In McCain dirty tricks, Lee Atwater lives!

By Weekly Archive On Oct 14, 2008

Coming
soon to a movie theatre near you: "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater
Story." If you want a real insight into the McCain campaign,
don’t miss it.

The
legendary campaign manager has been dead since 1991, but the dirty
campaign tricks he introduced into American politics live on in the
person of his protege, Karl Rove, and in the campaign tactics now
practiced by Steve Schmidt, Rove’s protege and John McCain’s campaign
manager.

In
1988, Atwater ran President George H. W. Bush’s campaign against
Michael Dukakis. As documented by historic footage in the film,
Atwater convinced Bush he could not beat Dukakis on the issues, so he
had no choice but to attack him personally. Bush admits he approved
the plan, even though he wasn’t comfortable doing so. And with Bush’s
blessing, Atwater took out his stiletto and stabbed Dukakis in the
chest.

First,
he painted Dukakis as an "elitist" from Brookline, Mass.
Then he put out the famous "Dukakis in a tank" commercial,
accusing him of voting against a score of proposed new weapons
systems. (In fact, Governor Dukakis, having never served in Congress,
had not voted for or against any military expenditures). And finally,
Atwater/Bush portrayed Dukakis as Willie Horton’s knowing and willing
accomplice in rape and murder.

Sound
familiar? It should. Because Lee Atwater’s back from the grave and
running the very same campaign against Barack Obama. Schmidt has even
bragged about it. Asked how the McCain campaign could regain
momentum, given Obama’s surge in the polls following the first
presidential debate, Schmidt and other top McCain aides agreed that,
like Daddy Bush, they could never win on the issues. Instead, they
vowed, they would attack Obama’s character.

And
they are. Word for word, it’s 1988, all over again. First, they
painted Obama as an "elitist" from the South Side of
Chicago. Then they lied about his voting against funding for troops
in Iraq and vowing to raise taxes on all Americans. And finally, in
an instant replay of the Willie Horton ad, they accused Obama of
being an accomplice to former Weatherman Bill Ayers in planning to
blow up the Pentagon.

The
Ayers connection, especially, is an absurd stretch. Yes, Ayers and
fellow Weathermen plotted to bomb public buildings as part of their
opposition to the war in Vietnam. But that was in 1969 — when Barack
Obama was only 8 years old.

Twenty-six
years later, when Obama met Ayers, the former radical was a tenured
professor of education at the University of Chicago and a counselor
to the mayor of Chicago on school reform. They served on two
charitable boards together, Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama’s first
run for public office, and they live in the same neighborhood.

That’s
the extent of their connection. Obama hasn’t seen or talked to Ayers
since 2005. Yet pit bull Sarah Palin accuses Obama of "palling
around with terrorists who would target their own country." She
even smiles when crowds chant "Terrorist!" at the mention
of Obama’s name — which is strange, coming from a woman whose
husband was an active member of a political party dedicated to having
Alaska secede from the union. Isn’t a secessionist, in fact, just
another form of terrorist? I think Abraham Lincoln would agree.

But
Palin’s not alone. At campaign rallies today, McCain himself merely
stands by as supporters denounce "Barack Hussein
Obama"
— the deliberate use of his middle name meant to convey Muslim,
un-American, terrorist — language that McCain condemned, during the
primaries, as unworthy of a presidential campaign.

But
that’s what happens when you’re losing. You get desperate. You throw
your principles out the window. You go to the dark side, running the
dirtiest, most despicable campaign we’ve seen since … well, since
Karl Rove used the same tactics against John McCain in South Carolina
2000. Except McCain’s campaign is even worse. At least, Bush never
called him a terrorist.

Back
then, McCain said: "I just have to rely on the good judgment of
the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or
later, people are going to figure out that if all you’re running are
negative ads, you don’t have much of a vision for the future or
you’re not ready to articulate it."

Well
said. And today, it’s pretty clear which candidate has no vision for
the future. It’s not "that one," but the other one.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)."
You can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.