Swiftboating Obama, Giving Romney Cancer
Like pork factories that use every part of a pig but the squeal, Romney and Obama supporters are scraping the bottom of the political trough.
A smear group headed by a former Bushie and Tea Party compatriots is running “educational” ads denouncing the President for “recklessly leaking information” about the raids that killed Osama bin Laden.
Swiftboat, anyone? The tactic that torpedoed John Kerry in 2004 now has Barack Obama in its crosshairs. If you have an opponent who served his country honorably, do what Karl Rove did then: trot out veterans to discredit him while your own man’s shortcomings go unnoticed.
Ironically, the commercials come right after an HBO “Newsroom” episode highlighting how tightly news of the bin Laden raid was controlled until the White House announced it that Sunday night. But in this kind of campaign warfare, facts don’t matter.
Respected Washington Post columnist Dan Balz observes that “all restraints are gone, the guardrails have disappeared and there is no incentive for anyone to hold back. The other guy does it, so we’re going to do it, too…
“Neither side has had to look far for an excuse to attack or cry foul. Obama’s allies took the campaign over the edge last week and his team did nothing to stop it. The most egregious example of a campaign out of bounds was an ad prepared by Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting the president.
Editor’s note from Dr. E, managing editor TMV: For those who may not be familiar with the SEALS, how they are trained and for what kinds of deployments/ actions:
The SEAL acronym stands for Sea, Air, and Land, which identifies the elements in which they operate. SEALs work in small units — often one to two men, but sometimes in a platoon comprised of up to 16.
They are trained to perform specific tasks under any type of circumstance and in any environment. Their training takes place in the desert, the jungle, in extreme hot and cold weather, and in urban areas.
SEAL mis sions require detailed planning and precise execution. SEALs are trained to perform missions that fall into five main categories:
Unconventional Warfare (UW) – Using guerilla warfare tactics in battle. Guerilla warfare is characterized by small, mobile combat groups that operate using often “unorthodox” battle methods like destroying enemy supplies, creating diversions, ambushing small enemy units, demolitions, and other “hit and run” types of operations.
Foreign Internal Defense (FID) – Training given to foreign nationals in order to build relationships. During Operation Desert Storm, Navy SEALs trained 13 Kuwaiti operators in maritime infiltration techniques in order to set up a secret meeting with local resistance contacts within Iraq-occupied Kuwait City.
Direct Action (DA) – Moving against an enemy target. This may include assaults on land- or water-based targets, hostage rescues, ambushes, etc.
Counterterrorism (CT) – Includes direct action against terrorist operations, antiterrorist actions for preventing terrorist acts, and protecting citizens and troops.
Special Reconnaissance (SR) – Includes conducting preliminary surveys to gather information, manning observation posts, and other types of surveillance, both overt and covert, where the goal is to gather information.This may include gathering hydrographic data (beach and water surveys) for landings or following an enemy unit and reporting its position.
When SEALs aren’t deployed, they’re in training, both to hone basic skills and to learn new skills and techniques that will make a difference when they are deployed.
The above categories overlap when it comes to actual missions, but these are the basis of SEAL training: to be expert in the skills required to perform these various tasks.
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what is funny is that both sides are complaining that the other took things too far, when both sides have been firing at will without a second thought.
I was wondering when they’d dig up this strat and try it. I’m really looking forward to them trying to basically turn the successful taking out of Bin Laden into a political albatross. You really have to ask yourself, when that is your strategy, trying to make killing Bin Laden seem like a bad thing, how far off the path have you strayed? What agenda is it you are really supporting. Take a long look in the mirror folks, you are quite clearly on the wrong side of history on this one.
I heard the ad the for the first time this morning…looks like they found a way to use the squeal…
I am still waiting to see what Obama can do…after three plus years we only know one thing for sure is what Mitch McConnell spoke right after Obama’s election:
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
This is just more of the same, more squeal….
Maybe my memory is faulty, but I don’t remember any leaks on the OBL killing, and I (like the rest of you) pay a great deal of attention to the news. Again, maybe I am misremembering, but I recall the first I had heard that we were even trying was the announcement that it was done.
roro, the leaks weren’t before the mission, they were afterward. Some people felt enough details of the mission were released that future missions could be endangered, Seal Team 6 was identified specifically theoretically putting them and their families at risk, and some information came out that may have led to a Pakistani physician that aided the US being put in jail. The accusation is that Obama released a lot of details needlessly to enhance his reputation.
My take is that Obama certainly deserves credit for taking out Bin Laden but should not have released so much information afterwards.
that would assume that the teams are not scrambled after missions. They are.
Its going to be a long campaign. It will only be followed by and equally nasty attempt by the losers to legitimize the winners leading into the next midterm elections, where each party will feel the right to be as nasty as they thing they can claim the other was in the last election. Such is life under the two party system.
None of that constitutes a major security leak. The only people that came as news to where civilians. All I hear about these being major security leaks is coming from Republicans with an axe to grind, stretching hypotheticals, ones that can not be confirmed or denied because to do so would probably be a security leak.
What was said? That we had a special ops team that we can send out to kill high value targets? That there was an intensive intel operation involved in pursuing Bin Laden? Of course Obama could have not mentioned the team involved at all, in a vain attempt to protect info that was already known, in which case the cries of him taking all the credit for the operation would be all the more shrill no doubt.
This is craven rewriting of the past to suit the political needs of the presidents opponents, and more fodder for the conservative fantasy landers who think that Obama is a traitor and un-American. Literally, they are accusing him of being a traitor in the wake of taking out Bin Laden. You gotta wonder if these guys ever wake up, look in the mirror, and wonder, really wonder, whose side they are on and what they are doing.
Yeah, saying “this is what happened” is certainly different than a leak, which implies that he or the administration purposefully fed secret information to reporters in a manner not intended to be connected to him.
None of the fringe Left are really dangerous. But the far Rights constant attacks on the “government” fuels wackos like these killers in New Orleans.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40765_Developing-_Anti-Government_Terrorists_Murder_Two_Louisiana_Sheriffs
Spot-on, Slamfu
Thanks!!
“None of the fringe Left are really dangerous”
While in general I agree the Fringe Left has been pretty insignificant this last decade, your comment does come on the heels of a pro gay rights person shooting up a guard at an anti gay rights institution.
Words from someone who knows what being “swiftboated” is:
It’s easy to look at the attacks, smears, and lies being told about President Obama and his record and say, “Come on, that’s ridiculous. No one could possibly believe that.”
Trust me: You and I learned the hard way eight years ago this August that in the new world we’re living in — one with 24-hour news cycles, the internet, blogs, the echo chamber, and now the new Citizens United-fueled Republican money machine — even completely baseless attacks can stick if people don’t call them out quickly enough. No matter how self-evidently false the attacks are, or how disreputable the people telling them may be, there’s no attack that can’t take hold.
Seeing the new outrageous attacks made against President Obama from a shadowy Republican-allied veterans group called OPSEC, which take issue with the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, remind me all too well of the notorious “Swift Boat” attacks I faced in the 2004 campaign. I honor and appreciate the service of my fellow veterans, but a false attack is a false attack — no matter who’s making it.
It’s not enough to wish them away or dismiss them because they come in part from “birthers” who still won’t concede that President Obama was born here in the United States.
No, we need to get moving now — before it’s too late.
Take a look at this blog post that fact-checks these most recent smears, and be sure to share it with others:
http://my.barackobama.com/The-Same-Tactics
Throughout this campaign, Mitt Romney and his allies have shown that if the truth isn’t favorable to them, they have no problem claiming the opposite — and the reality is that President Obama has a foreign policy record that is among the strongest in recent memory.
In 2008, then-Senator Obama said he’d end the war in Iraq in a responsible way and refocus on taking out Al Qaeda’s leaders.
You and I know he’s followed through in a big way on both those promises.
[::]
Mr Stein wrote a nicely balanced article critical of both the Obama and Romney campaigns, and I agree with that view.
Sad but true. I expect to see 11th hour damning fabrications from the GOP like we’ve never seen before. These people have no shame, nor moral inhibitions, nor sense of country. They only want power. If outrageous lies are what it takes to secure that power then so be it.
Listen, Reps are not going to change. They are fighting demographics that they cannot beat. The only way the 1% can stay in power in a democracy is to lie cheat and steal. Ddw is right. Dems need to stay on the news cycles and always be ready to attack back. You never know, Rove might tell the folks in SC that Obama has a white baby.
Dems need to simply get off of their high horse and lie cheat and steal too. Reps are suppressing Dem voters… Dems need to do the same. Maybe dem controlled states can adjust the voting hours for Rep held counties in those states ?? Just like the Reps tried to do!