Racism Review: Smearing Dr. Wright: White Fear and Republican Leaders, Again

Racism Review

Smearing Dr. Wright: White Fear and Republican Leaders, Again

Reportedly Senator McCain has said he will not use the Dr. Jeremiah Wright “story” against Senator Obama, but some Republican Party operatives (listed as the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania) in Pennsylvania have ignored that inclination and are now running anti-Obama attack ads highlighting Dr. Wright. CNN has had this weak story up today:

. . . a last-minute television ad that calls attention to Barack Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “If you think you could ever vote for Barack Obama, consider this: Obama chose as his spiritual leader this man,” the ad’s narrator says before clips of Wright’s controversial statements are shown. “Does that sound like someone who should be president?” the ad asks.

The CNN story meekly continues with this:

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly said he does not believe Obama’s relationship to Wright should be an issue — to the ire of some Republicans who feel it raises questions about the Illinois senator’s judgment.

McCain deserves some credit for this if it is true, and apparently it is, or was. Governor Palin has ignored it lately, and presumably McCain could stop her:

“[Obama] sat in the pews for 20 years and heard Rev. Wright say some things that most people would find a bit concerning. But again that is John McCain’s call,” Palin told reporters. The state GOP … defended airing it. “We feel that it is necessary that the American people remember that Obama sat in a church and listened to this man preach hate for many, many years,” said a statement on its Web site. “What does that say about his judgment? Do we want the next president of the United States to have spent years listening to hateful rhetoric without having the good judgment to walk out?”

I pointed out the misrepresentations in such nonsense here in early April. Let us look again briefly at Dr. (notice the media and white politicians rarely give him his correct title) Jeremiah Wright’s famous (and old) sermon with the famous statements that ABC News first spread like wildfire. Five years ago, Dr. Wright gave a 40-minute sermon discussing the racist history o

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s impact on Obama overstated in TV ad — Eye on Ohio

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s impact on Obama overstated in TV ad — Eye on Ohio

THE AD: “He Never Complained Once,” 30-second TV ad.

PRODUCER: National Republican Trust PAC.

WHERE TO SEE IT: Local TV and above.

RATING: 2 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful)

ANALYSIS: 

John McCain has frustrated and puzzled some strategists and supporters by not making an issue of the relationship between Obama and Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago known for giving fiery sermons and dabbling in radical politics.

Stepping in is the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee — a month-old anti-Obama group that has no official tie to the Republican National Committee and says it is spending $2.5 million to air this ad in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Wright, once described by Obama as his spiritual adviser, officiated at Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters. Obama credited a Wright sermon, “The Audacity of Hope,” for drawing him to Christianity.

But extensive reporting showed Wright and his church playing no significant role, if any, in Obama’s rising political career, and Obama said they have disagreed since the 1980s about the importance of race as opposed to class in divisions. Obama began to distance himself from Wright before his presidential campaign.

The pastor’s more-inflammatory remarks led Obama to deliver a major speech on race last March in which he rejected the remarks as “not only wrong but divisive.” After Wright’s subsequent comments and dismissal of the speech, Obama angrily denounced him personally and cut all ties, saying: “When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I am about and who I am, and anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign’s about, I think, will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.”

Nashville Post Politics: You Want A Wink War?

Nashville Post Politics

You Want A Wink War?

Team Sarah will give you one. A response to this Barack Obama ad:

 

AmericaBlog: Anyone else see the word “Blacks” in this McCain ad?

AmericaBlog

Anyone else see the word “Blacks” in this McCain ad? 

Our friend Ari caught it, and he’s right. John McCain has just thrown out any honor he had left. It’s amazing how Karl Rove’s people have destroyed McCain and his brand. Utterly.

Talking Points Memo: Conservative Group To Run Anti-Wright Ads On National Networks Through Election Day

Talking Points Memo

Conservative Group To Run Anti-Wright Ads On National Networks Through Election Day

Get ready for a deluge of Wright rantings.

The National Republican Trust PAC, which has been airing an ad attacking Barack Obama’s association with Reverend Wright in three battleground states, has now put down for a national buy on five networks that will last from now through election day, a consultant with the group confirms to me.

The ad will run nationally on Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC for the next five days, the consultant, Rick Wilson, says — “all the way until election day.”

The ad, which you can watch here, features the now-infamous footage of Wright’s livelier sermons, and intones that Obama “never complained” about Wright “until he ran for President,” adding that Obama is “too radical, too risky.”

Previously, the ad was only running in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, as Ben Smith reported the other day.

Now, however, the ad will run nationally, Wilson says, adding that the group just got through getting the spot vetted with network lawyers and is good to go.

Jack and Jill: Chris Matthews, Post Obama Infomercial

Jack and Jill

Chris Matthews, Post Obama Infomercial

This family has done everything you’ve asked them to do.
What more do you want before you’ll vote for a Black guy?
What more do you want?

Oh Tweety….sometimes, you speak the truth.

Mother Jones: Wright Happens

Mother Jones

Wright Happens

The other shoe finally drops. A group called the National Republican Trust PAC is making a $2.5 million ad buy with the first Jeremiah Wright ad of the campaign. You have to wonder how this campaign would have been different if McCain hadn’t chosen the Wright issue to make a stand (his only such stand, it seems) for dignity, respect, and positive campaigning. I can’t be the only one who sees a far more difficult path for Obama if ads like the one below are playing regularly from August to November.

Nashville Post Politics: The NRA Is Completely Racist

Nashville Post Politics

The NRA Is Completely Racist

So says Bob Krumm

UPDATE: Braisted has some thoughts.

Right Wing News: Is a Vote for Obama

Right Wing News

Is a Vote for Obama

. . . a vote to legitimize terrorism?

The Republican Jewish Coalition reminds you to think it over carefully before you vote:

 

Talking Points Memo: Are Republicans The Victims Of Their Own Success In Slime-Trafficking?

Talking Points Memo

Are Republicans The Victims Of Their Own Success In Slime-Trafficking?

 

One has to wonder whether McCain and the Republicans are, in a sense, victims of their own success in playing the slime game.

They’ve thrown so much vicious stuff at Barack Obama via robocalls, mailers, ads, and the like — and they’ve succeeded in doing it so comprehensively — that it seems likely that it has lost its potency, if it ever had any at all. It seems fair to speculate that the paper slime currency that the GOP has been printing at such a furious rate has lost all its value.

Call it DSD syndrome — Defining Slime Down.

Take, for instance, the mailer below from the Republican National Committee that’s getting attention today (even though HuffPo first posted it five days ago). It shows a plane about to hit an airport and says: “Barack Obama thinks terrorists just need a good talking to.”

Is this really going to shock anyone? Is it going to move voters in any meaningful numbers? Doubtful.

Multiple polls show that one of these attacks — the one on Obama’s association with William Ayers — has been a flop. I suspect that if there were polling on the GOP’s more generic efforts to insinuate that Obama is linked to or sympathetic towards terrorists in various other ways — such as in the mailer below — it would find the same.

Either way, at this point, when McCain or the RNC links Obama to terrorists in one way or another it’s just a dog bites man story.