Barack Obama is playing a game of chess while John McCain is playing checkers. I'm not the first one to use that metaphor. The Obama campaign has been constantly several steps ahead of the Republicans throughout this election season. Is it possible that the "Lipstick on a Pig" controversy is another example of this? It would appear that the McCain campaign is taking some serious lumps for this "manufactured outrage." Once again, their lack of policy depth and substance is displayed for all of America -- they'd rather talk about nonsense they discuss the real issues. Even Chris Matthews and Bill ORLY, bastions of feminism that they are, came to Obama's defense and patently dismissed claims that Obama's was referring to Gov. Palin. Should the Obama campaign really be surprised when they come out looking like the mature ones?
An episode of The West Wing, "The Poet Laureate" (S03E16 :), begins with President Jed Bartlet making a gaffe during his reelection campaign. After a remote television interview, thinking the camera has stopped rolling, he described his Republican, Rob Ritchie, opponent as having a ".22 caliber mind in a .357 world." The Ritchie campaign immediately latches on to this, telling the media that Bartlet was calling Ritchie stupid. The White House indirectly apologizes, stating that the President did not mean for a private comment to be made public. They take the high road and are more or less forgiven by the American public -- it was, after all, an accident. The Ritchie campaign focuses all their attention on this line, but instead of creating bad press for the President, their efforts backfired; the result was to sear the words "stupid" and "Ritchie" into the minds of the voters. In the end, we realize that the President pulled an "old-school move," waiting for an opportunity to belittle his opponent's (lack of) intelligence without taking any heat himself.
What if this was Senator Obama's strategy? They must know how the media works, they would have to realize that the McCain campaign cannot debate the issues and is simply grasping at straws. What if they threw the drowning Republicans an anchor disguised as a life preserver? Much has been made of Obama's direct lack of response to McCain smears -- sure, his supporters and surrogates have responded, but other than the "ENOUGH!" comment in his acceptance speech, Obama himself hasn't always been quick to comment. Perhaps he just doesn't have the time to personally respond to each and every lie? Isn't is a nice coincidence, though, that he happened to be a scheduled guest on Letterman last night, giving him a chance to laugh at the fake outrage of the right? Wasn't it amazing how quickly his campaign was able to provide Chris Matthews and others with clips and transcripts of McCain and other right-wingers using the exact same phrase they tried to demonize him for? And wasn't it great that the next day he was able to give a prime-time response to the same old Republican tricks that actually got airtime?
This would be an "old-school move," just like President Bartlet used. But highlighting your opponent's hypocrisy is not dirty politics. I don't mean to suggest that this was calculating or devious or anything of the sort. Senator Obama was simply playing the Traditional Media (TM) -- turnabout is fair play -- and attempting to give his campaign some breathing room after the RNC bounce and heading into the debates. Thank you for exposing Republican nonsense attacks. Thank you for calling a lie a lie in your latest ad. And thank you for forcing me to watch a West Wing episode I hadn't seen in a while in order to make a YouTube video. :) Well played, Barack.
Obama / Bartlet "Lipstick on a Pig / .22 Caliber Mind" mashup: