Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Misoverinterpretation

Ferchristsake. Apparently, I’ve caused something of a stir over on Kos and unfortunately, I’m not registered there (although gawd knows I read it obsessively) so I cannot respond properly in the comments section.

First, my comment in the “Diving Into the Mud” post about “girly-men” was an ironic play on Arnold’s little tag line. I certainly was not referring to any individual posters on Kos. I don’t usually use childish euphemisms in my own voice. I would have used the grown-up word if I meant it.

The fact is that I was mock lecturing generic handwringers whom I assumed were about to launch into a full fledged freak-out about the “spineless” Kerry campaign and how they didn’t “fight back” a fact which is evident by my statement “the Republicans do not respond to adversity by turning on their candidate and neither should we. Take a deep breath and then get mad — not at Kerry. At Bush.”

All I knew at the time, yesterday morning, was that Time, Newsweek and a coming Gallup poll were reporting an 11 to 14 point bounce for Bush. When three polls report a bounce, I generally figure there was, you know, a bounce. I didn’t say it meant that Kerry was toast or that Bush was coasting toward victory. My characterization of this bounce was that it was a “good” bounce which evidently makes me Wolf Blitzer. (And btw, doesn’t two years of hardball lefty blogging get me Olberman? Paula Zahn, at least? Geez.)

Shockingly, it seems I failed to thoroughly peruse Kos before I wrote (which I will never fail to do again) so I didn’t realize when I posted my piece that the Time and Newsweek polls were a subject of huge contention. I have since been informed that the methodology of weighting the party ID has been called into question and I greatly look forward to seeing those polls blown out of the water in the next few days. Believe me, when it happens I will not only say it is “good” I will say it is “fabulous!” (which probably makes me George Bush.) However, at this point, I think it’s still fair to assume that Bush did, in fact, get some kind of bounce. At least, that’s what MYDD’s analysis suggests.

Since the polling was such a small part of my post, when I was informed of this new information I did not think it necessary to clarify my words. Please consider this to be that clarification. The post should read, “Bush may have gotten a bounce, but I don’t say it’s neccessarily good because it may not be. However, assuming that he may be ahead for now….”

And all of the fine Kossaks who are offended by my alleged disrespect please rest assured that I was speaking of handwringing, 20/20 hindsight types not those who were calling the polls into question. Believe me, no one will be happier than I if all the new polls show Bush is clinging by his fingernails.

My post was not meant as anything more than a call to arms and an analysis of why the public didn’t seem to reject the smears and the ugliness of the Republican convention as I think many of us anticipated they would. My contention is that the zeitgeist of this race is “toughness” and a willingness to “do what it takes” and the one who convinces the public they will be and do those things will win.

It remains more likely than not that it will be close because most people have long ago cast their lot with one or the other. Bush’s alleged lead is highly unlikely to break beyond a few points and I fully expect it to dissipate back to within the margin of error (if indeed it ever went outside of it.) But, if I had to peg the undecideds who will ultimately tilt this election, I think they’ll go with the guy they think has “the right stuff.” And in this era, that means a guy who is willing to go for the jugular.

I have also concluded that hitting below the belt would only help our turn-out. The base is hungering for a show of force and while I have resisted it up to now, I think it may be called for. This feeling of impotence is going to take its toll. If turnout is key, the Kerry campaign has to be willing to feed its beast a little red meat from time to time. Clearly, the Republicans understand this and so should we.

Donkey Rising says that this is a panic reaction, but I really don’t see it that way. The polls, bounce or not, only show me that Bush’s over-the-top mud slinging isn’t hurting him and may very well be helping him. And, it’s not going to stop. Certainly, the tracking polls during the convention don’t show that people were turned off by the likes of Zell and Cheney. The numbers went up. I saw Bush out there on the stump today extolling Zells virtues and saying it proved that the GOP welcomed Democrats. While those of us in blogland recoil at such naked aggression, I think plenty of people think it’s the sign of a fighter, even if they disagree with their policies. Ask Richard Cohen. He finds their “amoral wildness” to be “beautiful.”

We are in the midst of a national security crisis that is the sub-text of everything going on in this campaign. The campaign is a proxy for handling that crisis and Bush is showing that he will do anything to win. I think that tips it to him if we don’t hit back hard. John Judis draws a comparison to 1980 and says Reagan won by only occasionally responding to attacks and directing attention to the underlying failures of the Carter administration. Perhaps that’s how he won, but I also remember a relentlessly negative press corps and a deeply divided Democratic establishment ripping at Carter day in and day out over the economy and the Iran hostage crisis while Carter used a Rose Garden Strategy and barely campaigned. People were very skeptical of Reagan, but at the end of the day, Reagan won because he was able to show the nation that he was not a scary madman while persuading them that Carter was a wimp. It’s a different set of problems for Kerry. Reagan laying back and responding to Carter like he was landing fly swats made him seem reasonable. Kerry laying back makes him seem weak. Republicans and Democrats labor under different assumptions and must meet different thresholds on national security.

And, then there is the fact that our political discourse, thanks to the Mighty Wurlitzer and cable infotainment, has become a sewer. We need to fix that. But, we can’t do it between now and November so we have to work within the parameters that exist. To get the mediawhores’ attention we have to do something dramatic and it has to put Bush on the defensive — the place he functions worst.

That’s all I’m saying.

Wild Thing

Richard Cohen, liberal pundit, admires the Republicans for being so manly:

The GOP convention was successful because it was part of the overall Republican campaign. It was a loathsome affair, suffused with lies and anger, but also beautiful to watch, like a nature show about some wild animal, amoral and intent only on survival. Speaker after speaker stomped on Kerry because, really, he had made himself the entirety of the Democratic campaign. It’s a variation of what I learned in high school: When the man is the message, trash the man.

Is that hot or what?

Liberal pundit Cohen just successfully secured himself invitations to all the right parties where he will be allowed to sycophantically admire the wild and amoral beauty of his Republican masters in person. Yum yum. If you’ll recall he’s always found Junior to be a distinctly attractive man at any given moment in history. He lobbied hard for Gore, another un-manly man like Kerry, to concede immediately because the nation needed a compassionate uniter not a divider. George W. Bush is a man for all seasons. Understanding that is why liberal pundit Richard Cohen makes the big bucks.

It Will Never End

…until we cause them enough pain to make them stop.

Michael Froomkin tells us that it looks like Bush’s navy may be investigating Kerry’s medals in the middle of the presidential campaign:

Among other records to be examined is a citation of Mr Kerry for bravery that was apparently signed by the former Navy Secretary, John Lehman, and contributed to the award of his silver star. The glowing citation states: “By his brave actions, bold initiative and unwavering devotion to duty, Lt Kerry reflected great credit on himself.” But Mr Lehman denies all knowledge of the commendation. “It’s a total mystery to me,” he said last week. “I never saw it, I never signed it and I never approved it.” The inquiry will also investigate other reports and citations leading to the award of Mr Kerry’s medals.

On Friday, Mr Lehman endorsed the investigation of Mr Kerry’s awards, saying that the relevant navy records needed to be “thoroughly researched and the facts established”. Mr Fitton said: “We hope this is the beginning of an actual investigation of the legitimacy of Sen Kerry’s awards by the navy and the Pentagon.”

Update: This is coming too. Note the severity of the charges. Apparently, Kerry said something happened on a Saturday and it may have been a Sunday so he’s unfit to be commander in chief.

Update II: here’s another. Via Myblahg and pandagon

Diving Into The Mud

Ok, Democratic girly-men and manly-girls, now is the time to show what we are made of. No 20/20 hindsight, nervous-nellie self loathing is acceptable. Nobody likes whiners. Bush got a good bounce and he’s got momentum, but we have two months to go and worrying about spilled milk is worthless self-flagellation. The Republicans do not respond to adversity by turning on their candidate and neither should we. Take a deep breath and then get mad — not at Kerry. At Bush. That’s where the focus has to be. If we lose, we’ll help Chris Matthews sort out where it all went wrong later. It’s showtime.

First of all, the conventional wisdom about bounces is true. What goes up must come down. That’s why they call it a bounce not a trend. Bush’s double digit lead is very unlikely to stay double digit for very long. But, he is ahead, no doubt about it.

So let’s see if we can figure out the state of the electorate, what it was they liked so much about Bush’s convention and what we can do to combat it.

First, I think it’s pretty clear that many of us misread the allure of the red-meat, in-your-face macho rhetoric that emanated from the speakers and the delegates. The convention was unrelentingly negative toward the Democrats — even the so-called moderates called us out. There is no escaping the fact that people seem to like what they were selling. Bashing Democrats is a very satisfying pastime that the whole American family can love. (Perhaps we Democrats could try to change that by not indulging in it with such relish ourselves, but that’s another topic.)

After thinking about it for a bit, I realize that the Republicans have their finger on the pulse in a way I didn’t understand. Right now, Americans are in the throes of a macho feeding frenzy. Combat, competition and manly virtues are being sold as the product everyone wants to own. One of the biggest shows on TV even features beautiful female models proving their manhood by eating bugs and allowing themselves to be near drowned in some sort of NavySeal hazing ritual. Popular culture is awash in masculine images.

And the 2004 version of heroic manliness isn’t an honorable gentleman fighting a duel with elaborate rules and rituals. Today’s hero is a guy who will stop at nothing, even scheming, backstabbing and cheating if necessary because winning is the only thing that brings manly respect.

Frank Rich gets to the essence of this political season in his column today called “How Kerry Became a Girlie-Man”:

Only in an election year ruled by fiction could a sissy who used Daddy’s connections to escape Vietnam turn an actual war hero into a girlie-man.

As we leave the scripted conventions behind us, that is the uber-scenario that has locked into place, brilliantly engineered by the president of the United States, with more than a little unwitting assistance from his opponent. It’s a marvel, really. Even a $10,000 reward offered this year by Garry Trudeau couldn’t smoke out a credible eyewitness to support George W. Bush’s contention that he showed up to defend Alabama against the Viet Cong in 1972. Yet John F. Kerry, who without doubt shed his own blood and others’ in the vicinity of the Mekong, not the Mississippi, is now the deserter and the wimp.

Don’t believe anyone who says that this will soon fade, and that the election will henceforth turn on health-care policy or other wonkish debate. Any voter who’s undecided by now in this polarized election isn’t sitting around studying the fine points. In a time of fear, the only battle that matters is the broad-stroked cultural mano a mano over who’s most macho.

[…]

But with the high stakes of an election at hand, it’s not enough to stuff socks in the president’s flight suit. Mr. Kerry must be turned into a girl. Such castration warfare has been a Republican staple ever since Michael Dukakis provided the opening by dressing up like Snoopy to ride a tank. We’ve had Bill Clinton vilified as the stooge of a harridan wife and Al Gore as the puppet of the makeover artist Naomi Wolf. But given his actual history on the field of battle, this year’s Democratic standard bearer would, seemingly, be immune to such attacks, especially from the camp of a candidate whose most daring feat of physical courage was tearing down the Princeton goalposts.

[…]

The truth is that Mr. Kerry was a man’s man not just when he volunteered to fight in a losing war but when he came home and forthrightly fought against it, on grounds that history has upheld. Unless he’s man enough to stand up for that past, he’s doomed to keep competing with Mr. Bush to see who can best play an action figure on TV. Mr. Kerry doesn’t seem to understand that it takes a certain kind of talent to play dress-up and deliver lines like “Bring it on.” In that race, it’s not necessarily the best man but the best actor who will win.

This last, I think, is very astute. Bush and the Republicans understand that the public actually prefers someone who plays the role in a way that brings them emotional satisfaction, than someone who actually embodies that role but plays the part imperfectly. In the media age, people care more about the way a president seems, than what he really does. They know that Bush is no manly man, but they appreciate the fact that he is good at pretending to be one. It’s a form of respect.

Moreover, this pageant has been played out in one form or another in every election since 1968. It has a nice familiarity to it, kind of like watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” at Christmas. (Democrats are pussies,Zuzu. Can we open our presents now?) It’s not all that hard to squeeze the players into their designated roles when it is exactly what people expect. Let’s face it, even we Democrats expect it. Why else are we always loudly complaining that Democrats have no spine even when they have just hurled themselves into the moshpit of bloodthirsty Republican thuggery? It’s a narrative as comfortable as a well loved bedtime story.

The zeitgeist now, more than ever before, is all about testosterone. As much as people care about issues, and most people do, they are even more seduced by the pageant of The Politics Show. The 2004 season of The Politics Show isn’t in the genre of Oprah, or Jerry or even the Sopranos with it’s prozac and family problems. It’s Survivor.

It’s time to recognize and put to use the ugly truth that not only do people respond to smears and dirty tricks — they actually enjoy and respect them. “By any means necessary” is no longer a revolutionary concept. To many people, it is an All American ideal. It means that you believe that winning is the only option and you will do anything to achieve that. Apply that belief to terrorism and you can see why people respond to talk radio eliminationist rants and George W. Bush’s Rambo rhetoric.

People did not recoil at the Republican convention’s ugliness as they did in 1992 because that rhetoric was aimed at parochial culture war issues alone. This is about a much bigger, nationalist grievance at the entire world. People believe that it’s us against them, good against evil and they want our leaders to sound like movie heroes, not politicians, because in the movies the good guys always win.

So, where do we go from here? Via Suburban Guerilla I would draw your attention to a column today by Susan Estrich, liberal law professor and craven FoxNews enabler:

My Democratic friends are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it any more.

They are worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.

[…]

As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago — replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted — I’m angry, too. I’ve been to this movie. I know how it works. Lies move numbers.

[…]

Never again, we said then.

Not again, Democrats are saying now.

What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.

The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.

In 1988, in the days before the so-called independent groups, the candidate called the shots. To Michael Dukakis’ credit, depending on how you look at it, he absolutely refused to get into the gutter, even to answer the charges. His theory, like that of some on the Kerry staff, was that answering such charges would only elevate them, give them more attention than they deserved. He thought the American people wanted to hear about issues, not watch a mud-wrestling match. In theory, he was right. In practice, the sad truth is that smears work — that if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.

You can’t just answer the charges. You can’t just say it ain’t so.

You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we’re not mean enough. Dukakis wasn’t. I wasn’t. I don’t particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.

That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

I’m not promising pretty.

[…]

Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man’s life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

[…]

The arrogant little Republican boys who have been strutting around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.

Throughout the Swift Boat Liar controversy, I have been posting and exchanging e-mails and talking with various people who believe that Kerry should have been prepared and “fought back” sooner. But, we’ve mostly concluded that “fighting back” would have come down to more effective responses to the charges, a good rapid response team, better more pithy retorts, well prepared surrogates, more righteous indignation on the stump. And, my feeling is that none of that would have made a bit of difference. The whole point of smears is to raise doubts and get them out there however you can. And with the Mighty Wurlitzer and the cable networks being what they are, even if the major papers had debunked them on the first day — with sheaves of refutations and rebuttals from the Kerry campaign, it still would gotten out there. It was an entertaining segment of The Politics Show and there was no stopping it.

I reluctantly concluded that the only effective response was probably to engage in the same kind of smear and hope it becomes a zero sum game. And, in the process, we would be forced to drive our politics further and further into a fetid sewer. I find the prospect of that deeply depressing which is what distinguishes me from a Republican. They do not have that emotional reaction. Indeed, they are energized by the prospect. It’s a problem.

Still, the stakes are so high that we have no choice but to try to win today by any means necessary and begin the hard work of repairing our politics — and honestly, our culture — after we have wrested power from those who have brought us to this place.

Dirty, hate filled, testosterone fueled, phony political spectacle is what the public wants to buy. They are not going to turn off their car radios and TVs and suddenly reject the entertaining pageant they are enjoying so much. They will continue to assure pollsters that they hate all this negativity, but they will tune in to absorb the bloodlust and feel vicariously empowered by this show of masculine prowess. They want action. They will vote for the one who gives it to them.

As God-fearing, all-American winners in the game of politics and life, we have no choice but to give them what they want. It’s time to dive into the mud. It’s the only hope we have of saving the country.

I’m probably going to take a couple of days off from blogging although I may check in from time to time. I need to clear my head. Next Tuesday, everyone should fasten their seatbelts and get ready for the political fight of our lives. The next couple of months are going to be unprecedentedly turbulent. But we must win and we will.

Picture If You Will

It’s September of the year 2000. The election is heating up. And it is revealed:

FBI counterintelligence investigators have in recent weeks questioned current and former U.S. officials about whether a small group of Iran specialists at the Pentagon and in the Vice President’s office may have been involved in passing classified information to an Iraqi politician or a U.S. lobbying group allied with Israel, according to sources familiar with or involved in the case.

Do the Malebranche in The Inferno come to mind? Yeah, me too.

Here’s A Shocker

They Still Don’t Know Who They’ll Vote For

…because they are from another planet.

Dear God:

In Las Cruces, N.M., government professor Jose Z. Garcia, 59, said of his dilemma, “Bush lost me when we went into Iraq, and Kerry has never really grabbed me.” He thinks come Election Day that he will choose between Democratic challenger John F. Kerry and third-party candidate Ralph Nader.

Fear Sells

Months ago, Kevin Drum wrote a post that I have thought about quite a bit recently. He said:

It’s true that doom-and-gloom messages by themselves don’t sell, but something similarly negative does: fear. And it sells big.

[…]

You buy deodorant because you’re afraid of the social ostracism of BO. You buy Wisk because you’re afraid your husband’s colleagues will think you’re a poor homemaker if they notice his ring around the collar. You drive your kids to school because you’re afraid of kidnappers and child molesters.

Of course you need a positive program too, but before anyone will listen to it you have to make them afraid of the opposition. So the fundamental problem for liberals is this: figuring out how to convince the middle third of voters that they should be afraid of what extreme conservatives are doing. When they are more afraid of them than they are of extreme liberals, then the real work can start.

That’s not a very inspiring message, is it? But it’s the reality of politics today, and liberals need to learn it. Fast.

Interesting stuff.

Kevin wrote a piece earlier today about how to make the case against Bush in what has become a ruthlessly negative campaign:

…Bush plans to run an intensely negative campaign. And guess what? For all the whining we do every four years about negative campaigning, it works pretty well.

[…]

So: what’s the best way to make Bush seem either scary, unlikable, or untrustworthy? Forget about trying to turn his charges around and painting him as a waffler or a weakling. It won’t work. His branding in those areas is just too strong.

But Bush does have a couple of core negatives that can probably be exploited:

He’s a reckless warmonger who’s going to get a lot of people killed. This doesn’t apply just to Bush, of course, but to all the people around him. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a few video clips that make Bush and his supporters look like slavering warmongers — Zell Miller provided a good start Wednesday night — and there’s enough truth in the charge to turn doubts about Bush’s judgment into genuine fears. Basically, Kerry should do to Bush what LBJ did to Goldwater: convince the middle of the country that he can hardly wait to get his finger on the button.

He operates in secret and doesn’t tell the truth. Again, there’s enough truth to this that it shouldn’t be too hard to convince people that Bush and his administration are fundamentally secretive and manipulative. Maybe a few clips of John Dean talking about how they remind him of Nixon would work well.

I’m not convinced that you can sell people on the idea that Bush is a Nixonian madman. But I certainly agree that we should probably go hard negative on Bush. Bush threw down the gauntlet. Kerry had to introduce himself to the public and could not be too harsh until he had at least set out the parameters of his positive image. Now, he must concentrate on tearing down Bush. The question is how should he do it.

This evening Kevin is very discouraged because Kerry’s new ad campaign focuses on economic issues when it’s all about 9/11, stupid.

It’s fine to hammer away on domestic issues with specific target groups. It’s fine for John Edwards to focus on the two Americas. But anyone who thinks the primary message of Kerry’s campaign should be anything other than national security is just deluding themselves. To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s 9/11, stupid.”

In fact, it’s a no-brainer: somehow Kerry has to convince people that he can be trusted with national security and Bush can’t and if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose. But I guess he still doesn’t get that.

I’m finally beginning to think Mickey Kaus might be right: Kerry has spent too much time inside the liberal cocoon. It’s going to cost him the election if he keeps it up.

I think that’s a bit premature since nobody’s seen the ads yet. It may be 9/11, stupid, but in my view, there is no reason that a harshly negative fear campaign cannot be waged using economic issues as one of the symbols of Bush’s frightening recklessness.(If the ads are bunch of namby-pamby,kumbaya nonsense with Kerry and adorable children, then I’m discouraged too.)

The fact is that war (not 9/11 particularly, although Bush would like that) is the subtext of the entire campaign no matter what we actually say. All criticism, all negative ads all harsh rhetoric plays to insecurity about Bush’s leadership — and leadership is defined at this moment in history as wartime leadership.

This is more about an aggressive attitude and tone and the general way Bush is portrayed than it is about any ad’s literal message, at this point. It’s about making people see that Bush is frightening, because as Kevin said lo those many months ago, — fear sells. And, at this point all fear is wrapped up with Iraq and 9/11 and economic instability and the gnawing in your gut that things are going terribly wrong because Bush is at the helm.

As Kevin said, if we are going to wage a campaign of fear, it’s got to be believable and Bush as some kind of scheming warmonger who wants to blow up the world is not believable. What is believable is Bush driving the ship of state into an iceberg because he’s reckless and out of control.

To make that case, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use economic issues as well as national security issues to illustrate that point. At the end of the day, if the message is that Bush is a dangerous man for the health of this nation, it doesn’t really matter what the subject is. People will make the association with national security all by themselves.

*Sigh*

CNN is implying that Clinton must have covered up his health problems while he was in office.

Now, passing out eating pretzels and falling flat on your face several times while in office certainly doesn’t merit such scrutiny. I’m awfully glad they aren’t doing that.

On other hand, Tweety just said the race is over, so I’m going down to the beach.

Big Scoop

Why is the AP just reporting this now? Some of us had it weeks ago, but more importantly, the Kerry campaign sent it out in its press release at the same time:

PARTISAN: Bush Administration Ties

He is a member of a Bush administration advisory panel on veterans’ issues.

[“VA Announces Membership of POW Advisory Committee,” PR Newswire, 4/17/02;

Better late than never, I guess.

Heartbreak and Joy

It’s a bittersweet day in blogland.

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that Neal Pollack has shuffled off his mortal coil. Farewell, sweet teabag prince.

But, do not despair. James Wolcott — writer, gentleman and all around bon vivant (and occasional commenter on this blog, even) has decided to throw in with us lowly bloggers. It must be all the glamour and the money.

Welcome to our little obsession. I hope you don’t have a life or anything.

Via TBOGG and Atrios (as if you didn’t already know that.)