“Snippet-Gotchas” are Killing our Democracy!
September 18th, 2008In a more serious vein… these are thoughts I’ve come up with as I listen to the chatter and arguments every night in the cafe:
It’s getting harder than ever to have a serious and meaningful political debate, discussion, or campaign because of the “Sippet-Gotcha” syndrome: the political campaigns’ use of tiny bits of something someone says (the media call it “out of context”, I call them “Snippet-Gotchas”) to slam out ads that make the candidate or campaign spokesman sound stupid, or to be saying something VERY DIFFERENT than what they were really saying, or trying to explain.
Arguably, that’s what the McCain campaign did when they seized upon a remark of Obama’s, when he was using an old saw about lipstick on a pig. Obama, accusing McCain of still using old policies and trying to sell them as new, was accused of deliberately inferring something unflattering about the Veep candidate, Sarah Palin. I personally don'’t think Obama intended to insult or joke about her at all, but it is curious that most of his audience DID make the association and found the remark very funny (when even Obama seemed to miss the point!) So maybe there was something subliminal there but I’m just not nasty or partisan enough to pick up on it. Maybe the McCain campaign was right … that’s why I started this with “arguably”.
Less arguable and far more obvious it is that the Obama campaign HAS been doing a heap of such nasty and wholly misleading Snippet-Gotcha ads. It’s gotten so the McCain side can hardly talk!
For instance, McCain said (referring to our policies in Germany and S. Korea) that we may well keep troups in Iraq a hundred years - as long as they aren’t being shot at, and are welcome and just there to help stabalize things, he explained. McCain’s position and the caveats that explain it was SNIPPED to “troups in Iraq a hundred years” and used as a Gotcha to prove McCain is in favor of a hundred more years of war. It’s a horrible distortion that totally wastes McCain’s attempt to carry on a reasonable and nuanced discussion of a most important issue, an issue the candidates should be actually devating honestly and extensively. But with the Snippet-Gotcha tactic, the truth and discussion was blown up (IED’d!).
Another example involves a joking answer of McCain’s to Rick Warren (the Saddleback Church forum where both candidates answered an hour’s worth of questions). Warren asked “What is rich”? McCain jokingly said “rich” was certainly making $5,000,000 a year. Realizing the Snippet hacks were already heading to the ad film-making room, McCain immediately scolded himself for having just tossed some more of his own flesh to the sharks, and gave a serious answer. Too late. In an hour there was an ad claiming McCain thinks only folks with five million or more are rich, implying his mere millionaire friends are middleclass and ”showing” how much he is ”out of touch (and sympathy)” with real folks (most voters) who only dream of being millionaires.
A more serious example: Carly Fiorina (the highly esteemed ex-CEO of Hewlet-Packard, and McCain advisor/supporter), being interviewed about the serious economic issues of recent days, responded to a question by saying she didn’t think the Senator McCain had the expertise to run a company like HP. Oh yes, in the same breath she also said that neither could Obama or Biden or Palin. But the Snippet editors ran to the cutting room to put out an ad claiming McCain’s own expert economic advisor said he was incapable of running a business, so how could he handle our faltering economy!
24 hours later the Obama campaign had its people appearing on the news shows repeating it but in a new form: “McCain’s own advisor, Fiorina, has said Sarah Palin is incapable of running a business”. With that, the only executive experience amongst all four candidates is punted out of the game. That Snippet killed two of the four birds it had originally spoken the truth about in a rare bit of honesty and candor in this election campaign, in a mere 24 hour shooting spree! A pretty good (dishonest) Gotcha! And one more vital interest of the American people kicked off the table!
I could go on forever, of course. Anyone of any political persuasion can see the incredible devastation the Snippet-Gotchas are wreaking. The list grows faster than I can type.
But this last, the Fiorina Snippet-Gotchas, raises another issue I’d like to have a say on before I close and post this. It’s driving me nuts. It seems that in this 2008 election, like in no other, the candidate has to be not just good, or reasonably informed and able to talk about many issues, but has to be TOTALLY expert, TOTALLY decided, and TOTALLY already committed to a PLAN for every matter the President might ever deal with! 2004 was the year of the “flip flop”. 2008 is the year of not only “anti-flip flop” but of the Know-It-All candidate, brilliant beyond the need for mere advisors, with a chiseled-in-stone PLAN!
Obama, once McCain once honestly confessed that in his own humble opinion of himself economics was not his strongest suit (he always staked out his military expertise, foreign policy savvy, his “reach across the aisle” bonafides, and his nondogmatism - i.e. willingness to be pragmatic and less than Pelosi-style partisanship) … Obama immediately took the scepter and crown of cheif economist. He continuously runs Snippet-Gotchas and plain Gotchas (no need to snip McCains humble confession!) in ads and stump speaches ridiculing any and every thing McCain says or proposes on economics. And Obama has the PLAN(S). Nevermind he’s had to admit that some of its … well, its major thrust, to raise taxes for redistribution amongst lower economic (less successful? less productive? or just less lucky?) classes is going to be bad for the economy in general (Obama: “I know tax revenue goes down when you raise capital-gains rates, but its just fair!”; “If the economy is still weak, I may have to hold off on the taxes a bit” [obviously taxes sap an economy]).
Similary, Obama must be the BEST expert in military affairs. Hard to do against McCain with a few centuries family history, a military career, a stint as a military liason to Capitol Hill, and 24 years in the Senate and military oriented committees. Nevertheless, Obama cites his first publicly remembered speech against the Iraq war as proof he’s the BEST. Nevermind that whatever his own real views or knowledge was at the time, he gave that speech at the command of a woman who was his patron and financier at that time!
It seems that reflection and advancing new ideas and positions is a crime worse than … well, no politician better do that. A good President must be someone who entered this world with all truth and wisdom (and PLANS) already chiseled in stone. Gee, that sounds like a messiah, doesn’t it!