McCain Camp Repeats Landstuhl Lies *Again*

This is really unbelievable. After getting excoriated in the Washington Post among other places for his lies on the Landstuhl story, they are going to this discredited well once more.

Politico:

Yesterday, after a wave of criticism from the press, McCain’s camp seemed to abandon the oft-repeated claim that Obama had abandoned a trip to visit troops because he couldn’t bring cameras.

“It does now seem that Barack Obama snubbed the troops for reasons other than a lack of photo-op potential,” wrote deputy communications director Michael Goldfarb.

Bu that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from repeating it today.

“Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital,” reads a statement from a former Landstuhl surgeon, Col. Danny Jazarevic, and circulated by McCain’s camp.

This is truly unbelievable. It’s clear that the McCain camp has no moral compass whatsoever. Even after getting blasted on his stupid ‘celebrity ad’ McCain maintains that he is now proud of the ad. This calls for a more hard-hitting ad. Terms that could be used include “liar” and “bald-faced liar.” McCain has no scruples or morals whatsoever.

Pardon the Interruption

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Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I Heart Claire McCaskill

I don’t know if Obama is considering Sen. McCaskill for VP, but he should seriously consider her. She just went on MSNBC and ripped the McCain camp a new one for their (in her words) “stupid” ads. She really broke it down, accusing the “Bush/Rove” team of taking over the McCain ad message machine. In addition to being an excellent attack dog, she helped deliver Missouri to Obama, and endorsed him VERY early on. It would not hurt my feelings to see her in the VP role. I’ll add video if it becomes available, but it was a beautiful thing to watch.

Why McCain’s Ad Strategy is Brilliant (and I’m Serious)

Yes, I’m completely serious. McCain’s new ad and campaign strategy is brilliant – evil, of course – but brilliant nonetheless. On the surface they seem juvenile and mock-able, which they are of course, but from a long-term strategy goal for John McCain, this new campaign approach is dangerously effective. No, I’m not being snarky. And you know I’m no concern troll.

My essential thesis is this:

John McCain’s entire series of negative, sophmoric, attack ads are part of a coordinated strategy to firm up the Republican base of support by turning them against Barack Obama. And it’s working.

$1500 a second

That’s how much Exxon Mobil made last quarter. By the time you finish reading this diary, they’ll have made $180,000.

When Americans are being forced to choose between gas and dinner at a restaurant, guess who loses? The restaurant.

When you have to choose between gas and that new outfit, who loses? The retailer.

When he had to choose between taking big oil money, or sticking to your word, what did John McCain do? You already know the answer to this one:

It’s time to start calling John McCain an elitist

I want to start off by saying that I am very happy to see Senator Obama finally hit back hard at Senator McCain for his ridiculous attacks. His new response ad is very effective, and his comment about John McCain needing “to talk more about what he is for and not just what he’s against” was the kind of effective soundbite we need to hear from the Obama campaign more often.  I hope that this is the start of a more aggressive response by the Obama camp to John McCain’s ridiculous behavior.

In the spirit of being more aggressive, the Obama camp needs to start hitting back at the notion being spread around that he is somehow an elitist.  Ever since Senator Obama’s “bitter” remarks were taken out of context during the primary, the media and Senator Obama’s opponents have been trying to paint him as some sort of elitist who is out of touch with the working man.  They are continuing this attack lately, by constantly questioning if Senator Obama’s trip overseas makes him seem “arrogant” or “presumptuous”.  When they lack real facts to attack with, media organizations have taken to blatantly doctoring quotes to misrepresent Senator Obama’s remarks.   Senator McCain’s campaign has jumped into the fray, putting out a truly deranged memo to try to paint Senator Obama as an elitist.  I couldn’t make this up if I tried:

Only a celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand “MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea” and worry about the price of arugula.

So Senator Obama is the elitist, while Senator McCain is the down to earth candidate that Americans want to have a beer with?   To see who the true elitist is, all we need to do is to compare the background of the two candidates.  Let’s Start with Senator Obama.

Obama Up With Scathing Response Ad

About time. This is a good start, and they need to press this message of McCain as dishonest and dishonorable. Childish works too.

Update: And the St. Petersburg Times is up with an editorial that just eviscerates McCain.

The Straight Talk Express has taken a nasty turn into the gutter. Sen. John McCain has resorted to lies and distortions in what sounds like an increasingly desperate attempt to slow down Sen. Barack Obama by raising questions about his patriotism. Instead of taking the Democrat down a few notches, these baseless attacks are raising more questions about the Republican’s campaign and his ability to control his temper.

Wow.

The Obama Response to the Britney Spears Ad

When I read the Obama camp response by spokesman Tommy Vietor to the McCain Britney-Paris ad, I did a reflexive “w00t!” upon these lines:

“On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.’

I said a, “Hell, yes! This is the response needed!” But then I read the rest of the response, which had been truncated by Mark Halperin at Time’s The Page:

The Response to “On the Obama Response Team”

A little more back-and-forth on this because it’s important. Turner did some further critiquing of Obama’s response team, and got it almost entirely right (even if Armando is cited).  Five follow-up points for the Obama team:

1) Stop being so deferential to McCain

You don’t have to keep pretending like he’s a great guy with a bad campaign, or that he was once a good guy who’s lost his way, as David Axelrod did today:“It makes you wonder whose behind all this because this isnt the John McCain we expected.” Or with the campaign’s use of sentences like: “John McCain is an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign.” He’s calling your candidate a traitor to this country, why are you being so nice? You don’t have to worry about reminding people about his service, McCain does that by himself plenty. Hit him and hit him hard.

2) McCain = Bush 3rd Term.

If Obama isn’t saying that in every speech (the way he used to – and it was working!), he’s not doing his job. It hurts me to admit that Armando was right about something, but he’s right about this.

3) McCain is totally out to snacks on the economy.

Seriously guys, his chief economic adviser said it’s all in our heads, and McCain himself hasn’t got a clue. In an interview he was asked what the first thing he’d do to solve the economy is and his response was “Cut spending.” REALLY?! C’mon now.

Repeat the following:

On the Obama Response Team

I agree with Dan that the response to McCain’s latest silly ad is mostly on the mark, but Obama needs to do more. Much more. I sometimes disagree with Armando over at TalkLeft (he seems to be hypercritical of Obama on occasion), but his criticism of Obama on his response strategy is spot on:

So John McCain is being bashed for his mendacious ad about Obama not visiting the troops because he could not bring cameras. Whoop dee doo. The problem is for three days that ad got run on free media. Dirty politics works and McCain has now shown who will go as far down in the gutter as it takes.

And why not? Dirty politics works. The Gallup tracker now has a once 9 point gap Obama held down to 4. Rassmussen has its Obama 7 point gap down to 2. Three guesses how that happened.

I’ve come around to the thinking that the Obama team response to McCain’s ridiculous attacks is not sufficient by a long shot. McCain’s Ads are indeed awful, but firing off press releases is simply not enough. There needs to be a series of hard-hitting response Ads from the Obama camp. I think McCain’s attacks are driving up his negatives, but I completely agree it is having an effect on the polling. Frankly, I don’t understand what Senator Obama is waiting for. This is the time when candidates get defined, and Obama isn’t doing enough to define McCain.

Update: David Axlerod has gone on the attack now on this. Good, but we need more, however. Response Ads are the key.