Dirty American Campaigns

In essence, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, presidential candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, are only beginning their “hand-to hand combat.“ Both have repeatedly stated that, even in the heat of the electoral campaign, they are going to play by gentlemanly rules. Nonetheless, during the exchange of rhetorical blows, their political supporters immediately started aiming “below the belt.” Often they tend to strike at “the holiest of holies” – that is, at the patriotism of the candidates and their personal services to the motherland.

On the eve of the nation’s major holiday, Independence Day, former commander of NATO forces in Europe, retired general Wesley Clark, who initially supported Hillary Clinton in the current race before switching to Obama’s camp, stated in an interview that, “being able to fly a fighter plane and getting shot down” does not qualify one for becoming the President. He was talking about McCain, a former military pilot who fell into captivity when his plane was shot down over Vietnam.

Following in the footsteps of Clark, the unofficial consultant of Obama’s campaign headquarters, Rend Beers, who for many years worked in the U.S. National Security Council and is considered to be one of the country’s best specialists on counter-terrorism, also elaborated on the same tricky theme. “For many years,” declared Beers in an Internet discussion on the ABC website, McCain “has remained in isolation,” referring to the Republican candidate’s stay in Vietnamese captivity.

According to official biographies, McCain valiantly withstood confinement and torture in a place commonly known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” In America, McCain’s military past was always considered to be indisputable proof of his heroism, devotion to the homeland, and loyalty to the military oath. Predictably, attempts to cast a shadow of doubt on this venerable past were met with profound indignation by the Republican camp. The Republican Party’s National Committee even distributed a newsletter regarding “attacks” on McCain. Among other things, the newsletter reminded that Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin made remarks of a similar vein, and reproached Obama for failing to reprimand them for it.

However, by the time the newsletter was published, this information was somewhat dated. A little earlier that day, Obama gave a speech about patriotism in Independence, Missouri, in which he noted: “For those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country – no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides.”

Of course, everybody decided that these words were directed at Clark, but they were wrong. Later, Obama explained that this passage was added to his speech (which, coincidentally, marked the beginning of an entire week of speeches about patriotism) a few months ago. At the same time, his campaign center announced that the General’s statements about Obama’s rival were unacceptable. Clark, however, decided not to apologize. Instead, he explained that he meant only that it wouldn’t hurt if, in addition to personal courage and strong character, the U.S. President also possessed soundness of judgment.

Obama himself has frequently been called unpatriotic. The pretexts for such allegations range from the absence of the American flag pin on Obama’s lapel, to “questionable” statements by his wife and even by his former pastor. The most recent example of this kind is the publication of “reports” about the alleged “link between Barack Obama and agents of the U.S. communist party and its cover organizations.”

The reports were penned by two “veteran investigators of communist influence on political process in the USA,” one of whom excelled in this dubious field back in the time of McCarthy’s “witch hunt.” Notably, even Matt Drudge, editor of an Internet newsletter that mostly specializes in gossip, but occasionally publishes the facts (as it did with the scandalous Clinton-Lewinsky affair), refused to post links to these “documents” on his website. Now, authors of these “exposing” documents publicly accuse Drudge of secretly sympathizing with Obama.

However, even without the help of the famous “dirt digger,” this issue has already developed. On Obama’s campaign web page, among a plethora of discussion forums, there are links entitled “Marxists/Socialists/Communists for Obama.” Of course, this information became more prevalent by those who wanted to publicize this information, especially due to the fact that one of the few fighters for the interests of the proletariat at the forum spoke in support of a revolution that would liberate the United States from the “oppression of the ruling regime.”

Needless to say, the Democratic Senator, who has a good shot at lawfully occupying the highest state post, is not exactly worried about accusations of planning a communist revolution. Nevertheless, Obama‘s campaign management takes “dirty” political PR quite seriously. They have created an Internet resource especially for the “rebuttal of filthy rumors,” which not only refutes disinformation, but also names sources.

A telling example is Floyd Brown, who heads a network of disparately named, but ideologically homogenous “social organizations.” In America, he is known primarily as the man who, with the help of so-called attack advertisements, managed to “destroy” the 1988 campaign of Democrat Michael Dukakis, who was running for the Presidential post alongside George Bush Senior. Later, Brown played a leading role in organizing similar attacks on Bill Clinton, and in 2004, on John Kerry. This spring, he announced that he considers it “vital to increase Obama’s negative rating among Republicans,” and launched a broadcast of several commercials to that effect. According to Time Magazine, these commercials suffered from obvious inaccuracies, but Brown, and those who finance his “projects,” never has been deterred by such accusations.

In principle, American political technologists believe that discrediting rumors are better off left ignored until they “die out” naturally. However, specialists admit that Kerry’s presidential campaign four years ago was “bombed” by meticulously organized and widely publicized media attacks on his military past, which in reality was no less honorable than McCain’s.