind of attack, and we never do?"
I think it's because we're too 'rational'. Or not rabid enough. We figure that everyone will read/see/hear if the ad is run once or twice. It's not enough. We need more! More! Ad people know it takes repeated exposure to make an impression. In order to fight the regressives on this level we need a cottage industry built around addressing the low (and I do mean low) end of the campaign.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/0...
Lately I have been having a conversation with my brother-in-law about McCain. It seems McCain gets by because of 'common knowledge'. Of course he is honorable, trustworthy, good for America.
But when I ask specifically, what has he done to earn these labels? They think you are joking when you ask, because of course, everyone knows McCain is a good guy. McCain has never done anything in public life but enrich himself.
I guess his media strategy, all these years, has been a good one. Thats what we are fighting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEmPZoRVRII
In the immortal words of Babu: "Tell your friends!"
How about making an ad that says that we all agree that McCain is a patriotic American, but here are some facts to consider before making him our next president. Then go through the litany.
End with, "You decide. Is this the man who should lead our country?"
I really like the details of his school and military performance (including time in combat before being shot down).
Even if you leave out the fact that he made propaganda material for the enemy that still casts appropriate doubt on his military expertise.
The viral email of the ad as it is would preach to (and mobilize) the converted, but a more subtle version might do a better job of convincing the undecideds.
Easy. Because we are afraid. We are afraid of the media backalsh. We are afraid of the popular backlash. We're REALLY afraid of all the wing-nut braying.
The other side has no such fear. They engage in the most outlandish shenanigans day-in and day-out, they get made fun of by people like us, and they could care less.
This is a self-inflicted wound. Were we unafraid, we would soon find the press coming along -- they merely pick up on the cues we give. If we were unafraid, we would take the braying of Sean Hannity as a signal that what we're doing is working.
I have had hope that Barack Obama wasn't afraid. Seeing his campaign the last few weeks, I'm starting to think I was quite wrong.
But we don't respond that way. We put our tails between our legs and apologize. And we lose presidential elections because of it.
corporate media ( MSM ) controls the minds of America.
WANT MORE PAIN ?????????? VOTE Mc SAME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the internet to as many households as possible. How could we put together such a project? How can we get it to those,
especially Republican households where this should be seen? At the very least we should have it seen enough on You
Tube to raise notice of it on a national level. Copies need to be distributed to every single media outlet possible.
Am I dreaming? I hope not. I just lack the technical skills to know how to make such a distribution. Lets put our heads
together on this.
For the mainstream Democrats. They should denounce it just as loudly and effectively as does McCain. They should also
respond on the POW issue in a very mild voice that they thought McCain acted in an "acceptable" manner for one who
could not take the stress. On Keating, they should simply say the McCain admitted the impropriety of his conduct and that
they hope he would adhere to good conduct despite the number of industry lobbyists in his campaign.
campaign headquarters in every county. Then it could be sent to each local television station and newspaper.
A mass effort would make it a news item and get it the kind of air time that it deserves.
This is excellent!
The announcer sounds like Howard Kurtz, lol.
I discovered something very interesting as I was researching it. Most of the stuff about McCain's military past and "traitor" status is already posted on right leaning military websites and lots of POW's believe he is a traitor. Google "The US Veteran Dispatch" sometime. Interesting reading from a Right Wing Military perspective.
Just like there was some underlying resentment about John Kerry's words about Vietnam that the swift boat veterans exploited, there is a resentment about John McCain out there in some POW circles that just might be touched by this video.
As has been mentioned. My hope is that this video goes viral and that the Republicans begin their perl clutching outrage. That will force people to start defending McCain. There is nothing I would like to see more that the McCain campaign spending a week or two going defending something they thought was a given strength.
Thanks again for the support John, and Americablog readers!
One can't live or win by fearing retaliation.
Here in the swOhio media market I've watched several Obama spots aggressively and factually attacking McCain's credibility, a new one just this morning.
This is another most presidential aspect of Obama's character...He can work without the national stage blare Bush demanded on smaller but no less important aspects of overall policy.
Truth is not pretty when somebody wants to hide something. I say make it big. We backed down about Bush and look where it got us. 8 years of a failed presidency.
If we each sent it to 5-10 people and asked them to send it to 5-10 people it would spread quickly
But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. (Matthew 5:32)
Saddleback Church will try to pretty up McCain's Christian character this weekend but they will be singing the praises of an adulterer doomed to Hell.