Dick Moves

“Politics is just show business for ugly people” -- Jay Leno

The theme this week, courtesy of the McCain campaign, is that Barack Obama is a celebrity. Of course, before starting this new narrative, they scrubbed the McCain web site! Yes, McCain and his people are slowly learning about the Internet. However, they desperately need to learn what a Google cache is:

March 1, 2007

Article Excerpt

NEW YORK (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain said he will officially enter the presidential race ... with a formal announcement in early April after a trip to Iraq.

The Arizona senator discussed the timing of the long-expected announcement with reporters at an awards reception Wednesday evening a few hours after taping an appearance on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman."

On the talk show, McCain told Letterman: "I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States," then added that he would give a formal speech to that effect in early April.

He later told reporters that he would visit Iraq first and that his campaign would be about "whether I have the vision, experience and knowledge to lead the nation."

Former New York Gov. George Pataki introduced McCain to reporters before the Irish-American 10th Annual Awards reception Wednesday night. Asked about polls showing him trailing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, McCain said: "We keep doing the best we can. We're very happy with the way things are going."

There had been no doubt that McCain would eventually become a full-fledged White House candidate, and he had been expected to make his candidacy official in the spring.

The 2006 midterm campaign had just ended when McCain took the first formal step toward a presidential run in November. He formed an exploratory committee and gave a speech casting himself as a "common-sense conservative" in the vein of Ronald Reagan who could lead the party back to dominance after a dreadful election season by returning to the GOP's core principles.

A political celebrity, McCain is considered a top contender for the nomination.

McCain's own press release last year referred to him as a celebrity. But the humor doesn't end there. In a nationally televised ad, McCain attempts to equate Obama's fame with that of the annoying, narcissistic socialite Paris Hilton. I wonder how Paris Hilton's parents feel considering they donated $4600 to the McCain campaign. Jon Stewart describes this dick move:



So why does the GOP air these ads? They know that simply by raising a question like "is Obama arrogant," it will be debated over and over again in the media. Media Matters explains how these narratives emerge:

But attacks don't just stick and narratives don't just emerge. The only reason that the topic of the week was whether Obama is presumptuous instead of whether McCain is a liar who will do anything to get elected is that the news media decided to make Obama's purported flaws the topic of the week -- even after debunking the charges upon which the characterization is based. It's as though the news media -- so concerned about lies (that weren't really lies) in 2000 -- have suddenly decided that it doesn't matter that the McCain campaign is launching false attack after false attack. That it's the kind of thing you note once, then adopt the premise of the attack.

So even after an attack has been debunked, the MSM devotes an extraordinary amount of time to the lie repeating it like some kind of he-said-she-said lover's quarrel.

When a claim is proven to be false, don't call it "misleading." Call it a lie! And then move on to some other ugly business. There's plenty out there.