THE ROVING EYE Old Wrinkly's Roverian
cancer
By Pepe Escobar
NEW YORK - How mud-wallowingly deep may a multi-millionaire US presidential
campaign go? Way deep - deeper and deeper. And this is only early August.
Republican Senator John McCain's presidential campaign's strategic decision is
now all too obvious. Swift-boating Democratic Senator Barack Obama is the only
way to go.
The McCain-painted Obama is emerging as a US-hating, terrorist-friendly, deeply
suspicious, radical, vapid black celeb - Puff Daddy with a Harvard degree. This
"new bogeyman" picture travels well in those vast swathes of flyover US
territory where urban hipness not only evokes envy and contempt but is regarded
as a mortal sin.
The McCain campaign knows that is the only chance in heaven
and hell for their candidate in November. What can a strategist do when US
voters desperately want change and reject the Republican brand in droves, your
candidate is senile and insufferably boring, knows absolutely zilch about the
economy, and supports a mega-unpopular war?
So abandon all hope those who yearn for a serious political debate in the US.
And it gets worse: signs are the McCain campaign "strategy" is working.
Let's put him in his place
This campaign is now
all about the Gang of Rove - or the takeover
of McCain's
operation by former George W Bush "turd blossom" Karl Rove and his minions. The
McCain campaign is now being conducted by Steve Schmidt, who used to run the
infamous 2004 Rove "war room" that swift-boated John Kerry to oblivion.
Rove remains conveniently in the shade, with the added bonus of appearing at
Fox News as an informed commentator of his own tactics.
Earlier in 2008, Rove himself had already announced how dirty this was going to
get - painting Obama in a January 10 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece as a lazy,
cocky, trash-talking basketball player.
Then, on June 23, ABC News' Christianne Klein reported that at a breakfast at
the Capitol Hill Club Rove derided Obama as "coolly arrogant". According to
Klein, Rove said, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy
at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette
that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes
by."
And then Rove said McCain "needs to come right at him." At the time a Newsweek
poll was showing Obama with a 15-point lead over McCain.
So how do you smash Obama's carefully nurtured image of a post-racial uniter?
Perennial bi-partisan Washington hand David Gergen, who worked on many White
House configurations, from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, told it like it is
this past Sunday: you use racist code. According to Gergen, "There has been a
very intentional effort to paint him [Obama] as somebody outside the
mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us'. I think the McCain campaign has been
scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign.
Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the
south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One', that's
code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place'. Everybody gets that who
is from a southern background. We all understand that."
The buildup has been relentless. The McCain campaign's new slogan is "Country
first" - as if Obama's campaign was all about his ego. In all his town hall
speeches, McCain repeats the neat, and false, formulation that Obama "would
rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign" - a reference to
Obama's criticism of President George W Bush's "surge" in the war in Iraq.
The icing on the cake, so far, has been the now iconic ad "Celeb" with its
image interplay of Obama in front of 200,000 people in Berlin with naughty
girls Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
And it goes way beyond. The Britney-Paris-Obama ad was not only about race. It
was about selling the idea of Obama as a frivolous, air-headed, dandy celeb,
with the bonus of intimately associating him with two gorgeous, young, blond,
raunchy white women half his age; imagine the torrents of fear and anguish
flowing in those vast Bible-clutching American pastures. Obama, for the Gang of
Rove, has to be relentless degraded as too young, too feckless, too pampered,
too precious, too effete, too self-infatuated, too rock star, and too dangerous
to be president.
And yes - they can have it both ways. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis even
accused Obama of playing the race card himself in his comments about the
Britney-Paris ad, while McCain told CNN "I'm sorry to say that ... Obama was
... playing the race card".
Extra Himalayas and Hindu Kushes of hypocrisy have been reached as old
Washington hands - many of them part of McCain's media "base" - proclaimed
themselves indignant that McCain had taken the Bush family Rovian way: victory,
whatever it takes. Not many Republican hearts can survive the horrifying idea
of being defeated by a liberal, Democratic black guy.
Paris for president
But then the McCain campaign should have guessed that you don't mess with
people who have enough money to bury you - as in the Hilton hotel family, which
happens, irony of ironies, to vote Republican.
Paris Hilton lost no time, simply hired better writers - Chris Henchley and
former Saturday Night Live writer Adam McCay, a creative partner of the
laugh-a-tonic Will Ferrell - and visibly got a tremendous kick delivering her
response to the McCain ad. [1]
Conveniently decked in swimsuit and high heels, looking totally hot, Paris in
her video response not only whoops the old man - "really old, older than Yoda"
- but offers her own energy policy to save America. She ends up looking more
respectable than McCain. Additionally, fashionistas and the YouTube/Facebook
hordes shrieked in delight as she also did promise to paint the White House
pink.
As American celeb culture is the law of the land, if Paris actually ran she
would have quite a decent shot of conquering the White (Pink) House. She might
just settle for giving an advantage to Obama - for now, besides musing the
juicy possibility of suing McCain and his handlers.
Yeah! Now where are the chicks?
Senator Hillary Clinton had predicted, in private, while still campaigning,
that Obama would "crumple like a paper doll" when confronting the mighty,
voracious Republican smear machine. To say that Obama is currently
underperforming in front of an astonishing mediocre candidate would be the
understatement of the year - as much as Obama's chief strategist, David
Axelrod, may be itching to go as nasty as any Rovian.
The fact is the Rovian way is working. McCain is on the way up in key swing
states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to the latest polls.
Obama holds just a slight national lead over McCain. One of this week's polls
showed 53% believed Obama himself had played the race card; only 22% thought
the Paris-Britney-Obama ad manipulated race.
If the Obama campaign does not fight this monstrous misunderstanding head on,
he's bound to lose the election. As it stands, Team Obama is playing defense
while the Rovian Team McCain defines the rules of engagement. The race is now
all about Obama. Team Obama's got to change the rules, and do it quick.
How easy it is to swift-boat McCain became evident this week when the "older
than Yoda" candidate, desperate to win the redneck vote, showed up at the
extended debauchery/strip teasing/bike rally known as Sturgis Rally 2008 at
Buffalo Chip in South Dakota, an annual tribute-cum bimbo eruption to US war
veterans.
The "rally" happens to take place on Sioux sacred land. The Sioux have been
trying to shut the thing down for years. But for the local authorities it's all
about making a fast buck out of hordes of horny bikers. McCain, by the way,
happens to be on the American Indian Affairs senate sub-committee.
McCain was so fired up in South Dakota he encouraged his own aging wife Cindy -
the multi-millionaire, Stepford wife-looking beer heiress - to enter the
topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest: "I told her with a little luck, she could be
the only woman ever to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip." The
topless contest inevitably turns bottomless and also involves activities such
as banana coddling. The religious right vote may have not been amused.
One can imagine the thunderous 24/7 wall-to-wall media coverage if "uppity"
Obama had ever offered his wife Michelle to public consumption on a similar
event. US corporate media were mum on McCain's bimbo eruption. But then US
corporate media execs in New York are not exactly keen on helping an "uppity"
black man beat up on an old white guy.
Note
1. Paris Hilton Responds to McCain ad, click
here
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
of McCain's
operation by former George W Bush "turd blossom" Karl Rove and his minions. The
McCain campaign is now being conducted by Steve Schmidt, who used to run the
infamous 2004 Rove "war room" that swift-boated John Kerry to oblivion.
