John McCain Understands Ethnic Conflict

This gem, Via Atrios:

In May of 2006, as Iraq spiraled down into an orgy of sectarian bloodletting, John McCain had a solution. "One of the things I would do if I were president," McCain told a group of wealthy contributors, "would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit.'"

He then told the Kurds to shut their traps, while he demanded that the Iranians get off his lawn. John McCain has apparently adopted the Abe Simpson foreign policy.

Swift Boat Veterans Against McCain

Aside from a few mass email forwards, unofficial Republican attacks on Obama have been surprisingly absent from this year's presidential race. While "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" was unveiled in early May of the 2004 election cycle, and had ads on the air by mid-June, there are apparently no well-funded groups gearing up for 2008. Ready to Attack Obama, if Some Money Arrives, from today's New York Times, summarizes the situation:

No major independent effort to help Senator John McCain’s campaign has materialized. Although Republican operatives say something will eventually develop, alarm has spread among many, especially after Mr. Obama’s announcement on Thursday on public financing, raising the prospect that he will wield an enormous financial advantage over Mr. McCain in the fall.

Many reasons explain the absence of a serious independent effort at this point, Republican strategists said. Many wealthy donors who might be in a position to finance a 527 group, named for the Tax Code section that covers them, or a similar independent effort that is free to accept unlimited contributions are wary this time because of the legal problems that dogged many such groups after the 2004 election.

Major donors are said to be uncertain of Mr. McCain’s chances as Republicans face a decidedly unfavorable climate in the fall. Lingering, as well, is the possibility that they may anger Mr. McCain, who has a record of campaign finance reform and has in the past been critical of such groups.

Politico offers a deeper analysis of why the money hasn't materialized and won't be coming from the same sources as last time. A piece of the apparent poverty stems from preparations set in place during Hillary Clinton's long presumptive nomination, which soaked up both funds and energy in the production of work that cannot easily be used against Obama. Furthermore, it appears that none of the big-name donors who supported "Swift Veterans" are taking a hand in this election. And why should they, considering McCain's open disgust with that side of politics?

But, in explaining the absence of any anti-Obama groups this time around, every individual interviewed for this story cited the same central reason: a fear that their party’s nominee will publicly denounce them and hold a grudge.

“Both donors and operatives know how much [McCain] abhors these groups,” said John Weaver, the Arizona senator’s former chief strategist, referring to the independent groups that have thrived following passage of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. “If he is ultimately successful and any of these groups played a significant effort in electing him, many believe, probably rightfully, that they would be ostracized.”

Another GOP strategist said that McCain’s denunciation of a 501(c)(4) which aired an ad in South Carolina last November touting McCain when his resources were severely limited sent a chilling message to potential independent expenditure groups.

McCain issued a public statement at the time calling on the group, spearheaded by GOP adman Rick Reed, to “cease and desist.”

"Anyone who believes they could assist my campaign by exploiting a loophole in campaign finance laws is doing me and our country a disservice,” McCain said then.

He used even stronger language after that, saying at a Texas town hall meeting in late February that 527s “are distorting the entire political process and they need to be outlawed.”

However, as both articles note, McCain has been careful not to strongly criticize Obama attack groups for the last few months, saying that he will not play "referee" during the general election. It is also possible that Obama's massive predicted financial advantage will spur republican donations.

Nor is the lack of widespread attacks caused by a lack of trying, but merely a lack of funds. Floyd Brown of ExposeObama.com has put the following two ads online, and pledges more:







The first ad, in particular, would be scary on a national level. In spite of being thoroughly and repeatedly debunked, the rumor that Obama is a "secret Muslim" has endured for months and was cited in post-primary interviews with voters in states that Obama lost. Seeing "evidence" for the rumor on television could cement many voters' mistaken impression that Obama is lying about a Muslim past, and provide a way for certain voters to maintain racist preconceptions in a more socially acceptable, though still disgustingly bigoted, manner.

However, there is reason to think that a campaign based on ads like that won't be as effective as the "Swift Boat" attacks, which called into question a core aspect of Kerry's appeal in a way that was difficult for Kerry to directly address. Obama's charisma, his on- and off-line media advantage, and his willingness to confront racial issues and "smears" openly and directly make him fundamentally less vulnerable to these sort of attacks. In fact, I'm hoping that race will be as much of a shield for Obama as it is an under-the-table liability: many television companies may refuse to run ads with strong racial overtones for fear of legal or financial consequences, and any race-based attack has the potential to backfire tremendously against McCain. If this is the best they've got, they may be in serious trouble even if money does materialize.

Still, mass funding or no, there's going to be some outrageous mudslinging in the next few months, and it won't always be possible to control the damage. The only real solution Obama has is to run so effective a campaign that a few points lost to disinformation won't hurt. And on that front, even without that totally insane 6/18-6/19 Newsweek poll, he's off to a good start.

EDIT: OK, PS, this is just great.

John McCain understands Colonialism

From an interview with Matt Bai (via Matt Yglesias):

as we talked, I tried to draw out of him some template for knowing when military intervention made sense — an answer, essentially, to the question that has plagued policy makers confronting international crises for the last 20 years. McCain has said that the invasion of Iraq was justified, even absent the weapons of mass destruction he believed were there, because of Hussein’s affront to basic human values. Why then, I asked McCain, shouldn’t we go into Zimbabwe, where, according to that morning’s paper, allies of the despotic president, Robert Mugabe, were rounding up his political opponents and preparing to subvert the results of the country’s recent national election? How about sending soldiers into Myanmar, formerly Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest by a military junta?

“I think in the case of Zimbabwe, it’s because of our history in Africa,” McCain said thoughtfully. “Not so much the United States but the Europeans, the colonialist history in Africa. The government of South Africa has obviously not been effective, to say the least, in trying to affect the situation in Zimbabwe, and one reason is that they don’t want to be tarred with the brush of modern colonialism. So that’s a problem I think we will continue to have on the continent of Africa. If you send in Western military forces, then you risk the backlash from the people, from the legacy that was left in Africa because of the era of colonialism.”

There's quite a few insane things about that statement. First off, does McCain not know that Iraq WAS in fact colonized, in addition to quite a few places other than Africa:

Second, and really strangely, it seems like he gets it for second with the "tarring with the brush of modern colonialism" line, but be can't seem to wrap his mind around how that completetly conflicts with his views on Iraq or his hawkish outlook on the rest of the world. Yglesias points out:

Actually, though, I think McCain's not alone here. Very few Americans (even American elites) seem to recognize that most of the "pro-American" regimes in the region -- all the monarchies, basically -- just are colonial regimes set up by the British imperial authorities. Eventually, the United States took over from Britain as the foreign underwriter of those regimes. But to understand U.S. policy in the region and how the U.S. is viewed, you need to understand that Jordan and the G.C.C. aren't just autocracies, they're autocratic creations of the British Empire and CENTCOM is seen as the successor to the Colonial Office. Meanwhile, the "anti-American" or "radical" regimes in Syria, Iran, and (formerly) Iraq all have their origins in rebellions against colonial regimes.

I definitely see Matt's point that the majority of Americans don't understand what our role was/is in the middle east, just because the discourse on our history as well as Europe's is completely sugar coated (to put it mildly). But then again, most Americans don't run campaigns claiming to be experts in foreign affairs. Ladies and Gentlemen, John McCain! Your 2008 Republican nominee for president of the United States!