Wash. Post did not challenge examples cited by McCain aide denouncing smears of Obama
SUMMARY: The Washington Post reported that McCain aide Mark Salter said Sen. John McCain would not "tolerate" racially tinged attacks. According to the article, Salter noted that McCain "denounced" Bill Cunningham's controversial remarks about Sen. Barack Obama and that he "criticized" an ad by the North Carolina GOP. But the Post did not challenge Salter's claims: In fact, the McCain campaign reportedly invited Cunningham to a rally despite his history of controversial remarks, and McCain reportedly did not take steps to stop the ad from airing.
In an August 1 Washington Post article, staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin reported that Mark Salter, a senior aide to Sen. John McCain, asserted in an email that "there isn't a shred of evidence" that McCain "would tolerate" what Salter referred to as Sen. Barack Obama's "repeated suggestion that [McCain is] running a racist campaign." While Salter mentioned instances in which McCain "denounced" racially tinged attacks by third parties, Weisman and Eilperin failed to note that McCain reportedly did not take steps to stop the conduct or prevent it beforehand.
In their article, Weisman and Eilperin reported that Salter "not[ed] that the senator from Arizona had denounced an Ohio radio talk show host who mocked Obama's name and that he criticized an ad by the North Carolina Republican Party highlighting Obama's ties to [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright." But they did not point out that while McCain did repudiate conservative radio host Bill Cunningham's gratuitous references to Obama's middle name at a February 26 McCain rally, the campaign reportedly invited Cunningham to appear at the rally despite his history of conduct similar to what McCain denounced, including his having previously advanced the false claim that Obama attended a madrassa, falsely referred to Obama as "Mohammed," and repeatedly referred to Obama's middle name.
Regarding the North Carolina GOP ad, while McCain pledged, "I'll do everything in my power to make sure not only they stop it but that kind of leadership is rejected," according to North Carolina GOP chairwoman Linda Daves, at no point did McCain call her directly and ask her not to run the ad. Moreover, as Media Matters for America noted, several ranking members of the state Republican Party also had "official" roles in the McCain campaign or in the Republican National Committee to whom McCain could have insisted the ad not run.
Further, in uncritically reporting Salter's citing the North Carolina GOP ad as an example of what McCain would not "tolerate," Weisman and Eilperin did not note McCain's reported comment that "he wouldn't have run the GOP ad, 'but I am not going to referee, I am just going to run my own campaign.' " Additionally, in a June 12 article, the Boston Herald quoted McCain saying, "I can't be a referee of every spot run on television," and described his comments as "a softening of his view on the negative campaign tactic" that "opens the door to a no-holds-barred five-month scramble."
From the August 1 Post article:
Obama aides said the candidate's remarks were no different from applause lines he has used for months. At a mid-June fundraiser in Jacksonville, Fla., for instance, Obama said: "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?' "
But Obama did appear to expand upon the theme by linking the attacks to McCain by name. Asked what specifically Obama was referring to, campaign manager David Plouffe avoided the question, saying, "What we're seeing out of the McCain campaign, the Republican Party and some of their allies have been some very aggressive charges."
Obama strategist Robert Gibbs said separately: "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they're using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he'll continue to talk about."
McCain aides acknowledged that Obama has leveled similar accusations for some time, but they said the insinuations that McCain was personally a party to racism required a response. In an e-mail, senior McCain aide Mark Salter wrote that Davis issued the statement to defend McCain "from Obama's repeated suggestion that he's running a racist campaign." Salter continued: "When he did it the first time yesterday, we let it pass. When he did it again later, specifically linking us to it, we decided to respond."
Salter added that "there isn't a shred of evidence" that McCain "would tolerate such a thing," noting that the senator from Arizona had denounced an Ohio radio talk show host who mocked Obama's name and that he criticized an ad by the North Carolina Republican Party highlighting Obama's ties to Wright.
One of the things the MSM is not doing is identifying the coded language that McCain is using to keynote Obama's race.
No one's dumb enough to call Obama Black. So they use super-charged language and imagery to do the same thing.
Not one Dem has noted this in interviews-- and they're constantly being given the chance-- every time they are challenged by the question "How has McCain injected race into the campaign" etc.
The Dems have to knock this practice down, and pronto. Are they smart enough to do it?
History says "no".
No one's dumb enough to call Obama Black. So they use super-charged language and imagery to do the same thing.
I agree. I guess that's why they did a Harold Ford type of hit on Obama with the Britanny/Paris Hilton thing. A black man with not one, but two white women known for scuzzy sexual behavior. Some people are still hung up on a black man messing with the white women. Believe me I heard this sort of thing when I was dating my husband. It's okay if you date. But don't marry or , gasp, have any kids. It's sad but true that this type of thing still gets traction.
I think some people were arguing the other day that this was linking Obama with vacuous celebrities - ya know, calling him an empty suit. But the Harold Ford treatment is what was conjured in my mind based on personal experience.
How a president of the Harvard Law Review, a community organizer, a civil rights attorney, someone who taught constitutional law at Univ. of Chicago, a state senator and a U.S. Senator can be compared to a celebrity and charged with being an empty suit is beyond me.
John Sidney McCain is a disgrace. And anybody who thinks he isn't using Obama's race to scare people is nuts. It's what Repulicans do these days since they've got nothing substansive to offer the country. Let's play on people's racists tendencies and use that good old standby - miscegenation.
McCain's ads are laughably false and stupid. That's all that needs to be said about them.
Good point, Steeve. The right has created this imaginary world where Obama has declared himself the "post-racial" candidate, making any mention of race, or noticing even covert racially tinged remarks,as hypocritical.
It's probably only convincing to the GOP true believers, but I think there's enough wrong with the McCain program to make avoiding the phony trap pretty easy.
What's most telling about that is that another reporter was removed for asking why it happened. If there was a valid reason, all that needs to be done is to explain it. And if there was a valid reason, it shouldn't have to be explained in the first place because all of them should have been moved. I just don't see any way around the perception that the action was obviously wrong, and the second reporter was removed because she was making a stink about it and/or they knew she had a reason to make a stink about it.
But I'm sure the spin will be that this was some liberal reporter standing in the wrong place so that he'd get kicked out and create an impression of racism, just like Adkisson was really a liberal who hated Christians and was trying to give Christian conservatives a bad rap.
But to overtly and covertly play the race card has worked so well for them.
Per raw story refferences to Yohn being a celebrity on his own web site have been erased. Gee wonder why?
But, for McCain himself to merely claim that "Obama is playing the race card" is HIM playing the race card, because it deliberately reminds people of Obama's race.
It's intrinsically racist for Repubs to do this. McCain is front and center on this now. So why hasn't it been noted anywhere, but few places?