Draper’s Silent Narrative of Resentment
Two things stuck out for me in Robert Draper’s story of the changing narratives of the McCain campaign. First, he repeats the McCain myth that Obama showed an interest–but no initiative–in McCain’s ploy to do town halls around the country together.
In June, McCain formally proposed that he and his Democratic opponent campaign together across America in a series of town-hall-style meetings. He had in fact suggested the same thing to Joe Biden three years earlier, Biden told me back then: “He said: ‘Let’s make a deal if we end up being the nominees. Let’s commit to do what Goldwater and Kennedy committed to do before Kennedy was shot.’ We agreed that we would campaign together, same plane, get off in the same city and go to 30 states or whatever together.” According to Biden, he and McCain sealed their agreement with a handshake. When McCain extended the same offer to Obama in 2008, the Democrat said that he found the notion “appealing” but then did little to make it happen. Since that time, McCain has repeatedly told aides what he has also said in public — that had Obama truly showed a determination to have a series of joint appearances, the campaign would not have degenerated to its current sorry state.
In fact, Obama responded to McCain’s proposal–with a counter-proposal, to model the debates on Lincoln-Douglas rather than Goldwater-Kennedy. As far as I know, McCain just ignored this counter-proposal. In other words, McCain has been stewing over the fact that Obama did not accept McCain’s proposal in its entirety for four months; or, to put it another way, he’s been stewing over the fact that the younger (and, in McCain’s mind, unworthy) man did not accept McCain’s terms without negotiation.
I find it interesting, then, that Draper doesn’t note Obama’s counter-proposal. It’s tough to say whether it’s just shitty journalism, whether Draper just internalized McCain’s own myths, or whether he simply saw himself repeating what the McCain campaign either sincerely or manipulatively told him. In any case, the silence about Obama’s counter-proposal shows how Draper’s entire narrative takes McCain’s claim to justifiable indignation uncritically.
More interesting still is the other significant detail Draper ignores: the McCain team’s cynical lies immediately after the convention. Nowhere does Draper mention the insistent lies about the Bridge to Nowhere; nowhere does he mention the manufactured outrage over the lipstick on a pig comment. Instead, he pretends that Palin had a two and a half week honeymoon with the press, with no blemishes until (presumably) her utter ignorance showed in the Couric interview.
In the ensuing two and a half weeks (which surely felt longer to the Obama campaign), the Palin Effect was manifest and profound. McCain seemed, if not suddenly younger — after all, the woman standing to his side was nearly the same age as his daughter, Sidney — then freshly boisterous as he crowed, “Change is coming, my friends!” Meanwhile, Palin’s gushing references to McCain as “the one great man in this race” and “exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief” seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party faithful.
But just as you could make too much of Shanks’s quiet coaching of Palin, you could also make too little of it. The new narrative — the Team of Mavericks coming to lay waste the Beltway power alleys — now depended on a fairly inexperienced Alaska politician
Similarly, Draper suggests McCain just started going negative in October without having tried to mobilize resentment to protect Palin for the entire month of September.
In the period before the campaign’s decision earlier this month to wage an all-out assault on Obama’s character as the next narrative tactic, McCain was signaling to aides that it was important to run an honorable campaign. People are hurting now, McCain said to his convention planners as Hurricane Gustav whirled toward the Gulf Coast. It’s a shame we have to have a convention at all. But because we have to do this, tone it down. No balloons, nothing over the top. When his media team suggested running ads that highlighted Obama’s connection with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, McCain reminded them that he pledged months earlier not to exploit the matter, and John McCain was not about to go back on his word.
Again, I don’t know whether this is just crappy journalism from Draper or whether he simply believes he was repeating the McCain story in good faith. But it entirely excises from his narrative the moment when McCain went from ignoring the press to actively attacking it, even while daring it to call him on his blatant, repeated lies.
Perhaps these two missing details don’t affect Draper’s ability to achieve his objective at all–he catalogs the six changing narratives the McCain team has believed it was telling about McCain, and that, in and of itself, tells the story.
Draper is much more explicit that the last big myth in this story–that the press was unfair to McCain–was Salter’s and Schmidt’s myth, not one he necessarily agreed with.
Salter and Schmidt had hoped that the mainstream press would warm to this new narrative. But the matter of which candidate had shown more acts of bipartisan daring failed to become Topic A. The two advisers — each of whom had friendly relations with the media but had grown increasingly convinced that Obama was getting a free ride — took this as further proof that today’s reporters were primarily young, snarky, blog-obsessed and liberal. To Schmidt’s and Salter’s minds, John McCain had always been honest and straightforward with the press, and the press in turn was not acting in good faith toward their candidate. As such it was now undeserving of McCain’s unfettered “straight talk.”
This point–and the debunking of Salter and Schmidt’s resentment toward the press–deserves much closer focus, because this is what the real story of the McCain campaign is. John McCain simply was not, himself, attractive enough to the American people–or even the Republican Party–to win the general election. So the campaign did more than just tell a (or rather six different) narratives. They began to lie–and really started telling doozies by the time Caribou Barbie strode onto the scene.
So while Draper’s article is interesting–particularly the details regarding the utter lack of vetting on Palin–what’s most interesting to me is the sustained self-denial about what was driving the campaign. I’m sure Draper’s sources believe this was fundamentally a story about the press mistreating a great man, about an upstart disrespecting his superior. But really, they seem totally unaware–or at least unforthcoming–about when it was that they just started lying through their teeth.
And that lack of awareness is as much the story of the McCain campaign as Draper’s six narratives.
Draper’s article ends with this gem
“Schmidt vowed that McCain would spend the final days of the campaign focused on the economy — and on Joe the plumber, the kind of entrepreneur (so McCain thought at the time) who would become an endangered species in an Obama administration”
McCain is a dismissive, fucking idiot who knows nothing about economics.
He is all defense, all the time, wrapped up in his utopian idea of “American Exceptionalism”
He has little intellectual prowess and was clobbered by Obama.
He will be stewing for years, or perhaps exacting hateful revenge.
Um, maybe they’ve been lying so long they’ve forgotten what the truth is?
It is clear, though, that this is one of the first swipes in the coming Intra-Republican War To Place Blame, none of which will address the fundamental failings of McPain’s campaign – a crappy philosophy under which the Rethugs operated, crappily executed policies and campaigns, a crappy economy and two lost wars. All of those rotting corpses lie at the feet of the Republicans and are their failures to own.
What I found interesting is:
1) McCain tried to run his 2000 campaign all over again. How clueless. What American would be pay full-price for a 2000 model car in 2008? His staff is now crying that “media has changed.” Of course they’ve changed.
2) It seems pretty obvious that McCain won his party’s nomination only because the other Republicans were even worse campaigners than he.
3) I’ve heard the tick-tock on Palin’s non-vettting and when she told McCain about her daugher’s pregnancy so many times, I couldn’t remember if the retelling here was new or conflicted with one of the other “stories.”
Rri Amy goodman interviews Professor Mark Crispin Miller he has some frightening things to say about the 2004 election and the upcoming election. Much of what he says is similar to what Greg Palast has been saying for the last four years
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/22/votes
I was just looking at polls myself
http://www.realclearpolitics.c…..a-548.html
sorry wrong thread
No matter, I like the link.
OT
EW, this is directly in relation to all the email info I sent yesterday.
(my bold)
McCain said:
Mini fraud timeline:
September 15th, 2008: McC release/announcement of Honest Open Election Committee
September 19th, 2008: Stay lifted in KingLincoln Bronzville vs Blackwell election fraud case
September 22nd, 2008: Mike Connell served subpoena (head comp wiz for McC and former Bush campaign)
Oct. 1st: Greene County Young Rep post voter fraud suggestions
October 9th Greene county Sheriff demand early voters records citing fraud
October 10th, 2008: McC release ACORN attack ad
October 15th, 2008: Huffingtonpost reviews McC Honest Open Election Committee
October 16th, 2008: McC-Palin ACORN attacks on ACORN and Obama pick up in rallies.
October 20th, 2008: California GOP voter register arrested for fraud
October 20th, 2008: Deters, Hamilton County Ohio Prosecutor wants early voters quarantined
There is more to this timeline but the point here is that McC cannot stay true to his word by offering up Connell and there appears to be a great deal of fire lighting for the sake of distraction from the REAL voter fraud stories.
Some good info here:
http://thejournal.epluribusmed…..und-states
what’s not to know ???
you can tell shia from shinola
just call him a hack propaganda artist and get it over with
any journalist who takes a politician at his word ain’t really a fuckin journalist
jebus, what do they teach at fookin journalism schools these days
Basically McCain’s messages for decades have shifted with the winds, only looking for a way to jibe to tack into the political winds yet again. There is little he seemingly learned from his national experience. I think he is at odds with most of the cliques whose support he has had to accept to aggregate a campaign. People who have watched McCain’s pronouncements for decades find little new in his organization’s course during the current campaign. Behind the scenes, I imagine his taking little futuristic interest in the currents which would morph the Republican party into Azione sociale. Perhaps, if Barack Obama is elected, and the Supreme Court and other benches in the judiciary, as well as main Justice itself, realign toward a more progressive and modern outlook, one more attuned to our responsibilities as world citizens, and a path better recognizable as within constitutional constructs, a future Republican party might reenergize; but it was a sign of cluelessness that they turned to McCain and Palin to carry on the traditions of three presidencies by members of the Bush family in the past two decades. Some of the stuff they did in agencies across the Potomac might be a prime locus for Republicans to look when attempting to assess where they slipped in attempting to plot a way forward.
ot, on two front:
are there any sporting events scheduled in the near future that we might want to discuss in an in-depth and meaningful way ???
and somebody linked to freewayblogger a while back (the wasilla snowbillies thread, it think). If you scroll down to the second-to-last picture, you see our old friend “Moran Man”
why isn’t this guy more famous than “joe the nada-plumber”
I’ve seen that picture photoshopped so the guy is wearin a “Morans For Mcsame” shirt
dude should get some royalties or something
World Series starts tonight.
Phils in 6, maybe.
And Kellen Winslow did not have a hydrocele problem. Rather, the Browns’ facilities are infested with staph and he caught it again.
Of course, we could also discuss this.
scribe should get some kind of award for that second link
And EW, may I add one further bit of analysis?
Regardless of the accuracy of the piece’s “narratives”, Draper and the NYT have performed that one final solemn deed, the “eulogy”.
And The Villagers, whether they admit to admiring the old gray lady or not, will all see it as so.
Agree–and even had to erase a statement to that effect a couple of times–but I’m not going to write that in print until November 5.
Don’t tell us you’re superstitious? *g*
Meant to say:
I’ll link to the Huffpost article in a few.
I think the voter fraud issue is an aspect of the resentment narrative.
This piece has to be understood within its genre. I like to call it “Why we lost”, with a subtitle “It’s not my fault”. These stories almost always buy in to a narrative from some faction of the campaign. You should remember the Clinton campaign stories from earlier this year that tried to pin the blame on Penn or the ick on Ickes. Here’s how this works:
A good reporter cultivates his sources early in the campaign. He gets them talking about ups and downs of life on the campaign trail. As election day nears, every campaign has misfires and gambles that don’t pay off. Campaign aides have a real incentive to try to take credit for whatever is perceived as working and avoiding blame for the foul-ups. The sources get more comfortable talking on background. Then, when the realization sets in that your team is likely to lose, there’s a real prisoners’ dilemma effect at work. Somebody is going to get blamed for losing and nobody wants to be that scapegoat. You can see this dynamic at work in this story:
…
The real agenda behind this story is “Get Smitty”.
I’m not so sure. There is an early mention in the piece of Schmidt’s fondness to finishing the day over cocktails, and several of the best “anon” quotes come from the same context.
The impression I get is that the larger story remains to be told: how McCain was able to wrest the GOP nomination [something which is very much more of an insider’s game that the wonderfully drawn out Democratic party movable feast in the first 6 months of the year].
I mean to say that, with the Repods being the Party of the Exportable War Machine, given the other options, the only candidates McCain had to worry about seriously were Rudy [who gutted himself early on – with a big shove from Biden] and Fred [who at some point while we weren’t watching seems to have hit some wall, maybe of time]. It was in part of the weakness in the theory underlying the Rovian base: the candidate has to somehow be all things to all elements of that base.
One point left hanging though: What happened to the idea of going with Blomberg? I smell a sequel – and a book to come thereafter. This Draper piece works like the “First Chapter” feature in the Times’ book section.
With all due respect, you don’t understand Republican politics at all. Here’s how the that race played out. Mitt Romney was the anointed candidate. Republican big money and the Rove slime machine were behind him. Giulani was only considered a serious candidate by the gullible news media who believed the polls in early 2007. That far out, the polls measure name recognition and nothing else. Just ask Hillary Clinton. The way it was supposed to play out was that Rove would take out Giulani with dirty tricks and Romney would spend McCain into oblivion. All the other candidates were just supposed to be cannon fodder.
It would’ve worked if
it hadn’t been for those crazy kids and their dogRomney had been any religion other than Mormon. You see, the big brains in the Republican party knew that the so-called Religious Right wouldn’t ever get excited about McCain or Giuliani, so they figured they could sell Romney as a ‘man of faith’. They completely underestimated the religious bias against Mormons among conservative Christians. That allowed Huckabee to take out Romney in Iowa and South Carolina while McCain won New Hampshire and Florida, perhaps the two most favorable states for him in the Republican primaries.By the time it was clear that it was going to be a McCain-Huckabee battle, the monied interests fled to McCain who, after all, was owned and operated by the lobbyist class.
Fascinating analysis, and it makes a lot of sense.
Having grown up among Mormons, I’m fairly blind to some of the dynamics that you note here. Makes sense.
I tend to agree with LabDancer’s views that the NYT article is very good. And it sure looks as if the whole ‘Get Smitty’ shiv-in-the-back dynamics are increasingly factoring in to the erratic McCain campaign’s discombobulation.
FWIW, one of the things that I find most striking from the NYT article is what I might term ‘the cognition of writing’; note that McCain never actually wrote his books (or speeches), Mark Salter wrote them for/with him. McCain’s never done the arduous work of writing his own narrative; he’s always left that tough ‘thinking’ work to Salter or other staff.
In contrast, Barak Obama did the hard work of thinking about the contradictions and meaning of his own life. By the time he was done writing his book, that process must have clarified things in his own mind.
I’d argue that Scott McClellan did the same thing in writing his “What Happened”. In the cases of Obama and McClellan, that ‘thinking process’ seems to have focused them and helped them synthesize and clarify.
McCain is having trouble for many reasons.
But I’d argue that one of the key reasons is that he’s lived a narrative that he didn’t invent himself. He’s probably not clear in his own mind; classic opportunism, but there you have it. That whole article seemed to validate bmaz’s observations about McCain: any man clear in his own mind, and committed to improving government, would not make the mistakes he’s made.
I don’t think he or his staff can distinguish between ‘truth’ and invention any more. I think they really are that caught up in the ‘we create our own reality’ hall of smoke and mirrors, which appears to be a maze in which they’re trapped.
Like scribe, I’m skeptical that they possess the ability to distinguish between their own desires and objective reality.
I didn’t see your post until after I posted mine. I agree with all you say, but would add that it’s not only McCain. He’s surrounded himself with people who substitute pure invention (style) for truth (substance).
did you say “pure invention” = “(style)”
fookin elitists, they’re so cute with their euphemisms
round here, we just call it BULLSHIT
pure invention, that’s a knee slapper way of putting it:
gonna have some real fun with that one in the milkin shed tommorrow …
Man, that’s an absolutely brilliant point. And you could extend it to consider the speeches each man has given this year, particularly the speech on race Obama gave, which he wrote himself.
And then turn it into an Oxdown diary.
Thanks, coming from you that means something ;-))
I’ll ponder an Oxdown post.
brendanx @71, my problem with Draper’s coverage of the narrative involving McCain and (Russian) Georgia is that it’s depraved, though it’s quite possible that Draper doesn’t realize it. It’s depraved in the sense that Draper failed to mention that McCain ’strategist’ Scheunemann has a history of lobbying for Big Oil, which would be related to the Caspian oil pipeline that runs through Georgia, another of Scheunemann’s clients. Now, if Draper had linked those facts together in explaining the problems with that particular McCain ‘narrative’ (”Leader vs Celeb” IIRC), THEN it would have informed readers of the enormous ramifications of McCain’s false narrative. And it would have led them to grasp WO’s insights @40, and why:
But without that background on Scheunemann’s lobbying history, McC’s attempts to show himself as a ‘leader’ appear to be a bit stronger. If you put that Scheunemann background in, then you see why McCain is a tool of Big Oil and Big Military Industrial Complex lobbyists. (Yeah, the irony!)
WO @73: wow. Helpful.
Just a note that if the GOP actually cared about some of the Mormons (for instance, Mormon women living downwind of nuclear test sites, who have frighteningly high rates of breast cancer, or potato farmers in Wa, Ore, and Id who have to deal with pesticide issues), then maybe they wouldn’t so seriously undervalue the cultural norms. And with respect to evangelical concerns, it sure looks to me as if the GOP used the social issues to manipulate the economic interests of evangelicals; however, I defer to your more judgment on this topic. Shorter: If the GOP actually cared about these people, they would not undervalue the cultural norms; they’d try to understand them.
EW @62: Neither Romney nor McCain could/can tell a TRUE story about why they’re running. I completely agree. What fascinates me is pondering: ‘why? why can’t these guys tell a true story? Are they hiding something? Or have they not thought seriously enough to figure out an answer?”
Leen @66 – the polls are important, in the sense that if the GOP pulls out some of these elections people will not believe it. I’m still convinced that Rove, et al, were mainly using polls and the press in 2000, and 2004 to sew doubt. As long as people didn’t have clear expectations about the ‘winner’ or the electoral outcome, they could be bullied into buying the GOP ‘narrative’ and distracted by hanging chads. If the election results don’t match Obama’s huge leads, and Dem leads, people aren’t going to accept the vote tallies. I don’t think the media would buy it, either — at least, not those who’ve walked away from the tire swing. I don’t think the media would report it as a ’surprise upset’ this year; this year, the story would be, “We are looking into possible election fraud.” The smart ones are, IMHO, sick of being played for fools and realize that they won’t have jobs left if they keep passing along GOP sleaze. (If you don’t believe me, go click through the TIME Swampland topics; as Joe Klein has implemented his New Rules focus on issues, rather than passing along sleaze, the number of comments seems to have built steadily. Fascinating, no? Maybe ‘truth’ sells better than lies, after all. Who knew…?)
Yes, depraved. People haven’t been using this word enough in reference to Republicans.
Yesterday on Democracy Now Prof. Crispin Miller put forward that the “bradley effect” question will be the excuse used if the Rovian strategies successfully steal the election again. That this will be the excuse used to explain away if there is a McPalin upset
This is a great point. I’m with EW, you should turn this into an Oxdown Gazette diary.
Well, that wasn’t my main thesis anyway. But going with your superior understanding, it would appear the GOP establishment was/is quite a bit less familiar wit the tenets of Appalachia & the deep south than I’ve assumed.
The words in the King James Bible as personally dictated by God hisownself as the sole truth, with the Book of Revelations as sufficient justification for the institutes of higher education being obliged to turn out preachers one-to-one with all other specialties combined, plus a neighborly indulgence for the desire some folks have to work vipers into the liturgy, pretty much covers the full extent of the true Lord’s tolerance. Metaphors, substitutes & additions are all unmistakable signs of the Devil at work.
You mean to say they figured to work around all that?
It’s not so much theological issue as a cultural one. For a lot of conservative Christians, Mormons are ‘other’. Political types are very prone to missing this specific issue: Two cultural groups with similar political concerns and party id, but one group won’t vote for a member of the other. Democrats have this problem, but to a much smaller extent, with blacks and the GLBT community. Look at what’s happening in California. This used to be, and sometimes still is, a problem with blacks and Hispanics, although there is a bit of an economic competition issue there.
I guess my point is that political active folks often overestimate the political cohesion of their coalitions because they undervalue the cultural norms of the less politically aware.
I agree entirely with your last sentence. Indeed, I would have thought that the Atwater side of Rove work-the-base politics depends critically on understanding the first necessity of feeding the big stupid beast.
As to the rest that precedes that last sentence, I wasn’t aware I was articulating anything that is more accurately described as “theological” than “cultural”, or that in that the end there are any meaningful distinctions between them, certainly when it comes to low information types, and I suspect mostly if not completely otherwise as well. As I’m sure is true of a number who post here, I’ve got a old box in the attic full of Bibles, as study prizes from Sunday School days – along with childhood games and broken and archaic toys.
My point is that I would have thought the monsters at the top of the GOP pyramid to have better understood the beast they’ve chosen to ride. Your point is that they do not. And if so, I would find that mildly heartening.
Concur wholeheartedly.
Remember- the one poll which matters comes election day. All others count for nothing.
Check this out from MSNBC today. Go to the 3 minute mark and listen to what Chuck Todd says from 3:01 to 4:01.
And then listen to what he says from the 7:34 mark until the end. I swear I wrote my earlier comment about the NYT mag article before I heard Chuck Todd. He agrees with me…
“Both these candidates are on the verge of pulling a Bullworth”?
Sheesh.
Nor is there any chemistry between Cindy and John McCain. They never touch each other except in a very perfunctory way, and they never, ever make eye contact. So it’s hard to know what to make of what Chuck Todd said about the chemistry between McCain and Palin. He certainly has no right to blame her for his campaign’s failures.
Partnership of convenience, say I.
As I have shared before you could see this the minute McCain announced Palin as his running mate in Dayton Ohio. I was watching this live from Boulder Colorado and every cell in McCain’s body was sending out I think I blew it as he listened to her speak in Dayton. McCain often looks grumpy but that day and every day since when you see McCain behind Palin his face and body language took on a deeper level of tension. Nerves twitching more, eyes blinking, neck thickening, stiffer (if you can get any stiffer than McCain).
McCain knows he blew it by allowing the “horny neo-cons” who met Palin on their cruise to Alaska last summer to bring her to the fore front. (you have to wonder just why McCain gave into this).
There were other Republican women who were far more suitable to run as V.P.
In their junior high mentality they were hoping for, “Sex sells!”
If only Palin had the verbal skills of a college graduate instead of a junior high student, McCain would be in much better shape.
Ohio Secretary of State Bruner was visiting Board of Elections yesterday (I believe she was in Athens) This morning I heard a question asked of Brunner about the recent attacks (site, letters with with white powder, death threats, legal challenges). She said it was normal to have questions and challenges but this year the level of attacks has and continues to be extremely discouraging and dangerous.
From Secretary Brunner’s website
Ohio ready Kentucky Not
http://www.jenniferbrunner.com/view/news/215
I really think the Ohio Voter watch groups are being vigilant. But as EW and others have pointed out…what state will the Vote thieves hit this time?
TPM is looking at the CNN interview of McCain by Wolfie, and notice that McC is lying mightily about Social Security and Congress in 2005.
Establishment journalist uncritically takes at face value GOP spin? That’s would be defamation, if it were not redundant to call that “today’s MSM journalism”. That it invariably accelerates the pro-GOP spin and tracks mud all over the Dems the MSM accepts as readily as the GOP’s estimation of where the “center” lies in American politics.
Pretty rich for the Times, though. Then again, given the hit squad of Bumillers and Millers the Times has assembled, its careful sandwiching of progressive voices on its OpEd page by at least two arch-conservatives, maybe not. It’s a problem with deep roots. Scott Horton, stout defender of civil rights, specialist in the law of war, and international commercial lawyer, thought well of Mukasey and still pines for the John McCain of days gone by.
http://www.harpers.org/archive…..c-90003734
Mr. Horton’s credibility was enhanced when he admitted how errant were his prognostications about Mukasey bringing a breath of “fresh air” to the DOJ. He still yearns for the old McCain, though, as if there ever was one. What’s clear to me is that the McCain we’re now seeing is the only one there’s ever been.
I am blown away by all these clucks that yammer about “the old McCain” and the like; I have had a frnt row seat for the jackass since the day he arrived in Arizona, and even before he started his run for Congress. Which wasn’t long, because that was his entitled quest from second one. Fact is, his mental faculties are clearly slipping just a little, but that is not the germane issue. The simple fact is that what you are seeing now is the same John McCain that has always existed. Always. He is a master self image manipulator and has wielded his freaking POW status like a force shield from the Starship Enterprise to cover, conceal and excuse himself. The man is a petulant, angry, supremely self centered abusive jerk; and he has never been particularly mentally adroit. Has always been thus.
Who’s going to run against him if he runs again?
bmaz, would you be interested in running house in your district?
I saw a very entertaining “Frontline”, which offered biographies of the two candidates with lots of interested footage (for example, of Obama during his Harvard Law Review days). There was a great excerpt of McCain’s 2000 endorsement of Bush, where McCain dripped with sarcasm and that coward Bush tittered nervously the whole time.
While it made McCain likeable at the time, in retrospect it showed him to be vain, shallow, arrogant and naive in the ways of the world, or, rather, the world of a two party system, which will always crush a gadfly of this type. At the time I could never understand the years long scorn of a George Will for him until the shoe was on the other foot.
The other thing about him that no one mentions is that McCain was the Manchurian Candidate, in the sense that he was to be the chosen vehicle of the neoconservative project. The neoconservative and “liberal hawk” press (refresh your memory of New Yorker articles of 2000, for example) favored him largely for this reason. McCain’s now superflous to them with the ambiguous success of that project.
Here’s the photo of mcShame with his “partner and soul mate right after the convention:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepa…..ready.html
How different things are now!
Looks like Huckabee isn’t turning down dessert anymore.
Chris Matthews is passionate about the American Constitution.
Thanks, Chris.
It’s not obvious, but I assume your comment comes from sarcasm. Fareed Zakaria was on the Daily Show the other night using this line in another context, but it fits with Matthews: Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
Matthews benefits from an ability to go into full stream emotional blather. He also suffers from it. If he does run for the Senate in say 2010 and wins, then at least Fox News can get off Joe Biden’s case for double-edged blather.
Thanks ew. digg
Well, here’s something unlikely: a Maureen Dowd column that doesn’t contain any snark. It’s a serious encomium for Colin Powell.
“Page not found.”
Perhaps you mean this.
Bob in HI
Indeed that is the link I intended. Apparently the allergies have put links into the “too complicated” category for me tonight.
Ms ew –
As to the two elements of your post here:
First:
“Obama responded …with a counter-proposal… As far as I know, McCain just ignored this counter-proposal [&] has been stewing over the fact that Obama did not accept McCain’s proposal in its entirety for four months…or… been stewing over the fact that the younger (and, in McCain’s mind, unworthy) man did not accept McCain’s terms without negotiation”
I agree with all that. I think there’s more to the story, but that “more” would fall to someone covering the Obama campaign, which Draper was not doing.
Then you write:
“I find it interesting…Draper doesn’t note Obama’s counter-proposal. It’s tough to say whether it’s just shitty journalism, whether Draper just internalized McCain’s own myths, or whether he simply saw himself repeating what the McCain campaign either sincerely or manipulatively told him. In any case, the silence about Obama’s counter-proposal shows how Draper’s entire narrative takes McCain’s claim to justifiable indignation uncritically.”
You lost me there. I don’t mean to suggest I didn’t follow your thesis; I mean that I don’t agree.
Rather [& I realize there are comments suggesting support for this second part of your thesis] I think the Draper piece is unremittingly brilliant, for portraying the internal hubris of the McCampaign.
Draper’s piece isn’t, and couldn’t be, both Hamlet plus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Draper didn’t come into Denmark with the two numbskulls; he spent all his time in the castle, dealing with the royals and their senior retainers.
The sense I get is that what we’ve seen is what’s been happening: A candidate who despite his age, really only had one failed prior experience with a contested campaign, at an age beyond which he could not reasonably be expected to run any sort of campaign that required the ability to relate to a changing demographic that had gone past several tipping points, and the flexibility to adapt to the conditions on the ground.
[As in 2000, all McMaverick could handle was a campaign like that of Ike in 1952: All Hail Caesar home from putting down the insurgencies in Gaul, taming the wild blue-bodied Britons of the northern isles, and expanding the reach of the Empire to the general benefit of Rome]
That the GOP failed to realize McCain’s limitations shows a depth of disarray that threatens to doom its existence, despite it will still now attract some 35 to 40% of those who vote.
I think Draper succeeded in portraying that deeper reality, and more fundamental party-wide systemic failure, as well. And he was able to do so for the reasons he explains at the outset of his piece. Thus, I ask: How is it fair to hold him to failing to account for the story going on in the camp where he is not?
In my opinion, this reportage holds up magnificently against that of Woodward, who got two books out of the Bush Bunker before he started telling the truth.
Finally, having been on the winning side more than the losing side of many a trial, it’s always more comforting to think back on the wins – but considered objectively, the losses are far more revelatory. I see this piece by Draper as contrasting pretty thoroughly with the collected works of Mark Salter in terms of B.S.: the one being more in the nature of Bill Shakespeare, with the other being more in the nature of male bovine excrement.
For the winning side’s story, we may not get to read it except from the extreme interior – David Plouffe – & given past history I don’t see that book coming out until after the 2012 election.
See, I disagree.
His portrayal of the town hall flap, unlike his portrayal of the “shut out the media decision” completely obscures who the narrator is–whether or not he agrees with the assertion that Obama did ignore the McCain offer.
It might not matter–except that it does because it totally undermines the truth of Draper’s narrative if he ignores the lies on which what he’s getting from the campaign.
As told, this is the story of six narratives that simply didn’t take hold. It obscures the central philosophy of the McCain campaign, which wasn’t so much to try out new narratives, but to lie about key issues.
What I don’t get is how McCain disposed so easily of the Republican opposition during the primary. His campaign was in disarray then, too. The most amazing was the collapse of Mitt Romney. He must have run an extraordinarily bad campaign, or maybe just one that lost all gas when confronted with an (I grope for adjectives) opponent.
Bob in HI
Mitt suffered from the same thing McCain’s losing on: the inability to tell a TRUE story that matched his record and appealed to voters. Plus, he was fighting Christian conservative distrust of Mormons.
I remember doing MI’s version of MTP last year, and I knew they were all losers. None of them could have run credibly this year, except Huck, who didn’t have the money to compete.
I finally saw the Joe Plumber footage with Obama on Keith tonight, I hadn’t seen it previously.
He clearly was trying to set him up in front of the cameras, and it appears that Obama knew it. He was cocky like I said, and he underestimated Obama I think. He tried interrupting Obama, and Obama stopped him to say “let me finish” – I don’t think you do that with someone you think is a supporter, or is pushing your line.
At the end, he didn’t have the same bluster going.
I watched the entire Obama and Joe the plumber engagement too on Countdown and I agree, Obama did not give Joe a chance to reframe the question and press his point. To me, it was clear Joe had a point to make that was unfavorable to Obama’s plan. Obama used his proximity to Joe and physical contact to fully answer the question on his own terms and control Joe when he showed signs of interrupting and asking a more loaded question. Obama read Joe’s non-verbal queues as he gave his thorough answer and elaborated in response to those queues.
If Joe the plumber was not a setup, then McCain’s campaign is clearly flying seat of the pants. I am really proud of the American people for roundly rejecting the Joe the Plumber tactic as credible justification for McCain accusation of socialism and Obama’s tax plan as inequitable.
Digby cautions that the voter fraud accusations are the first round to delegitimatize an Obama presidency. You can see it in the right wing talk rhetoric already, IE Jay Severin and Michael Graham. Non policy-related stories that the press and the American people feed on now (Clothing Gate) are the kind of stories that will be used against Obama going forward to drive up his negatives and disempower him.
Political ads, flood the airways. Because NH is a swing state, boarders on MA and shares our television market, Obama is buying tons of ad time on Boston channels. The Senator race between Sununu and Shaheen involves a lot of ad buys too in the Boston/Southern NH TV market.
Neil, I think that $150,000 clothing news is going to sink Palin like nothing else could.
And Lowry and Kristol have now revealed themselves as giddy, giggly adolescents, prone to put their sexual desires above the national security.
Robert Draper’s article demonstrates that the McCain campaign’s absorption with ‘narrative’ is the problem. We all live by narratives with which construct our understanding of the world, but they are useful only to the extent they ‘explain’ the ongoing reality of daily lives.
Tonight we had Nancy Pfortenhauer on Hardball and Karen Hughes on Larry King using all their polished political skills in spinning and spinning the current operating campaign narratives. They embody what seems to be the republican talking heads lack of attention to the underlying realities of peoples’ everyday lives, the problems of governing, the use of historical knowledge to better understand the present, the facts of law and the constitution, and the complexities of regulation of the social order. Nancy has no idea of what the Constitution says about the function of the office of the vice-president. Karen, as we witnessed in her international ‘listening’ tours, continues to be conceptually inert to what’s going on in the world.
Why are these people so intellectually lazy? How can they advance so far in the political world and be so ignorant of the political? It’s a puzzlement…
Why are these people so intellectually lazy? How can they advance so far in the political world and be so ignorant of the political? It’s a puzzlement…
Knowledge of the real is hard; mere rabid belief in the imagined is easy.
Rays drop the series opener
where have I seen that before ???
oh yeah
beanville
just so everybody knows, I stopped takin my bi-polar meds, so I get to root for both teams …
OT Brian Williams is running the Palin interview over three broadcasts; wed, thu & fri. He intimated they are ‘interesting’, especially fridays… He’ll let them ’speak for themselves’…
OT-Palin is an intellectual. How do we know? She says so….you betcha….
link http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..v=hcmodule
Looks like the big ten title will be decided in columbus on saturday
anybody wanna speculate on how that might go
I should be rootin for ohio state, cuz that could help Oklahoma reach the bcs title game, but I like Joe Pa too much. Go Nittany Lions …
I’m rooting for Joe Pa, recognizing that Tressel has made Columbus a lot tougher to win in. BUt it oughtta be a cracker of a game.
this could become my favorite politically related mixed metaphor
stole that from this diary at DKOS
thanks mr Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic
My biggest concern with Draper’s narrative of resentment is that it is yet another element in the web of “this election was fix” resentment spin that Republicans are building on top of the racial “hate” narrative. Democrats worked within the law when the numbers did not add up in 2004. The anger and hate being cultivated at rallies and get-out-the-vote sessions by Republicans in 2008, I fear, will result in some high end violence after an Obama win, making Cheney rub his hands together as he kicks Bush into declaring Martial Law.
Shame on Draper. He is tossing slime to the masses in order to create post election violence and should be held accountable along with McCain and Palin. The message he is sending out to those who are sucking on the hate teet is a racial profiling of “the black man committed a crime. He stole the election from us. He didn’t play fair”
In this vain, if McCain “cares” about our country, he would turn Connell over for questioning instead of stalling until after the election. Why? We would find out exactly what happened in 2004 and it could act as a neutralizing event to the present resentment and hate build-up. The, “Oh we did steal the last election,” humiliation of the base would hopefully quiet enough people that the violence would not be as far spread.
But McCain is the one not willing to play fair. He is doing everything to deny Obama a legitimate win and making sure it is wrapped in negative racial tones, intentionally trying to make it impossible for any success.
Draper could have used his journalistic skill to convey balance and tell a story of two viewpoints. Instead, Draper became a part of the Republican party disfunction operation with divisive illustrations, omission of truthful facts and lending to the manipulative “I am the victim, this is not fair,” voice of resentment when in fact, behind the scenes, a full intervention by the proper legal process is trying to be walked out and it is McCain who is not playing fair by making a paid staff person NOT cooperate in the investigation pre-election cycle. McCain hired this guy knowing this subpoena was possible. Play fair McCain and be the “straight talk” you claim to be. It’s clear you are trying to make the intervention fail for your own election benefit, denying Ohio voters the truth.
I have to say that this is the first that I recall hearing of Obama’s counter-proposal, and I’ve been following this race quite closely for someone with a demanding non-political day job. In particular, I watched (most of) each of the debates, and I’ve seen McCain and other Republicans try (with no apparent success) to trash Obama about going back on his word on this matter. I’ve seen Olbermann come to Obama’s defense more than once on Countdown, noting that Obama had only promised to negotiate. But I’ve never seen or heard mention of this Lincoln-Douglas style counterproposal.
This could reflect only my lack of attention. But it could also be a tactical decision on the part of the Obama campaign.
There have been places during the debates where McCain has repeatedly brought up matters predictable topics, e.g., “success of the surge,” where Obama has not taken advantage of the most obvious and direct comebacks. Instead he deftly shifts the subject (e.g., from Iraq to Iran). But given how well his campaign is now doing, I’m in no position to criticize their tactics and candidate-preparation for the debates.
In any case, I wish they’d put their best material out there (e.g., his counterproposal) so that people. like myself, who get into political arguments at work and at family dinners would have it available without having to dig.
Obama even mentioned his submitting a counter proposal in the Lincoln-Douglas style during one of the debates and stated McCain never responded to it.
So, perhaps it was my inattention, though I did miss parts of some of them. Sigh!
They did put out a release, and admittedly teh release was probably just a politically safe way to say, “no.” But I guess maybe they’re just going to let McCain have his self-exculpatory narrative.
They all self-destructed, but McCain did so last.
Or, in some cases (Frederick of Hollywood and Noun Verb 9/11) never really got off the ground.
Though I think things might have been different had Huck not won IA–so you could argue that the Republican insiders just never accounted for the Frankenstein they had created in the Christian Conservtaive base, and that put all their calculations off.
McCain does not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.
That was the best line of the whole article, IMO.
This one stuck out for me:
Draper here is unskeptically regurgitating the campaign’s narrative, as if the “opportunity” just came along and McCain had never heard of Saakashvili.
I’m also suspicious of their version of the Palin pick. There’s no mention of the sequence of events that started with Obama’s acceptance speech.
As Chris Matthews keeps pointing out the only thing the McCain team has left is to attack the patriotism of Obama and call him “anti-American” pre-emptively question the validity of the election.
The persistent effort by the Republicans to undermine access to voting is shameful and pathetic
Apparently, Paulson is busy redacting information to keep We the People from knowing all the little details about how he’s spending our money:
http://www.businesssheet.com/2…..ut-bailout
Brad Delong observes this in the article:
I look forward to McCain’s imminent Resentful Narrative of Silence.