Shooting at Messengers
Posted on March 11, 2008 - Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment
Why is it that anti-Obama smears take on extra unpleasantness when they come from the Clinton campaign? Maybe it’s related to the harm they cause the Democratic party in the long run, and the fact that this is seemingly of no concern to HRC and her team of mud-chuckers. Or maybe it’s related to the tone of these attacks, or the fact that very often they strike at weak aspects of Obama’s candidacy on which Clinton is equally vulnerable (the obvious example being the ridiculous ‘experience argument’).
Whatever the reason, attacks from the McCain camp itself (not the wider American right) don’t get me nearly so riled up with indignation. I even laughed at this one:
After Obama issued a press release last May noting that conditions were still dangerous enough in Iraq that McCain had been forced to wear a “flack jacket” during a public tour of a Baghdad market, a McCain release taunted Obama for his inexperience, adding, “By the way, Senator Obama, it’s a ‘flak’ jacket, not a ‘flack’ jacket.” For good measure, an unnamed McCain aide drove home the point to the Politico, saying that “Obama wouldn’t know the difference between an RPG and a bong.”
Taken from a very interesting article about the mutual dislike between Senators McCain and Obama. Neither come out of it particularly badly, but it does cast a pall over Obama’s high-minded talk of reaching out to Republicans and uniting America.
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