2011 : Page 261 : The Other McCain

‘That’s Not a Poll That’s Psy-Ops!’

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

So says Da Tech Guy about an Associated Press poll that surveyed nearly twice as many Democrats (35%) as Republicans (18%). You will perhaps not be surprised that this poll shows Obama with a 63% approval rating.

Speaking of “psy-ops” — psychological warfare — let me explain something: Nothing so sways the independent voter as bandwagon psychology.

Lacking any clear partisan or ideological commitment, the independent voters is likely to support whichever candidate his friends and neighbors support. This is why yard signs and bumper stickers make a difference in campaigns. Believe it or not, some voters may base their vote on whichever candidate has the most yard signs in his neighborhood.

Furthermore, independent voters like to vote for the winner. Polls showing Obama ahead will, of course, encourage Democrats and discourage Republicans. More importantly, however, such polls will sway independents toward Obama.

It is always a mistake to think of independent voters as moderates or “centrists.” It is more helpful to think of them as “low-information voters” who don’t pay much attention to politics, and whose judgments are influenced more by superficial impressions of candidates than by deeply held political beliefs.

Did National Magazine Award Winner Scott Horton Spin a Guantanamo Myth?

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

The award considered the “Pulitzer for magazines” went to Scott Horton of Harper‘s for an article asserting that three detainees at Guantanamo Bay were tortured to death in 2006. U.S. officials say the suspected terrorists committed suicide in a sort of jihadi publicity stunt.

Alex Koppelman explores the possibility that the award-winning article promoted a hoax, noting that several investigative reporters — including Sy Hersh, Brian Ross of ABC News and Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News — all researched the same story, and spoke to the same sources, and concluded that the death-by-torture allegations were at best unproven:

A New York Times reporter was also approached by the parties who’d been pushing the allegations of homicide and cover-up at Guantánamo, a person close to the situation says.
Only after the big guys passed was the story shopped to Horton. He won for reporting, but in fact the story fell right into his lap, factual flaws and all.
“We couldn’t really believe it when the piece came out,” one of the reporters who looked into the story says. “I can’t believe Harper’s, I really can’t.”

(Via MediaGazer.) The “investigative” story that falls into a reporter’s lap — handed to him pre-packaged, as it were — is more common than people outside journalism suspect. This was the basic narrative of David Brock’s big Anita Hill scoop: Brock was supplied with a research dossier by Republican staffers for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and parlayed that “gimme” into a reputation as an ace investigative reporter. Or at least that’s what my sources say.

‘Nice Bit of Driving!’

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

So shouts one of the Irish spectators in Dublin, where Obama’s limousine got stuck on a speed-bump while leaving the U.S. Embassy there:

At the 10-second mark, you hear the first scrape as one of the police cars leadintg the motorcade bottoms out. Then at 16 seconds, the presidential limo (an armor-plate vehicle known as “the Beats”) gets stuck and the crowd says: Ooooohhh!

Drew M: “My question is, what the hell was the Secret Service agent driving the limo doing drinking a Slurpee while on duty?”

Sully: Israelis ‘Got Their US Media Mouthpieces’ to Criticize Obama’s Speech

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

“So it’s pretty obvious that it was the Israelis who immediately got their US media mouthpieces to spin the speech as some sort of attack.”
— Andrew Sullivan, May 20

Doug Ross called attention to this rather disturbing accusation: U.S. criticism of President Obama’s speech was not really of domestic origin, Sully says, but rather was the result of Israeli manipulation.

Sullivan makes specific mention of Matt Drudge, Fox News and Mitt Romney. Which of these, or which others, does he outright accuse of being “mouthpieces” issuing “spin” at the behest of Israelis?

My own response to the speech was to aggregate the reactions of others, and I noted that Max Boot of Commentary, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and John Tabin of The American Spectator all initially saw Obama’s speech as very Bush-like. William Jacobson was immediately critical, as was Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, but there seemed to be a delay before John Podhoretz and Omri Ceren came out with negative reactions.

It may be fair to suppose that some of Obama’s critics took their cue from Israeli sources: “Let’s see what Bibi says” is a reasonable stance for those who profess friendship for Israel. But that is a very different thing than Andrew Sullivan’s depiction of Israeli puppeteers secretly pulling the strings of their American media marionettes.

You can’t just casually drop that kind of accusation into a post and then walk away as if you hadn’t said it.

UPDATE: Jeff Dunetz sees widespread use of the “Jewish media manipulation” meme on the Left.

UPDATE II: Linked by Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom — thanks!

UPDATE III: Linked by Moe Lane, although I’m pretty certain it’s spelled “Joooozz!”

Prosser Wins in Wisconsin

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

Remember when Democrats and unions claimed that Scott Walker’s agenda was electoral doom for the GOP? Not so much:

A grueling statewide recount concluded Friday that Justice David Prosser defeated challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg to win another 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a race driven by the debate over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to curb the union rights of the state’s public employees.
The recount that began on April 27 ended Friday afternoon after Waukesha County officials finished tallying their last remaining precincts. Unofficial results showed Justice Prosser had 752,697 votes — 7,006 more than Ms. Kloppenburg’s 745,691.
State election officials plan to meet on Monday to verify the results.

Via UnicornMajik on Twitter.

Obama’s Smear Machine

Posted on May 23, 2011Comments

I take Chris Christie at his word when he says he isn’t running for president in 2012. Neverthless, Team Obama is ready:

Despite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s repeated pronouncements that he will not seek the GOP presidential nomination, Obama operatives are compiling a dossier of what they call “opposition research” — material that could be used to damage Christie if he changes his mind, The Post has learned.
The Obama campaign is trying to keep its efforts from public view, concerned they would only elevate Christie’s already impressive standing within the Republican Party, sources said. . . .
The operatives have chosen not to dispatch their own people to New Jersey, but instead are talking to people there and in New York who know Christie from his time in the governor’s office, as a gubernatorial candidate and as US attorney.

On the one hand, this looks like mind-games: Democrats are trying to mess with Republicans’ heads, to promote the notion that Team Obama is unbeatable even by the GOP elite’s “dream candidate.” On the other hand, the fear of a ferocious Chicago-style attack is very real, as the New York Times obliquely notes in its story on Mitch Daniels’ decision:

Saying that his family did not want to go through a campaign, Mr. Daniels became the third high-profile Republican in eight days to choose not to compete for the chance to challenge Mr. Obama. . . .
But after weeks of deliberating in public and making clear that his wife and four daughters had deep reservations — caused in part by the knowledge that they would be exposed to intensive scrutiny over a period in the 1990s when Mr. Daniels and his wife, Cheri, divorced and then remarried — he said he was unsuccessful in swaying his family.

The question: By whom would the Daniels family “be exposed to intensive scrutiny” over their previous marital woes? By Team Obama, or by the New York Times?

Or do I repeat myself?

The major media ignored John Edwards’ adultery in 2008, and insisted that Obama’s relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers were irrelevant “distractions.” Yet they stand ready and willing to provide stenography for Team Obama’s opposition-research effort in the 2012 campaign.

Herman Cain Issues Clarification

Posted on May 23, 2011May 23, 2011Comments

Walking back his widely-criticized remarks on Fox News Sunday about the Palestinian “right of return”:

I have long been a vocal and unwavering supporter of our friend and ally, Israel.
All Israeli governments have rejected the “right” of large numbers of Arabs or Palestinians to return to what is now the state of Israel. Such an en masse return would unbalance Israel’s demographic makeup as the world’s sole Jewish state.
In this light, should the “right of return” “be negotiated,” as I said, “if that is a decision that Israel wants to make”? Certainly, and to reiterate, it’s Israel’s call. Israel has a long record of being more gracious to its enemies than its enemies are to it, and this would be yet another example of that. But is the “right of return” a moral imperative? Is it something Israel must grant? Is it something the United States ought to encourage?
The answer is no on every count.
Our policy on Palestinian affairs must be wholly a function of our policy on Israeli affairs. Israel is a friend. Israel is an ally. Israel shares common values with us. Israel shares common interests with us, especially in the eradication of terrorism and the need for bringing peace to the region. As President, I will never lose sight of these basic facts. Any aspirant to the Presidency must have the unshakable US-Israeli alliance at the core of his or her strategic vision in the Middle East.
As your President, I would.

Cain was asked a question he was not prepared to answer, and it looked bad. As a result, pundits who didn’t much care for Cain’s candidacy — including Jonah Goldberg and Michael Barone — are in told-you-so mode.

These things happen. Herman Cain is not a foreign-policy wonk and stumbled over a phrase with which he was unfamilar. The pundits were shocked, but I’m not sure how many grassroots GOP voters in Iowa reacted with the same horror.

Jimmie Bise Jr. at Sundries Shack has some valuable thoughts.

UPDATE: “Will Cain get the Palin treatment? You betcha!” Josh Painter says, adding: “The Hermanator desperately needs a Peter Schweizer.”

Actually, I’m sure Cain has foreign-policy advisers, but apparently the candidate had not studied the Palestinian issue in such depth as to recognize instantly the phrase “right of return” as something that friends of Israel are obligated to oppose. We can expect that (a) Cain will undergo intensive preparation to prevent such stumbles in the future, and (b) the video clip of his Fox News Sunday appearance will be replayed endlessly by his enemies. This is how the game is played.