I don’t normally talk politics here. It’s just not the sort of thing you do in mixed company. But I have to say that regardless of which side of the fence I were on, I’d still find this new ad by the Bush Campaign utterly insane (I think you can also see a larger version fo the video on the front page of georgebush.com at the time of this writing).
I watch this ad, and my mind boggles trying to figure out why they’d run it. It basically shows people (Gore, Kerry, and Michael Moore) saying what an incredible failure and horrible person Bush is. Oh, and also there are Nazis. I guess the point is to show that Kerry and his supporters are zealous and irrational, and that Kerry regularly seeks political advice from Hitler’s brain in a jar. But I think what really happens is that the Bush campaign is just giving time to Bush’s critics and viewers are left saying “What hell was that?” Bush is attacking himself, and apparently he believes that a off-handed “Nuh-uh!” at the end buys it all back.
Like I said, I can’t beleive that they’re running the ad. There’s a good discussion of it here, though, with people coming down on both sides.
I can’t resist rambling on about politics on a Friday–just like old times. So, take the following with a grain of salt, which is probably all the following is worth:
One or two of the comments sort of hit the nail on the head–this ad serves two purposes: (1) Rallies the base (i.e, “Gee, George is such a nice, mild patriotic guy from Texas, and look at how the lowdest voices of opposition are goofy, over-the-top cooks yelling at the top of their lungs comparing good ‘ol George with Hitler); (2) The ad is a little daring (sarcasm, here, the point was obvious to me what they were doing, but apparently some folks got confused, so they need to be more direct in calling those folks nuts), so it is common now for controversial ads not to be be released fully or at all, and instead they just get dsiplayed on a website and the media will play it for free a few times. Both sides have employed this method in both this and the last election–it also works as a trial balloon to see how the more daring “red-meat” ads will be spun by the media before the candidates or surrogates use some of the content on the stump.
I think that how this ad is received belies the polarized nature of much of our politics–those on the left can’t see those clips of Moore et al as being so far over the edge as making most observers wonder what planet they are from, and George’s side responds by implying that, “Hey, they called us Nazis, but we think they really may be because they are acting like the crazy folks playing on irrational fear.” The whole exchnage makes for a political version of, “Nan, nah, nah I know what I am but but what are you?” Put bluntly by me, though, folks need to cut the crap and realize foks on all sides and in-between are dying for what is perceived to be a life or death struggle of cultures and interpretations of freedom, so this is not a struggle we stumbled into. It has been brewing for decades since post WWII with Britain turning over colonial influences and our support of Israel (gee, thanks Winston–you gave us the Cold War, now this, what next?)
The sad truth is that we have finally got sucked into full-fledge war with Islamic extremists–an evil that knows no bounds (from beheadings to a desire to, yes, use weapons of mass destruction)and will probably will never fully stop. The complexities of Middle East politics will make it difficult to solve, yet alone extricate ourselves. However, what is even more sad is how this very serious issue and war we need to fight is being politicized and not taken seriously enough by politicians and the world as a whole.
On a lighter note, Jamie, I can’t resist–I read last week that Camejo ran for president on a Worker’s Party (Communist) ticket in 1976. Please tell me you didn’t vote for him for governor of California 😉
Yeah, I figured out the intended message after watching it a couple of times (it didn’t help that the text was hard to read on my monitor). But I’m not stupid and I was confused at first, as were a lot of other people on the Quarter to Three forums. If someone were to see that ad flash by on TV without the benefit of rewatching it, I could see how they’d be confused at best and think it an anti-Bush ad at worst (“best” and “worst” being relative to your position on Bush here). Bottom line is that it’s a really poorly done ad from the standpoint of making a clear, understandable message. Heck, at first I thought it was a Moveon.org ad since they put the logo up there ahead of the Hitler clips.
Yes. I think it’s fair to say that pro-bush viewers will eventually decide it’s a clever jab at Kerry, while anti-Bush viewers see it as an inexplicable jab at Bush. But I maintain that it’s a poor ad because everyone else who doesn’t fit into one of those two camps will just be baffled.
Herpes! 😉
I admit nothing. 🙂 Though I also noticed that Camejo’s running as the Vice President on Nader’s ticket. It’s progress for him.