The contremps that occurred on the Milt Rosenberg Show last night as well as the Obama camp's attempt to stilfe free speech by asking the Justice Department to prosecute a conservative group for airing an ad about Obama and his relationship with William Ayers demonstrates how desperate the campaign is becoming.
Obama's numbers prior to the convention were falling rapidly - largely as a result of some effective framing of Obama by the McCain campaign as a lightweight celebrity who is not ready to lead.
The New York Sun points out that the vaunted race card Obama played so successfully against the Clintons that blunted many of their attacks has ben preemptively blocked by McCain:
Deprived of preemptive accusations of racism, the Obama camp has continued to cry foul against Mr. McCain for suggesting its candidate is not ready to lead, would not make a good commander in chief, is preparing to withdraw from Iraq too quickly, was slow off the mark to condemn Russia for invading Georgia, and many other legitimate concerns.
When Mr. McCain compared him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, to suggest Mr. Obama makes a better celebrity than chief executive, the Obama apologists once more cried "race" because - this from the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg - "... it cannot have escaped the ad makers' notice that [Spears and Hilton] also symbolize white, blond sexual availability." Perhaps if you have a dirty mind, anything can seem racist, or sexist, or sexual. But sometimes, as Sigmund Freud might have said, a fountain pen is just a fountain pen.
Despite railing against knocking copy, Mr. Obama has not hesitated to indulge in negative campaigning of his own. By jumping on Mr. McCain's admission he wasn't sure how many homes he owns, the suggestion being that the McCains are so filthy rich they cannot possibly understand the concerns of ordinary Americans - the very charge that is so often leveled against Mr. Obama - he has opened the door to a hurricane of low, dirty, unfair ads from the Swiftboaters of 2008.
Since when is class warfare warranted in America, the land of opportunity? Since when has wealth, or a wife's wealth, become the benchmark by which candidates are to be judged? What sort of envious, angry, carping, inverted snobbery inspires such thoughts? Did the number of homes Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy have mean they did not care for the common man?
The Sun points out that these charges leave Obama wide open to counter attacks by McCain using convicted felon Tony Rezko and other problem past associates of Obama. In his desire to not be "Swiftboated" as the Democrats feel Kerry was misued in 2004, the Obama campaign is striking out blindly and stupidly, neither making any headway with their charges or countering the impression that Obama is not ready to be president.
These attempts fail in their efforts to silence his opponents while opening the door to further questions about just how ready is Barack Obama to be Commander in Chief. In effect, he is fanning the flames of controversy. And he has only himself to blame when these chickens come home to roost.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
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