The New Juice

Of everything the Obama campaign has done so far, this by far has made me happiest.

Barack Obama's campaign hasn't advertised this a great deal this week, but the campaign's "Action Wire" has been waging large-scale campaigns against critics. That includes tens of thousands of e-mails to television stations running Harold Simmons' Bill Ayers ad, and to their advertisers — including a list of major automobile and telecommunications companies.

And tonight, the campaign launched a more specific campaign: an effort to disrupt the appearance by a writer for National Review, Stanley Kurtz, on a Chicago radio program. Kurtz has been writing about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, and has suggested that papers housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago would reveal new details of that relationship.

The campaign e-mailed Chicago supporters who had signed up for the Obama Action Wire with detailed instructions including the station's telephone number and the show's extension, as well as a research file on Kurtz [my emphasis],  which seems to prove that he's a conservative, which isn't in dispute. The file cites a couple of his more controversial pieces, notably his much-maligned claim that same-sex unions have undermined marriage in Scandinavia.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," says the email, which picks up a form of pressure on the press pioneered by conservative talk radio hosts and activists in the 1990s, and since adopted by Media Matters and other liberal groups.

Because Ben Politico Smith is kind of a wanker, we get the line that the line about the file on Kurtz merely "proving that he's a conservative," which of course is not the point -- the file shows that Kurtz is a wingnut hack ideologue and nothing remotely close to a "scholar" or "researcher." The pretense that clowns like Kurtz are Serious People doing Serious Work (at the Very Serious Hoover Institution, no less) would be laughable were the Liberal Media not so prone to believe this sort of bullshit and lend it unjustified credibility by quoting them and giving them airtime.

Kurtz's big "scoop" is that Obama is tied to "terrorism" because "Obama and Ayers both attended some 1995 board meetings of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Ayers was instrumental in starting and Obama chaired in the 1990s." This is of course completey fucking stupid, but it's not like it's not it hasn't already turned into a beloved trope in wingnut folklore, and hence something not just capable of but indeed likely to attract the attention of the dimwit national political press. And from thence it morphs into an inane Jay Leno punchline. Over here on the left we're all too familiar with the whole dreary process by which conservatives turn ridiculous bullshit into conventional wisdom.

So what the Obama campaign did -- essentially ruin a wingnut radio show intended to help launch a smear into legitimacy, by getting loads of people to call in and abuse Kurtz for being a creep -- was brilliant hard-nosed politics, as it insures that the Obama "this Annenberg stuff is bullshit" message is always going to be locked in with the smear. This kind of mass-mobilization tactic is not something that Gore or Kerry had in their playbook, and Clinton would probably have been more than happy to have had it available to him at various moments in the 1990s. It's using wingnut and Freeper weapons against them, and you know what? It's about goddamn time. (I also like it that the Obama campaign is going after the absurd "501" group producing similar Ayers-related smears.)

The sniveling, hypocritical, hysterical response from NRO is also hugely entertaining, and that is in and of itself a plus. But the deliberate disruption of the Crazy Conservative to Conventional Wisdom sewer line is smart and necessary. More like this, please.

UPDATE: And the comedy continues. Wingnut whining, such a pleasant sound.

Comments

[DrDick]

Goddammittohell, Boy! Them mealy mouthed Demoncrats ain't s'posed to be fightin' back like that. They's jest s'posed to lay there cringin' and whinin' whilst ya kick in the 'nads agin and agin.

[SteveIL]

So, this blog doesn't have a problem with Obama being heavily involved with the America-hating American terrorist Ayers, whose only regret is that he didn't commit more terrorism against his own country? What if Ayers had bombed an abortion clinic, would it be OK for Obama to be involved with Ayers then?

[Hecate, Runnymead Conspirator]

Word. More. Like. This.

[Thers]

For the record, this blog sees the "associated with Ayers" stuff as absurd trivial bullshit.

What if Ayers had bombed an abortion clinic, would it be OK for Obama to be involved with Ayers then?

So you support bombing abortion clinics, then. Fascist.

[bozotheklown]

Steve is right that Bill Ayers was a terrorist; he did some very bad things. What Steve doesn't mention is that Ayers did these things when Obama was in elementary school.
And it is unlikely that Obama was even aware of Bill Ayers's past when he worked with him (note that they weren't even close colleagues).
Most people have worked with people we don't know very well, and a good number of us have worked with people who have shady pasts.

[Eric Martin]

and you know what? It's about goddamn time

amen.

[Davis]

As Dylan once asked, "How does it feeel?"

[SteveIL]

So you support bombing abortion clinics, then.

No, I don't, and my name isn't Ayers. So the question remains, what if Ayers had bombed an abortion clinic, would it be OK for Obama to be involved with Ayers then?

Steve doesn't mention is that Ayers did these things when Obama was in elementary school.

Doesn't matter. Ayers was never punished for his crimes, he never apologized for his crimes, is still as much a Communist as he was then, and hates America just as much. So why would Obama be involved with Ayers?

...note that they weren't even close colleagues...

It seems like there is a lot of evidence to the contrary coming out.

Remember what isn't only a river in Egypt.

[theo]

Normal people and Chicagoans of all stripes look at Bill Ayers and see a guy who decided to turn over a new leaf and do something more productive than setting bombs, namely, promoting and reforming the education of American children.

Wingnuts like Steve see Ayers as a guy who went from left-wing terrorist to something even worse: an academic. An America-hating, communist, liberal professor working to subvert our children and our precious bodily fluids.

[aw]

So, this blog doesn't have a problem with Obama being heavily involved with the America-hating American terrorist Ayers?

I can't speak for this blog, but speaking for myself, no, I don't give a flying monkey fuck.

That's because (a) Obama isn't Ayers, and (b) isn't anything like him. At all.

See how this reality thing works? Now, shall we discuss Bush's responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people? Or are those sorts of discussions still politically incorrect?

[LittlePig]

I liked Tom Hilton's take over at Balloon Juice:

"I can put McCain in the same room with North Vietnamese communist military types, on multiple occasions."

My friends, it is crystal clear: John McCain is the Manchurian Candidate. That's brainwashing we can believe in!

[SteveIL]

That's because (a) Obama isn't Ayers, and (b) isn't anything like him. At all.

See how this reality thing works?

So, what you're saying is that any dealings with McCain and Eric Rudolph are OK with you (I'd call Rudolph a terrorist), and attempts to link the two would be a smear against McCain, right?

What reality do you live in?

I liked Tom Hilton's take over at Balloon Juice:

"I can put McCain in the same room with North Vietnamese communist military types, on multiple occasions."

My friends, it is crystal clear: John McCain is the Manchurian Candidate. That's brainwashing we can believe in!

I never knew Ayers tortured Obama and held him in a prison for 5 1/2 years.

Now tell me the story of the gunman on the grassy knoll.

[Tehanu]

SteveIL: your ignorance and name-calling are astounding. Go over to Sadly, No! and read about the other "subversives" on that committee, including Walter Fucking Annenberg, who ought to be enough of a reactionary right-wing jerk for you.

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/11294.html

[Thers]

Ayers was never punished for his crimes

He needs a spanking!

Repeat: Absurd. Trivial. Bullshit.

Note: This blog takes a dim view of argument via the posing of hypothetical gotchas. Such feeble gestures are as the knocks of beggarmen and not to be minded.

[aw]

So, what you're saying is that any dealings with McCain and Eric Rudolph are OK with you

Oh noes, I have been outph(w)anked!

Well let's spell it out. If Eric Rudolph had (a) never killed anyone (b) repented and denounced terrorism decades ago and (c) contributed positively to the community ever since and (d) his only contact with McCain was through being on the same anti-poverty committee at one point, then so what?

The fact that you cannot evade is that the connection between Obama and Ayers is being on an anti-poverty committee!

Are you pro-poverty?

Now tell me the story of the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Now tell me the purple pineapple dishwasher non sequitur.

[aw]

What makes this so funny of course, is that they are pushing this single thread of a "connection" precisely because THEY'VE GOT NOTHIN' ELSE.

Obama has had dealings with hundreds of people over his career. They found one person who has a dodgy past. Congratu-fucking-lations.

[LA Confidential Pantload]

SteveIL, if John Sidney McCain and Eric Rudolph were working on a project to improve the education system for disadvantaged children, I might cut them both some slack. Since Rudolph's in priso and JSM doesn't give a fuck about disadvantaged children, I'm not sure what analogy you're trying to make.

[LA Confidential Pantload]

aw, you're way ahead of me.

[looseleaf]

SteveIL:
If Ayers bombed an abortion clinic, that would be a crime. If Obama aided and abetted him in the commission of the crime, that might be a crime as well. Since neither of these things happened, why should we trouble ourselves speculating? Furthermore, it appears that to employ the phrase "heavily involved" to describe the relationship between Ayers and Obama is a grotesque and misleading use of the language. That is why, aside from the obviously troll-like characteristics of your posts, you are having trouble persuading anybody that you have a legitimate point.

[aw]

Okay, this was better.

[Amused Observer]

Perhaps someone could explain tome just what the controversy is. Everyone already knows that Obama is quite comfortable with radical anti american viewpoints. 20 years in Wrights congregation shows that. So what is the big deal about hanging out with an unrepentant treasonous traitor like Ayers? Acadamia is rotten with malcontents like that, think Ward Churchill. And Obama is certainly as much a product of liberal academia as he is a product of the corrupt Chicago political system.

Attacking the messenger, Kurtz, instead of attacking the premise of the message is SOP.

Vote for Obama, vote for change. Vote for Obama, vote for God Damn America. Vote for Obama, vote for common cause with unrepentant traitors. Where is the controversy? Everything seems pretty clear, LOL that's the audacity of hope.

[Even More Amused Observer]

So what is the big deal about hanging out with an unrepentant [LIE] treasonous traitor like Ayers?

I dunno, seeing as we apparently hang around with you, and you're a promoter of genocide and a pathological liar.

[rea]

Ayers was never punished for his crimes

Well, Ayers personally has never been convincingly tied to anything worse than property damage, and moreover, his organization was so heavily infiltrated by the FBI that it's hard to say which crimes were committed by genuine radicals and which were committed by the FBI. Two FBI agents went to jail (including, oddly enough, the guy decades later revealed as Deep Throat) for misconduct in investgating Ayers.

We don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blew back then . . .

[Thers]

Perhaps someone could explain tome just what the controversy is.

Sure. A bunch of ratfuckers and ratfuck fellow travellers, such as yourself, just got totally smashmouthed by the Obama campaign.

You're welcome.

[ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©]

I noticed over at the Swampland (Time) that AYERS AYERS AYERS zomigod111!!! AYERS is today's wingnut marching song.

This is all they've got.

Pathetic.
~

[essrog]

Wow, new frontiers in wingnut Ayers fantasy happening right here in real time! Abortion clinic bombing, now that's creative brainstorming. Stevil, thanks for the best laugh all day ... the followups, sadly, lose some steam. Pace yourself man

[Ripley]

And Obama is certainly as much a product of liberal academia...

Unlike Capt. Hero, George Bush, who wisely chose Harvard and Yale for his conserative-y, not-icky-liberal secondary education.

Allegedly, he graduated from both Universities; though, if you ask the hookers who know and blow, he didn't exactly work too hard. Know what I mean?

Thers, we demand smarter trolls!

[BJ]

For what it's worth, those of us at Clinton-Gore did that sort of thing, using the tools we had available to us at the time. (Those tools seem fairly limited now, but we were pretty good for the times.)

[dave™©]

So, what you're saying is --

-- that you're a moronic brownshirt fuck scared shitless of the big black man yet strangely attracted to him at the same time?

BINGO!

[skippy]

since neither of these things happened, why should we trouble ourselves speculating?

because speculation is the only thing the wingnuts have...they don't have facts, they don't have good policies, and they sure as hell don't have the public on their side.

or, to put it in wingnuttia:

it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

[Jay_B]

This speech won't win Obama the election, but it will completely flummox the idiots who have helped ruin what was a perfectly good halfassed country circa 2000.

SteveL, with an idiot conflation, will surely answer the question posed: How come your mama isn't in jail for fucking some douchebag?

Because if there's anything more positively interesting than linking Obama with some neighbors he might have known, it's how Steve managed to be born of a virgin mother.

See how stupid it can get you fuck? You, tied in with your neo-Nazi ideology Steve -- connected with Robert Stacy McCain, no doubt -- should know better than anyone how slippery a slope it is to prove guilt (your asian shemale called) by (I hear you know someone who deals meth) association (If you have a degree from college, you were given a good grade because you blew the gay English Lit professor, gaywad).

But whatever right? You're just a private citizen who cheated on your taxes last year. And not some guy who lived in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayres.

[abanterer]

I would think that if John McCain sees no reason to denounce Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, and Jack Abramoff, all of whom have given their support to McCain's campaigns, then Obama has nothing to apologize for.

Cons are just pissed that Pres. to-be-elected Obama took their lunch money, and left them with their GOP shit sandwich.

[George Smiley]

"Acadamia is rotten with malcontents like that, think Ward Churchill. "

And you, fair troll, have just shown that you know exactly jack shit about academia.

Next troll, please.

[LittlePig]

Now tell me the story of the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Your inability to discern snark does not speak well of your mental capabilities, SteveIL. The point is "casual association does not imply criminal collusion". As others have noted on the thread, your implication is ridiculous.

[coozledad]

God only knows who McCain associates with when the Ambien strikes. Is just ordering Middle Eastern takeout? Or is he ordering new entry visas for THE BIN LADEN FAMILY?!!!

[coozledad]

Oh, and I forgot to add- Thank you, Daddy Yankee.

[SteveIL]

So much, so little time.

If Eric Rudolph had (a) never killed anyone (b) repented and denounced terrorism decades ago and (c) contributed positively to the community ever since and (d) his only contact with McCain was through being on the same anti-poverty committee at one point, then so what?

When did Ayers renounce terrorism? In the last few years he said he wished his group had done more terrorism. I think he was afraid of his own cornhole than anything else.

SteveIL, if John Sidney McCain and Eric Rudolph were working on a project to improve the education system for disadvantaged children, I might cut them both some slack.

Except that Ayers didn't try to improve the education situation, he only tried to put his radical views into them. They've been shown to be failures.

You, tied in with your neo-Nazi ideology Steve -- connected with Robert Stacy McCain, no doubt -- should know better than anyone how slippery a slope it is to prove guilt...by...association...

I've never said Obama is a terrorist, and don't believe he is. Ayers is a terrorist, never renounced terrorism, and has hated America for over 40 years. Why would Obama voluntarily work with someone like that?

SteveL, with an idiot conflation, will surely answer the question posed: How come your mama isn't in jail for fucking some douchebag?

Because she's dead.

[coozledad]

Beastly dead?

[SteveIL]

What is really amusing about the Obamabots here is how much they condone cowardice. The campaign was offered an opportunity to have someone from it appear on the same show as Stanley Kurtz, and the campaign utterly refused. Instead, they resorted to tired bullying tactics. As is well-known, bullies are cowards. Not "audacious".

[Eric Martin]

The campaign was offered an opportunity to have someone from it appear on the same show as Stanley Kurtz

Pearls before swine

[Northern Observer]

McCain; the ambien zombie.
I can hardly wait until his pro commie videos are realeased. Americans must know the truth damnit.

[aw]

When did Ayers renounce terrorism? In the last few years he said he wished his group had done more terrorism.

"I condemn all forms of terrorism -- individual, group and official." -- Bill Ayers, Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2001, more than twenty years after turning himself in to authorities.

Noting, once again for the sake of the slow learner, that he has only trivial connections to Barack Obama, through membership on an anti-poverty committee. Several of the other members were conservatives.

The campaign was offered an opportunity to have someone from it appear on the same show as Stanley Kurtz, and the campaign utterly refused.

Because Kurtz is a smear artist and complete nonentity, and Obama and Ayers have only trivial connections.

What is really amusing about the Obamabots here is how much they condone cowardice.

What is amusing about you is that, without lies, borrowed insults and illogic, you've got nothing.

[Bitter Scribe]

I can't believe the wingnuts think they're going to get traction on this Bill Ayers thing.

The Democrats should shove Charles Keating so far up McCain's ass that when he burps, the phrase "savings and loan bailout" comes out.

[SteveIL]

In an interview with the NYT that happened to appear in that paper on 9/11/2001 (so don't think I'm trying to blame Ayers for 9/11), Ayers was quoted as saying, '"I don't regret setting bombs," Bill Ayers said. "I feel we didn't do enough."'

If he said six weeks later to the Chicago Tribune that he condemns all forms of violence, then he is a liar.

[aw]

You yourself have already been shown here to be a fucking liar.

And as for this hippy Ayers you have a hard-on for, he insisted that his remarks had been deliberately distorted. Which makes more sense than your version, given that his violent propensities would now seem to extend to sitting on committees with Republicans and hobnobbing with capitalists.

Got any more tripe for us?

[aw]

Oh, and just to remind you -- whatever the tedious and smarmy leftist Ayers said or didn't say has no relevance whatever to the 2008 Presidential election. Because his "connection" to Obama is that they were both in Chicago politics.

[coozledad]

He's got to keep trolling until he gets enough points for that electric pussy...er home massage unit.

[Thers]

The campaign was offered an opportunity to have someone from it appear on the same show as Stanley Kurtz, and the campaign utterly refused.

You are welcome at any time to come to my blog to debate the question "why is Steve IL such a total douchebag." My commenters will judge the outcome of the debate. Try not to act like a coward in this regard.

[SFAW]

You LIEberals have it all wrong. Clearly, if Obama was in the same room as Ayers for some number of "board meetings", then B. Hussein Osama was CLEARLY in thrall to Ayers and his decades-long plan to destroy the US Government through a series of bombings, terrist acts, and widespread transmission of that most dreaded of diseases: Mogo on the Go-go-go (which, I heard, he synthesized in UChicago labs, and attempted to spread through the drinking water in these United States).

And know this: The important things to remember are:
1) Robert Byrd was once Grand Kleagle in the KKK, and
2) Michael Moore is FATFATFAT!!

[SFAW]

Thers -
I think you're being too harsh on Steverino. After all, had he not corrected my ignorance, I would still be thinking that September 23 is less than 2 weeks after September 11.

Unless, of course, it was a typo. I often make the same type of mistake:
1) Meaning to type "two", but it comes out "six" on the screen
2) Meaning to type "genius" when discussing Jonah Goldberg, but it comes out "f***ing imbecile" on the screen.

SteveIL, if you find a replacement keyboard, can you please post the make and model here, so that I can buy one, too?