Is what happened to Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers now happening to the Obama Campaign? Last January, John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, was part of the upbeat “Yes We Can” chorus, telling investors in a conference call that “We have great, long-term prospects. As I look out into 2008, I am very optimistic about our ability to perform for our shareholders.” It turns out, though, that the oceans of red ink did not stop rising when Obama was nominated. Let’s see, in January 2008, Merrill stock was trading in the low 50s (down from nearly 100 the year before). Now its in the 20s, and this past Monday, swamped by debt, the venerable house of Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America. Turns out there was a hollowness at the center of Mr. Thain’s optimism. Like the city of Oakland according to Gertrude Stein, there was no there there. The promised prosperity was fabricated on empty rhetoric. And when it began to unravel, it unraveled fast.
Sound familiar?
I’d say team Obama is nearing a meltdown. Consider how they are running the campaign. Do we not see signs of desperation? I know that national political contests are not run by Emily Post. Exaggeration. A little name-calling. Accentuate the positive when speaking about yourself, the negative when speaking about your opponent. No one expects impartiality in a political campaign. But even in that rough-and-tumble world, some standards of decency apply–or, rather, should apply. Let’s leave aside yesterday’s revelation that supporters of Obama hacked into Sarah Palin’s private email and published screen shots of some of the contents on the internet–“a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy,” as Rick Davis, McCain-Palin campaign manager said, not to mention “a violation of law.” Let’s look instead at the recent Spanish TV ad from Team Obama. Does it meet that minimum standard of decency? The Washington Post describes (and contains a link to) the ad:
The Obama campaign has released new radio and TV ads in Spanish that seek to tie Sen. John McCain to anti-immigrant comments made by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The ads also suggest the Republican has “dos caras” — “two faces” — when it comes to his relations with Latino voters. . . .
“They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with, the intolerance,” the television ad’s announcer says in Spanish as a picture of Rush Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, “Mexicans are stupid and unqualified” and “Shut your mouth or get out.”
Never mind that McCain–who teamed up with Ted Kennedy to propose a very liberal immigration reform bill–is miles away from Limbaugh on the question of how do deal with illegal immigration. Focus instead on the shocking quotations from Limbaugh:
“Mexicans are stupid and unqualified.”
“Shut your mouth or get out.
Not very nice, is it?
But As Jake Tapper at ABC news reports, the ad completely twists Limbaugh’s meaning by tearing the quotations from their original context. In 1993, Tapper notes, Limbaugh went after NAFTA as follows:
“If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine ’cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I’m serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.”
Hardly the xenophobic expostulation the ad saddled him with, is it?
How about “Shut your mouth or get out”? That, Tapper notes, comes from a critical comment about Mexican law that Limbaugh made in 2006:
“Everybody’s making immigration proposals these days. Let me add mine to the mix. Call it The Limbaugh Laws:
“First: If you immigrate to our country, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws. No special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office.
“If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it’ll be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property.
“And another thing: You don’t have the right to protest. You’re allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our President or his policies. You’re a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you’re going to jail.
“You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today! That’ how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets!
“How do you say ‘double standard’ in Spanish? How about: ‘No mas!’”
The ad grossly misrepresents McCain’s position on immigration. It scandalously misrepresents what Rush Limbaugh said.
From the very beginning of this campaign, Team Obama has been skirling that McCain has resorted to “lies” and “smear” tactics. As Byron York points out, Exhibit A in the dossier is the ad McCain ran that contended that Obama’s “one accomplishment” in education was supporting “legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.”
Team Obama decried the ad as “shameful,” “perverse,” just another example of McCain’s mendacity. According to Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, the bill in question was not about sex ed for kindergartners but was “written to protect young children from sexual predators.” The New York Times, Washington Post, and other unofficial members of the committee to elect Obama dutifully parroted this response. But York shows that, notwithstanding the protest from Obama’s handlers, the ad was essentially accurate. The bill in question (the text is here) was introduced in the Illinois Senate in 2003. York quotes a press release that describes the bill: “It teaches students about the advantages of abstinence,” the bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Carol Ronen said, “while also giving them the realistic information they need about the prevention of an unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.” The release, York notes, makes “no mention of sexual predators or inappropriate touching.”
What, specifically, was the bill designed to do? It appears to have had three major purposes:
* The first, as Ronen indicated, was to mandate that information presented in sex-ed classes be “factual,” “medically accurate,” and “objective.”
* The second purpose was to increase the number of children receiving sex education. Illinois’ existing law required the teaching of sex education and AIDS prevention in grades six through twelve. The old law read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS.
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.
York proceeds with a meticulous examination of the bill’s contents, quoting copious from those who sponsored and supported it. The bottom line, he concludes, is that “the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten. Obama’s defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is.”
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