The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What Hath Daily Caller Wrought?

Posted on | October 3, 2012 | 25 Comments

Slept late today because I figure I’ll be up late writing about tonight’s debate, and I didn’t participate in the Drudge-induced hype over yesterday’s Daily Caller/Sean Hannity release of a 2007 video, e.g., Allahpundit:

It’s the talk of Twitter and of our comment threads, so here’s a dedicated post to let your imaginations run wild.

Really? I was working on other things and didn’t much notice the hype, but Ace got gripped by it, really completely gripped by it — I mean, totally enthralled by it, madly obsessed with it — and so after sleeping late today, maybe I should say something about the EXCLUSIVE VIDEO which apparently was expected to shock the entire English-speaking world yesterday.

Meh.

 

 

A source informs me that some Romney campaign staffers actually got swept up in the speculation that this video was the silver bullet which would magically slay the Obama werewolf. And as usual in such matters, the event didn’t live up to the hype.

Let me here insert a bit of background — historical context, as it were — that might explain why I didn’t get too excited about the revelation of a 2007 video in which Obama gave a shout-out to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and otherwise said controversial things: I remember the 1990s.

During Bill Clinton’s first term, enormous efforts were expended by certain people to dig up The Real Truth about what went down in Arkansas during Clinton’s governorship.

The worst of it was the Mena Airport conspiracy theory: Allegedly, in order to protect a drug-smuggling operation based out of this small airport in rural Arkansas, several people had been murdered and, according to the conspiracy theorists, Clinton and his cronies were up to their necks in this massive corruption and cover-up.

Somebody produced a video about this, and the video became a sort of cult classic, particularly in Christian conservative circles. It appealed to a fairly widespread sentiment that Americans didn’t know everything they needed to know about the Clintons. After the suicide of Vince Foster, especially, there was a sense that all kinds of clandestine shenanigans were being covered up and ignored by the mainstream media. The Internet was still in its infancy back then, but even then there were sites devoted to “exposing” this Mena Airport scandal.

Was there ever anything to it? I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter, because that’s not the point.

THIS IS THE POINT: Whatever happened at Mena Airport happened before Clinton was president, you see, and once a guy gets elected president, you’re never going to take him down based on some previously unknown thing that happened before he was president.

Trust me when I say that there are plenty of people out there trying to contact reporters with The Real Truth About Barack Obama. At one point this past summer, I was prepared to fly to Chicago to meet with sources who had something serious that seemed to deserve checking out. Scheduling conflicts and other unexpected hassles prevented that trip from happening, which I sincerely regret — not only did I miss a chance to get paid for a lengthy print article, but I believe the article could have added significantly to public understanding of the corrupt environment in which Obama’s early political career was nutured.

Still, I never believed it was a “silver bullet” story, because you’re just not going to get that kind of story based on stuff that happened before Obama became president. Sean Hannity and others are correct in saying that Obama was never properly “vetted” by the media in 2008, but you cannot defeat Obama for re-election by attempting to “vet” him retroactively.

Public perception of presidents simply doesn’t work that way, and so this 2007 video was never going to be a “silver bullet,” no matter how much promotion Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity or Matt Drudge put behind it. Tucker went on Fox & Friends today to explain why the video matters:

Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson said on Fox and Friends this morning that the “very revealing” clip is an example of Obama using racially-charged rhetoric. . . .
Carlson explained that in his view, “Obama is telling a majority-black audience that the federal government doesn’t like them because they’re black. He is whipping up fear, and paranoia, and hatred.”

Right. Tell us something we didn’t already know. Ed Morrissey:

The larger point here is that the media has a double standard on race, and a double standard for Republicans.

Again: Tell us something we didn’t already know. I’m not discounting either the reality or the importance of this, but I hate seeing people buy into false hope that this EXCLUSIVE VIDEO!! — how do you spell “eleventy”? — or anything else like it could ever be the “silver bullet” that magically defeats Obama.

Here’s a SHOCKING REVELATION for you: The economy sucks.

Let’s see if we can’t win with that simple message, OK?

Category: Ace of Spades, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Conspiracy Theories, Election 2012, Racism, Scandal

Comments

25 Responses to “What Hath Daily Caller Wrought?”

  1. haneyguy
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 2:55 pm

    Voters are funny critters. The more you rub their noses in the fact that they voted for the wrong guy last time, the more they’ll repeat the mistake. No one likes to be proven wrong.

  2. Mike G.
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 2:57 pm

    This video has Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds sniping at each other.

  3. jlwellfonder
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:00 pm

    I say again….Bravo 🙂

  4. Adjoran
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:04 pm

    This video is different from all the Arkansas stuff – much of which had some substance, if not the evidence of criminality the fanatics kept claiming. This year the key demographic is the swing voters and marginal partisans who voted for Obama in 2008 and might wish to have it back now.

    We can’t just tell them they are stupid suckers, even though they certainly are, because that sort of talk tends to drive these non-political types to double down on their mistakes rather than confess and repent.

    But the video proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Obama was deliberately misleading the public about who he was, what he believed, AND what he thought about Wright, who he had publicly disowned twice within the two months preceding the video, including his touted “Race in America” speech which turned out to be total hooey. Obama never believed a word of it, the video is the evidence.

    See how comfortable and natural it is for him to blame Whitey, falsely, for Katrina. He lies like a dog and fosters racial animosity by doing it. He believes in the “quiet riot” theory of Rev. Wright, that the LA riots were a natural result of the white man holding the black man down.

    When people understand they were lied to, they can rationalize it wasn’t their fault, and they feel free to get mad at the liar.

  5. richard mcenroe
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

    After that video the only thing left for Obama is to do a sexcast…

  6. Video Hype A Let Down? | Jackie Wellfonder – Raging Against the Rhetoric
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:13 pm

    […] I agree it was divisive and racially charged rhetoric, but I also agree that vetting him retroactively will be difficult, unless we truly have that “silver bullet”. We need to stay focused on the issues and his failed record. I have to tell ya, I’m super anxious about these debates tonight. I really hope Romney brings it, I really do. (The Other McCain) […]

  7. Chuck
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

    Brakabama is a shit sandwich. We needn’t be limited to talking about a single ingredient.

  8. yacov
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:29 pm

    Your observation that you can’t put Humpty Dumpty back again, is spot on. That said, in retrospect, I no longer need Obama to release his transcripts or his analog birth cetificate. Much to the chagrin of the occupied media, I now have his presidential report card and you can’t get worse than an F. Even a Z wouldn’t do it

  9. jwallin
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:38 pm

    Silver bullet? NO.

    One more straw on the camel’s back? YES.

    This is good as it was swept under the rug the last time by the ObaMedia and Journolista’s.

    So a reiteration is to the good. Even if it’s only seen and impacts independents.

    It restates the premise that the hard core has been repeating since 2008; that Obama is a racialist, is a phony and any preachifying by him to the effect that he’s some sort of racial healing machine is bogus. (and no one should’ve bought that in the first place.)

    We should beat this like a rented mule till 11-06-2012.

  10. ThomasD
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:45 pm

    There are no silver bullets, only drops in a bucket.

    At this point the election is NOT about undecideds, no matter how much the talking heads/MSM (and self important twits like Althouse) want you to believe so.

    This is about intensity and turnout among the already decided.

  11. JeffS
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 3:49 pm

    Well said, Stacy. I looked at it, and decided the take away points were:

    1. Message to cracker swing voters: Obama said he hates you.
    2. The Lame Stream Media remains the Lame Stream Media.
    3. The economy still sucks.

  12. adolph.stephens
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 4:14 pm

    Nothing to see here. Really, is anyone in this audience shocked at what’s in the video? Does anyone not in this audience care about what’s in the video?
    Seriously, if someone can’t make a dispassionate judgment on this guys miserable performance and unfathomable failures, then no 5 year old video is going to change anything.
    For those of us who keep ourselves informed, this only reaffirms what we already know, -Democrats are smug, comfortable in their lying ass skin, scumbags who will say and do anything to attain, retain, and grow their political power.

  13. JJP
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 4:48 pm

    I was waiting to hear something new, something explosive. Well, folks, it exists somewhere – but certainly not in this clip.

  14. Frank B
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 5:23 pm

    The video they’ll never produce? Forty-seven minutes of Obama actually carrying out the duties of his freaking office.

  15. Brian Cates
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 5:34 pm

    Sorry, but there IS value in showing the same MSM that’s been telling you for a month this race is already over helped Obama sell a narrative of himself in 2008 that was totally bogus.

    Obama’s campaign has NEVER been about his actual policy positions. It’s always and ever been about his amazing NARRATIVE about HIMSELF. How super-special and awesome he is and all.

    The Post-Racial Candidate. Above all the fray, the One who can heal the country’s racial divides, etc. etc.

    Watch that 40 min video and ask yourself: HOW was the guy who gave THAT speech allowed to magically transform himself into a racial healer/uniter less than a year later?

    Of course it was that the media was IN ON THE SCAM and they not only helped cover up Obama’s racially inflammatory rhetoric, they actively suppressed it.

    Just something to keep in mind as that SAME MEDIA looks for any and all opportunities to declare the race over – AGAIN – at the next huge Romney gaffe they can find – or invent.

  16. Shawn Gillogly
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 5:45 pm

    Hannity is going all bonkers about this too, and no this really wasn’t covered in 2007, because the tape was scrubbed when it was submitted to the media.

    That said, do most Americans think politicians and used car salesmen are cut from the same cloth? Yep. So are they going to be surprised that Obama puts on a show and tells lies in front of a Black Audience? Nah.

    Does this move the needle, for anyone? I don’t see how. There’s enough to vet Obama on for real now. This doesn’t merit losing focus on 23mil out of work or 4 dead in Libya.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 5:53 pm

    In the video, Obama says: Now here’s the thing. When 9-11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act — said, ‘This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you gotta put in. Well, here’s ten dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ‘Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not gonna wait for you to scratch it together — because you’re part of the American family.’

    “What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money? Makes no sense! Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!

    Let’s see…hmmm…New York and Florida…which group is known to have a lot of political influence in both?…hmmm…could it be a certain group of people who we often refer to as ‘The Chosen People’?

    Hmmm….

  18. RSM speaks the truth here « God's Own Crunk
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 6:27 pm

    […] via What Hath Daily Caller Wrought? : The Other McCain. […]

  19. Wombat_socho
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 6:31 pm

    Time to dig out that photoshop of the Kill Bill poster featuring Ann Althouse?

  20. Adobe_Walls
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 8:53 pm

    Good points, I see this as way over hyped given that this choir already knows, and most people who haven’t been convinced already won’t even grasp what this actually says about Comrade president.
    On the upside it is gratifying to know that actual silver bullets will still be required to perform their traditional role in our political system.

  21. Brickmuppet
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 8:59 pm

    I think Althouse is actually right, though for the wrong reasons.

    The ONE wants this to be about race. Releasing a racially charged video of the pre-POTUS hating on whitey brings the campaign away from Benghazi, the economy, F&F and all the other things and drops it into the mud of race issues.

    Don’t wrestle the pig, you’ll get filthy and he’ll enjoy it.

    This “scoop” was stupid, over-hyped and potentially counter-productive.

  22. bobby_b
    October 3rd, 2012 @ 10:30 pm

    One of the main points of this video does deal, as you say, with his pre-presidency self, but it still ought to garner some interest, since it specifically shows O to have been an explicit liar during his presidential campaign. I refer to Rev Wright, obviously.

    Even more fun, though: I think that, when O gives his call-out to Rev Wright, it makes it very clear how dishonest those skanky Journolistas really were as they ran the stealth campaign for O.

  23. Bob Belvedere
    October 4th, 2012 @ 8:28 am

    Tucky-Boo-Boo did over-hype it, but what else is new. So did Hannity, but, as he’d probably say: viewers is viewers.

    As Jeff Goldstein has pointed out: yeah, the undecided morons won’t get it, but this will help motivate people on the Right to get out and vote, especially those who don’t really care for Willard. Morale-boosting is just as important as convincing the Moderate-Mushheads.

  24. Quartermaster
    October 4th, 2012 @ 11:44 am

    In my neck of the woods Mittens isn’t loved, but, overwhelmingly, conservatives know OMG. Mittens track may lead in the same directions as Zer0’s, but there is no viable track in the other direction, the direction we desperately need one to go. At least Mittens will back off on the throttle.

  25. Adobe_Walls
    October 4th, 2012 @ 2:00 pm

    Throttle doesn’t matter, too late, the only relevant question is “Is this contraption equipped with a parachute”?