Society Issues Talk

Clay · Guest

Rapid Response Run Amok
by John Podhoretz

It has become axiomatic among liberals and on the Left that Democrats
are somehow just too nice to win presidential races — that they get
slimed and don’t slime back, that they get attacked and don’t
counterattack, etc. They believe in ideas, you see, in calm
persuasion, not in demagoguery, and therefore do not deign to stage a
mud-wrestling match in the fever swamps. It was said of Michael
Dukakis, it was said of Al Gore, and it was said of John Kerry. They
were all just too high-minded to allow themselves not to be “swift-
boated.”

This has become such conventional wisdom that liberal organizations
and Democratic campaigns now raise fortunes of money by promising they
will use the funds to go after and counter the “Republican attack
machine” and to blow the whistle on Republican malfeasance as
aggressively as Republicans have blown the whistle on them. The most
sophisticated and most far-reaching effort in this regard is being
staged by the Obama campaign, which has shown some deftness in
pouncing on McCain campaign gaffes like Phil Gramm’s astoundingly ill-
conceived peroration on the psychological aspects of the nation’s
economic woes and the “whiners” who are upset because they have to pay
$4.50 for a gallon of gas they paid $1.50 a year ago.

The problem with rapid response is precisely that it is rapid, and
therefore might be hasty and ill-considered. That is clearly the case
with the Obama camp’s amazingly dumb tantrum regarding the New Yorker
cover — a magazine friendly to Obama whose illustration was clearly
intended to be a parody of anti-Obama feeling on the Right. Three
seconds of thought might have led the campaign to reconsider its
decision to denounce the illustration. Six seconds of thought might
have led the campaign to see the illustration as an opportunity, to
say, “The New Yorker has brilliantly encapsulated the evil right-wing
campaign against Barack and Michelle Obama, a campaign that must not
be allowed to gain purchase in the American psyche.”

Had that been the response, an entire day on cable news would not have
been spent on the illustration — it would instead have been a very
minor story that would have been spun not as “is Obama a Muslim flag-
burner” but rather as “Is the Right-Wing attack machine going too far
yet again?” Obama has now made certain that millions of people who
never would have seen the New Yorker cover now have, and many of those
people will take it literally. It’s a rapid response backfire.

Not to mention that it makes the Obama campaign look considerably less
cool — and cool is a key element of the Obama magic. Andy Borowitz
sums it up hilariously in a new Borowitz Report:

=======================Obama Releases List of Approved Jokes About Himself
Bid to Help Late Night Comics

Saying he is “sympathetic to late night comedians’ struggle to find
jokes to make about me,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) today issued a list
of official campaign-approved Barack Obama jokes.

The five jokes, which Sen. Obama said he is making available to all
comedians free of charge, are as follows:

Barack Obama and a kangaroo pull up to a gas station. The gas station
attendant takes one look at the kangaroo and says, “You know, we don’t
get many kangaroos here.” Barack Obama replies, “At these prices, I’m
not surprised. That’s why we need to reduce our dependence on foreign
oil.”

A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to
his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, “I was
expecting the farmer’s daughter.” Barack Obama replies, “She’s not
here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are
making a mockery of the American Dream.”

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?”
Barack Obama replies, “His jockey just lost his health insurance,
which should be the right of all Americans.”

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
Barack Obama: The New Yorker magazine, which should be embarrassed
after publishing such a tasteless and offensive cover, which I reject
and denounce.

A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of
the ocean. Barack Obama says, “This joke isn’t going to work because
there’s no Muslim in this boat.”
=======================
Maybe the Obama rapid-response team should consider taking a short
vacation. And Obama too. I noted during the primary season that the
man never smiles. Now it may come to seem that he never laughs.

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-C-