For a while, I was watching the McCain campaign come apart. Reporters, long-time associates, and even admirers of John McCain one by one declared they didn't recognize the man, or else that he couldn't be responsible for the dirty campaign he was running. The McCain campaign flung mud just as fast as they could. They pushed wild stories and couldn't get them to stick. They got mad, they attacked the media.
The McCain campaign even accused The Politico of being in the tank for Obama.
And then: ACORN. The right-wing lies about ACORN and "voter fraud" are the first time the McCain campaign got the mainstream media to run with a Big Lie. CNNand the NYTare now pushing a false story for the Republicans, and they're going to get someone killed.
Enough.
The response from the left blogsphere has been slow. There's been some good work, but no one quick, definitive pushback that killed the phony story. Maybe it's because the ACORN story comes up every election. Maybe it's because we've gotten used to McCain flailing and failing. Maybe it's because the Obama campaign hasn't repeated the mistakes of past Democratic campaigns, leaving the truth to speak for itself, so we got complacent.
The Republicans' fraudulent and ridiculous attack on ACORN is the first time we've been futilely on the defensive since 2004. It used to be like this all the time. The GOP would say "jump", the reporters would ask "how high?", and the left blogsphere would be left saying, "yes, but what Kerry meant to say was ..." and then we lost.
The Republicans have gotten the mainstream media to confuse voter registration fraud with voter fraud, to assume that the former leads to the latter, and to assume that compliance with state law is the same thing as an illegal conspiracy to throw the election. McCain said "jump" on Wednesday, and the mainstream media asked "how high." There are two kinds of people pushing the ACORN lies: the dishonest and the stupid. It's time to stop each and every one of them and force them to account for themselves. Which are they? Are they the ones attacking democracy, or are they the ones who are dumb enough to be duped by the enemies of the peaceful transfer of power in this country?
Which is it? There is no other kind.
This is why the Obama campaign's pushback today, which really began in the Congress yesterday, is so important. It's a savvy pushback that doesn't say "no, that's not true," it's a pushback that uses the Republicans' lies about ACORN to return to an important progressive narrative about Republicans:
The Republicans' lies about ACORN are part of a longstanding, criminal effort to deny Americans their right to choose their government. This criminal enterprise includes the subversion of the Justice Department for the purposes of crimes against democracy.
If Michelle Bachmann is looking for "un-American" activities, she can start with her own party's attempt to undermine America's peaceful transfer of power.
Then again, any violence will serve the Republicans and the mainstream media, so it's no wonder that the former is pushing for it and the latter is oblivious to the danger.
Folks, this is the big one, not just because the McCain finally got mud to stick, but because the Bush administration is willing to help sabotage an election. The Republicans do not care about our Constitution, our democracy, or our country, and they are willing to drag us down into a third-world morass, including fighting in the streets and the annihilation of your rights as an American.
And it all starts with a lie. Message and pushback are big parts of what we do. We have to win this one or it could all start to unravel. I don't mean Obama's campaign, I mean your fucking country.
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