This is Weird

by: Matt Stoller

Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 17:56


That's Mitt Romney calling McCain out on lying, following on Karl Rove's assertions that McCain has "gone too far."  This is starting to look coordinated, and Rove doesn't speak out of turn for no reason.  Either there are some very angry conservative insiders knifing McCain or this is part of some dramatic PR ploy in which McCain will somehow be portrayed as a hero.

I don't know, it's a little spooky.

Update:  My mistake.  This video is from the primaries.
Matt Stoller :: This is Weird

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This is Weird | 52 comments
Interesting (4.00 / 4)
Part of me would like to believe people are opening up and being honest, but the other part of me is preparing to don my tinfoil hat and assuming there is something more to this.
Exactly how I feel. (4.00 / 1)
I no longer take anything they say at face value. That tin foil hat is the only reliable way I know to predict the machinations of the GOP.
[ Parent ]
maybe Mitt is betting against McCain (4.00 / 8)
the same way people accuse Hillary of betting against Obama. And he sees a legitimate opening. He understands that his best chance to run for president is if he can say "we ran a 'maverick' candidate who wanted to try hot shot tactics with no real principles, instead of someone who truly represented the heart and soul of the Republican party."

Thinking out loud.

And unlike HRC... (4.00 / 4)
Mitt Romney actually is completely amoral, so he probably genuinely doesn't care which side wins this November.
[ Parent ]
He's amoral. (4.00 / 1)
But he does want to run in 2012, and McCain in office would certainly put a crimp in those plans.

[ Parent ]
Not nearly as much (0.00 / 0)
as a President Obama.  This appears to me to be a fight for the heart of the republican party.  McCain's tactics are distasteful, even for die-hard republicans.
[ Parent ]
My take too (4.00 / 7)
Romney et al must have been fried when McCain picked Sarah Palin.  They realized that there are forces in the party positioning her as the Next Big Thing.  Better for them if McCain loses and she is part of why.

Or maybe they realize how crazy McCain is and how bad more wars and recessions would be for business.  So they dpn;t want him to win.  

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
How crazy McCain is? (4.00 / 3)
Please.

My guesses are, Mitt wants to be on the record as "good" Republican so he can pitch electibility to his 2012 primary voters, perceiving correctly that Sarah Palin will lock up the evangelical vote that he never could.

Or, McCain is about to fire some consultants and staffers he wants to fire anyway and will pitch "I just cleaned up my campaign."

[ Parent ]
Bingo! (4.00 / 1)
I'm leaning toward the former.  But the latter could be a possibility (if it becomes a truism) and Mittens could be in on the PR groundwork being laid.

John McCain is dishonest
[ Parent ]
This has to be video from the primary (4.00 / 7)
Right?
Yeah, it's not clear when this video is from (4.00 / 1)
I don't quite believe it's actually from the last couple of days.  I'd need to some more evidence to believe that.
[ Parent ]
Pretty sure it's from the primaries (4.00 / 2)
According to the video description, Romney did not say this in reference to McCain's sleaze ad attacking Obama but that he should:


If Mitt Romney were being true to himself he would also rebuke John McCain for his lying ad about Barack Obama saying his sexual predator protection for kids WASN'T a sex-ed b...

[ Parent ]
Hmmm (0.00 / 0)
Interesting.  Well, this will sort itself out soon.
[ Parent ]
Looks like it (4.00 / 1)

 But it's still a useful data point for branding McCain as a liar.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn
[ Parent ]
I'm sure it's from January (4.00 / 3)
McCain was lying about Romney, just like he's not lying about Obama.

Yeah, there's no way Romney would stab McCain in the back like this now that the general election is on. He'd be kissing any political appointments goodbye.

[ Parent ]
If Rove is involved... (0.00 / 0)

 ...you can BET there's something more to this.

 That said, I don't see how McCain emerges as some sort of hero unless the media is COMPLETELY complicit in "rehabbing" him.

  Which they might be.

  Or maybe it's an attempt to save what's left of the Republican brand. "We're not ALL liars."

  Who knows...

   

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

Part of my theory... (4.00 / 1)
Was that McCain would just lie, lie, lie until his numbers looked good, the media would cry foul, and then he would just stop.. and the media would stop.

So his numbers would just stay good, he'd stop lying, and the media stops complaining... This is quite possibly what's happening here.

If I remember correctly (4.00 / 2)
McCain used the same sex ed lie against Romney (who also supported legislation to teach kindergartners about avoiding sexual predators).

I wonder if this is ad-worthy?

YouTube Link (0.00 / 0)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

FWIW, the video was added yesterday (Sept 14). I can't find an original source.

Good call… (0.00 / 0)
That Rove video this morning made me suspicious. Let's brace ourselves.

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
It's from the primaries (4.00 / 2)
This video is not recent, it's probably from December or January. McCain was lying about Romney, and Romney used the fact checkers in the NY Times and WaPo to defend himself.
[ Parent ]
Two possibilites I can see (0.00 / 0)
  1. They want Democrats to get stuck with fixing Bush's mess.  Who wants to be President with Wall Street sliding over a cliff?  But they're getting worried that even with the country visibly going down the toilet, the Democrats may be too incompetent to win the election.
  2. They're picking up (polling? focus groups? cocktails with media whores?) on a growing backlash against McCain's campaign, and they don't want the Republican brand trashed in the process.

Anything these guys say has to be viewed through the lens of 2012 politics.

The idea that this is genuine concern about the way politics is conducted, does not pass the laugh test.

Nah, they want to win now (4.00 / 1)

 A McCain presidency would guarantee that there would be no investigations of Bush's lies re Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, and just about everything else. They need to win in November to be completely reassured of that being the case.

 I'll leave it to someone else to figure out the game plan.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
I'm almost certain this video is from the primary (3.20 / 5)
Romney mentions Bill Bennett saying McCain was dishonest... but Bennett hasn't said anything like that recently. But there is this video from January:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Yes, but… (0.00 / 0)
...even if it is, it's being employed strategically...and there was also that Fox News journalist (the "terrorist fist jab" one, I think) cross-examining Tucker Bounds about exaggerating Obama's tax-hike proposals. I think they're all marching...question is, "Why?"  

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
Employed strategically by whom? (4.00 / 2)
I'm 95% sure an Obama supporter posted the video.
[ Parent ]
Could be wrong… (0.00 / 0)
...but it's still eerie.

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
I mean (0.00 / 0)
This is the user page for the person that put up the video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/to...

[ Parent ]
And (4.00 / 1)
Here is a Daily Kos diary with the same video:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

They seem to have come to the same conclusion.

[ Parent ]
Uh oh. Can we get verification on this? (0.00 / 0)
We don't want the netroots to serve as a conduit for urban legends...
[ Parent ]
Yeah (4.00 / 2)
It was Jan 31. Here is the transcript:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA...

[ Parent ]
Good catch (0.00 / 0)
I retract my comments above.
[ Parent ]
Ooops, too late! (0.00 / 0)
Whatever happened to that blogger ethics thing...
[ Parent ]
Internal politics (4.00 / 1)
Since it's known the Rove campaign was consulting with the McCain campaign at some point, he initial thing I wondered when I saw Rove going off on McCain was, is it possible that this is some kind of intra-campaign struggle between Rove and Rick Davis-- I.E. Rove wanted one strategy, Davis went with another, now Rove is publicly dissing Davis's strategy as a way of convincing the campaign to go with his consulting advice instead.

Similarly you could look at Mitt as either getting back for being passed over for VP, or trying to distance himself from McCain as a way of keeping himself clean for 2012 after this campaign implodes horribly.

There might be innocent, honest, non-Machiavellian explanations for these comments? I guess? Maybe?

I'm inclined to agree (0.00 / 0)
We sometimes give Rove and the like too much credit. He's perfectly capable of doing stupid things and of behaving selfishly. And he probably was never happy that McCain won the election so why not lay the groundwork for a 'true' conservative next time around. Either McCain takes his advice and tones down the lying, and maybe benefits, making Rove look good and even, gasp, honest or he doesn't and loses, making Rove look correct and setting up Palin or someone like her for '12.
[ Parent ]
It's About Optics (4.00 / 3)
McCain has branded himself as a maverick. You can't claim you're someone who bucks your party if your party is following behind you in lockstep. When Rove and Romney criticize McCain, they're creating the optics of dissent. Most people won't pay attention to the details with this sort of thing, either because they don't care or are too distracted. All they see is Republicans criticizing a fellow Republican, and John McCain gets to proudly claim he's standing up to powerful members of his own party. It's also a twofer because McCain gets to distance himself from Rove the person while embracing Rovian tactics.  
"rove" is a dirty word in america these days (0.00 / 0)
Rove dissing McCain = indie cred for the maverick. I expect nothing but calculated & coordinated dishonesty from every branch of the Republican monster through the election and beyond.

I won't comment on Romney, my guess is it's an old video.

[ Parent ]
Exactly (4.00 / 1)
Very soon McCain will offer some sort of "phony truce" with Obama.  He'll admit he got out of hand, he'll say he wants it to stop, but only if Obama stops too.  

He wants to stop because the negative attacks from him have been largely successful and Obama is just getting started, having been caught flat footed after the Palin pick.  

I think Obama will accept the "truce" and have to win this thing with one arm behind his back, given the fact that our side has $0 for the 527's and big business has doubled down on MCCain and is willing to get nasty on Obama.  

[ Parent ]
that is... (0.00 / 0)
straight up... the weirdest frikkin' thing I have seen all day.  And it's been a day full of weird s**t.
Sorry folks.... Too Good To Be True... Primary Video from January. (4.00 / 3)

ROMNEY: Oh, I think substance. I think Senator McCain was called out for what everyone has said was a false accusation. "The New York Times," "Washington Post," "Time" magazine, Bill Bennett, everybody has said what he said was simply wrong and reprehensible. I think it was a huge mistake on his part.

He wants to stick with it. So he got to take the shots for it, as long as he's doing that. I think people are going to really say, what's the heart and soul of the Republican Party going to be going forward? And I think that you're going to recognize them. That people do not want to have somebody who says no to drilling in ANWR, who says we're going to put a 50 cent a gallon burden on gasoline in this country."

Source: http://premium.europe.cnn.com/...

[ Parent ]
This is from Jan 08 Repub debate I think... (4.00 / 1)
Err (4.00 / 3)
Time for an update, Matt.

:-)

Though I wouldn't mind seeing this floating around out of context for a couple days.

I second... (0.00 / 0)
the notion of letting it "float out of context."  :)
[ Parent ]
Mavricky! (0.00 / 0)
It just proves how mavricky he is because all the Republicans are pissed at him now!
Where are all the videos going? (0.00 / 0)
This is the third one I've tried to watch that's been pulled.  The first was Palin repeating her bridge lie.  The second was McCain on the economy, and now this one.
What is going on? (0.00 / 0)
Digby posted up this video of FOX anchorwoman Meghan Kelly defending Obama and pimp slapping McCain's mouthpiece, Tucker Bounds. Unfreaking believable!
Last comment (0.00 / 0)
This video is obviously from the primaries, but it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't an underground deep division in the Rep party that Mitt's last comment would pin:
What's the heart and the soul of the Republican Party going to be going forward?

I have no doubt the regular Reps are just as turned off by the Palin strain of the party as we are.  There was a really good article I read this weekend about the neo-cons having been grooming her since early 2007 as the heir to their brand of Rep.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

I don't see this video as evidence of the split, but I wouldn't doubt it at all if there is a split with one side wanting nothing more than bringing down this side of their party.

Let's find some REAL evidence!

Why has this story NOT been corrected?!! (0.00 / 0)
Come on. It has been verified that this is NOT recent, that it is from January, that it came well before Rove's comments about McCain going to far. That it is not Mittens commenting about McCain's ads about Obama. Its been hours and this is still not corrected. That's not a good practice. We howl at AP, CNN, NYTimes, et al when they get something so completely wrong.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
relax (0.00 / 0)
I went out to an event.
[ Parent ]
The ONLY thing ROmney has going for him is ' economic expertise' (4.00 / 1)
He stands up there and says, JOhn is right, the fundamentals of the economy are strong', then folks are like, WHAT?

I mean, he'll take one for the team, but downgrade his own credibility?

No.

Now, Rove, on the other hand, is up to something.  

Does It Surprise You (0.00 / 0)
that after the wrecking crew had done its damage to Obama, there would be an attempt to put a high-minded gloss on the whole affair?  When the Republicans go totally honest and fair will be the signal they consider the game won.
Words fail me... (0.00 / 0)
I'm trying to find a way to express the absurd, nay obscene, inappropriateness of Karl freakin' Rove concern-trolling about anybody else "going too far" in their attacks on a political opponent, but... I just can't do it.

"A fantasy is not even a wish, much less an act.  There is no such thing as a culpable or shameful fantasy."  -----Lady Sally McGee
This is Weird | 52 comments
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