An outfit called Vets For a Strong America unveiled this video last week, attacking President Obama for his comments on killing Osama bin Laden, and it's done quite well. But as attacks go, I'm not sure if this one's on the right track.
The point is pretty straightforward: the video, professionally made with high production values, wants the viewer to think Obama wants sole credit for the mission that killed the al Qaeda leader last year. The claim is demonstrably untrue, but the right doesn't much care about such niceties.
Vets For a Strong America's Joel Arends, the founder and sole staffer at the "group," freely admits, "Yes, it's the swift boating of the president, in the sense of using what's perceived to be his greatest strength and making it his greatest weakness."
I see. So, Obama's "greatest weakness" was ordering the strike that killed bin Laden, keeping a campaign promise Mitt Romney criticized, and following through on a commitment George W. Bush chose to disregard.
Hmm.
Dave Weigel's not buying it: "[T]his is cheesy. The aesthetics evoke the 'Army of One' ads that play in front of movie trailers. The Swift Vets ads worked for reasons that can't be recreated in the OBL capture story."
Quite right. The Swiftboat claims came from individual men who said, on camera, that John Kerry was lying about military heroism. Kerry was telling the truth and his accusers were lying, but again, in Republican politics that just doesn't matter. The smear campaign offered "proof" that the Democratic war hero was not to be trusted.
Vets For a Strong America's lie is weaker, less compelling, and based on a premise that's simply less important.
Weigel added, "[T]he commander-in-chief isn't stealing valor when he talks about a mission he ordered. That's what 'commander-in-chief' means. The average American who fist-pumped at the OBL news had much less to do with the operation than Obama. I'd doubt he/she feels guilty and wants to take back the 'USA!' or the 'wooooo!' into the TV camera."
Or Jed Lewison put it, "[T]he best case scenario with the ad is that people who see it are convinced that Obama is a dick ... but even if they are convinced he's a dick, he'd still be the dick who killed bin Laden. And the last thing you want to do [if you're a Republican] is talk about how President Obama killed bin Laden."
Regardless, Joel Arends' one-person operation -- the funding of which remains a mystery -- isn't done. Judd Legum and Adam Peck noted that Vets For a Strong America is trying to recruit Navy SEALS to condemn the president before the election.
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Kerry was an anonymous lieutenant. Obama's commander in chief.
Vietnam was unpopular. Killing bin Ladin wasn't unpopular.
Kerry let them them smear him. Obama won't.
Read this as a spectacular fail. Worse than that for Republicans, I think it will boomerang and reflect negatively on them.
Displaying the signs of Envy are we now? Tsk tsk tsk.. I suppose that Book they thump around is only for a Coffe Table prop.
I've watched the speech Obama gave on OBL's death a few times prior to this new ad, and he congratulated everyone who participated and was humble about it. So now that he's used it to show his accomplishments it's suddenly the worst thing ever? Ohhh big wahh.. Roll several dozen footage of Bush/Cheney and their 9/11 ads.. and memorials.. and specials.. and "looky what we did" crap.. Yeah.. That's what I thought.
We're not allowed to feel proud because a democrat succeeded where they got side tracked because "finding him is not my concern." These new Republicans and those who support the extreme-side of this, really embody those Seven Deadly Sins very well for such.. well-mannered and god-fearing folk.
Methinks the Republican Party doth protest too much.
someone at another blog noticed this:
Veterans For A Strong America.
P.O. Box 1246
Sioux Falls, SD 57101-1246.
Americans for Prosperity.
PO BOX 1246.
SIOUX FALLS, SD 57101-124
interesting isn't it?
Someone told me that President Obama really didn't want to kill Osama but felt he had to once he was located to gain a political advantage.
Thanks for that info! Not surprising, but good to know.
Obama said from day one that he wanted to focus on catching or killing Bin Laden. He said he would go in to Pak to do it, where Romney publicly said he wouldn't.
Too bad Bush didn't feel obligated to take Bin Laden out. That would have cemented GOP rule for a good number of years. And we'd never have heard the end of how Bush kept us safe...in a flightsuit.
Remember that there were no attacks on American soil while Bush was in office (except for 9/11 and the Anthrax scare). The GOP keeps telling us (Dana Perino, I am speaking to you and your pal Rove), as if American's have that short a memory.
BS, if Bush knew where he was, he'd have taken him out and not wait 10 months to do so. Clinton on the other had a few chances and didn't do it.
I'm Shocked , Shocked I tell you .
But ignore these Kochsuckers at your own risk. This is just the first of many and they have unlimited money and there is no low to which they are not afraid to stoop, if it means the Oligarchs get to rule the world.
As we all know Americans For Prosperity (AFP) is a Koch brothers organization.
A couple or so weeks ago I read that Veterans For A Strong America is a 1-man Koch funded organization. But without validation there was no way to know for sure, until now.
Thank you rikyrah for posting the information.
Wow. You take as validation someone posting what someone else posted on another blog as validation!? Wow!
My response in 3.1 was to see if someone would challenge me on the point. Why? Because there is nothing to validate it! (And, by the way, I don't believe it is true.)
But as soon is something comes by that you want to believe you latch onto it with no supporting information whatsoever. This is why our American election system is in jeopardy. A gullible and ill-informed electorate - and, again, on BOTH sides.
Uhm, Eric ####, Google "Rumsfeld and Tora Bora" and then come back and tell me what Bush would have but didn't do.
The lovely MsJoanne beat me to it...
Tora Bora, Tora Bora, Tora Bora, Tora Bora
What part of Tora Bora does Eric not understand? Bush and Rumsfeld decided to pull the troops that had Bin Laden pinned down in Tora Bora so that they could be used in his ill conceived and illegal invasion of Iraq!
Good thing the Daily Show already compiled all the "[people] deserve tons of credit for this mission" video montage.
In fact, the only people saying Obama deserves credit are the people around him. I just heard a statistical figure the other day that I hadn't heard before:
The chances that bin Laden was in there were LESS than there were WMD's in Iraq.
That's a great line; shows his decisiveness, his iron will, his determination, and also reminds America about the WMD fiasco.
This ad sucks, but it's not useless, it's speaking to the base that hates him more than anything else... hopefully independents listen to the true counter-arguments that will be around.
This is the whole episode, but the relevant portion starts at 5:00
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-may-1-2012-david-barton
Obama thanked:
May 1, 2011: "Thanks for the men who carried out this operation"
Sept. 10, 2011: "Thanks to the remarkable courage and precision of our forces"
June 22, 2011: "Thanks to our intelligence professionals and special forces... the pilot of the helicopter.... the troops.... the seals"
Karl Rove's playbook can be boiled down into just two points:
1) Attack your opponent's strength.
2) Attribute your own weaknesses to your opponent.
This one is classic Rove.
you forgot
1A.) lie whenever convenient
1B) Lie all the time , there is no one in the MSM to call you out . (except Rachel)
Maddow reported awhile back that Bush had disbanded the CIA's "Get Bin Laden" squad. Document/report/infomercialize that and all this BS attacking Obama will go away.
Couldn't hurt to promote the documentary "9/11 Press for Truth".
I agree that President Obama deserves credit for the operation from an administrative standpoint. But he open the door to the attack of "sole credit" when his political operatives decided to strongly imply that another president would not have been "brave" enough to make the same call. Right or wrong, in the politically charged environment of today, illusion is reality.
he didn't say "another president" would not have been as brave.
Clinton implied he might not have been.
And the campaign ad referred to a statement Romney said about NOT going into Pakistan. It's a fair question when set against that comment. Especially considering the environment Romney and American Crossroads has created where as long as it came out of your mouth it's "a quote."
I'm not denying that it might be a fair question, but when you ask the question, you ARE implying that the other person would not have made the same decision. Why ask the question if that is not your implication? It would make no sense.
Clinton, Biden, and the President implied it.
That's untrue.
that may be true- that Obama is inviting the debate- but that doesn't change the fact that he's not implying he deserves sole credit.
He deserves credit for making the call-- but he says he made the call because of the work done by the intelligence community, the skills of the seals, and a whole litany of military and intelligence people he's already said deserve tons of credit.
Siamesse, I agree. But as I stated, in today's political environment it unnecessarily opens the door. The President could have easily celebrated the success on the anniversary without asking the question about Romney.
If you read my posts, you know I believe that BOTH sides look for things they can exploit and nitpick on. Part of the game is to not give your opponent an open avenue.
I was disgusted with Kerry that he didn't push back on the Swift Boat idiots. His people should have made a commercial about where Bush and Cheney were during Viet Nam and how many awards they got in that time. And then gone after those jerks making the ads.
IMHO the people that backed up the trash talk were all people that never went there (like Rush) and never had a friend or family member that went there. It still disgusts me that they were allowed such cheap shots supported by idiots that can't think for themselves.
Their thing was ."The American people are too smart to believe these lies . "
Proved you wrong in a big way
The ad was made to see if it would work as an issue. But the problem with the ad is that it lacks credibility while pointing out Obama's successful foreign policies. By opening the foreign policy issue, Obama gets to point out all the dead terrorists killed under his administration. Don't expect to see much of this ad in the future.
I don't know. I expect to see a lot of really nasty things the closer we get to November. But I don't expect that this line of attack will gain much traction.
And killing bin Laden was popular; Vietnam War was not. So Swiftboating is flopping big time here, and even if they get a ton of Navy Seals to go against their Commander in Chief (which I seriously doubt) no one will believe them.
I really hope that they're not seriously looking for active duty SEALS in particular, or active duty military personnel in general. I don't know the particulars, but I'm pretty sure that the military has strict rules regarding political campaigning under the aegis of the military, especially for criticizing their boss, the Commander-in-Chief.
Be that as it may, these yahoos are realling looking for trouble. For one, I seriously doubt any active duty SEAL is currently tweeting or updating their Facebook status for the whole world to know their classified Navy-SEAL business. So whoever they find will be one of the following: a FRAUD; a dillusional conspiracy theorist who couldn't even get within 10 feet of a military recruiting office; someone too stoopid to even make the SEALS; or someone who managed to get himself dishonorably discharged from the military.
*delusional* conspiracy theorist
Criticizing the C-I-C while still active in the military or navy or whatever is off limits. In fact they are not allowed to attend political events while in uniform.
Furthermore the navy seals are a very elite tight knit group. It is doubtful that even a retired navy seal would be willing to swiftboat the President & risk being shunned by his mates.
But then again that is my opinion based on what very very little I know about the SEALS.
Anyone notice how blackity-black-black-black he looks?
I'm thinking that George W never intended on going after Osama. If I remember correctly, after 911, the first few days there were no planes flying (except that of the Saudi's that were "visiting" the POTUS). Osama was a relative to the Saudi's that were visiting and I believe they were either friends or business associates.
That tells me that he never intended on going after Bin Laden but found ways to go to war in Iraq. We should NEVER have gone. That was a bad call.
I don't have time to watch all the news that's out there, but I think the ?? about whether other POTUS' would have gone after Bin Laden was brought up whe Brian was being interviewed about the "upcoming story" on Rock Center celebrating the anniversary of his death.