Althouse: "You know, I am a believer in … in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job. Uh, and I think that..."

August 28, 2008

"You know, I am a believer in … in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job. Uh, and I think that..."

"… if I were seriously to consider running on a national ticket, I would essentially have to start now, before having served a day in the Senate. Now there may be some people who are comfortable doing that, but I am not one of those people."

A devastating McCain ad, I think.

And I will remind you that I have taken a vow of cruel neutrality. I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!

59 comments:

Anonymous said...: At this stage of the game, it's a comparison game. As foul as McCain is, Obama can't compare himself in any category that matters when selecting the next President where he comes out looking better than McCain. Good luck finding anything devastating coming from the Obama camp.

McCain is infinitely more qualified to run the country than Obama, it's just that people disagree with how he would run it. Obama is infinitely unqualified to run the country and people disagree with how he would fail at trying.; 8/28/08, 8:02 AM
Meade said...: "I want to post devastating [...] ads..."

Oh no. Everyone take cover. There's a votex coming.; 8/28/08, 8:05 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: I do not know how devastating the ad is, but it is an effective ad. It uses the words of all the people who are praising him to heaven against him.; 8/28/08, 8:16 AM
AllenS said...: McCain joked to Jay Leno that his social security number was eight. The Democrats have that video they could show to make fun of McCain's age. That'll go over big.; 8/28/08, 8:20 AM
Swifty Quick said...: It's overkill, he's laying it on too thick. That's what I was thinking as I watched the first 3/4 of this ad, replaying again how the Clintons and Biden slammed Obama in the primaries, all the way right up until it showed Obama speaking his own words. This ad is devastating to Obama because of Obama, what he said and how he said it. When extemporizing Obama again is a dreadful public speaker.; 8/28/08, 8:21 AM
J. Cricket said...: Kerry was devastating last night in his contrast of Senator Mccain and candidate McCain -- but we didn't hear one word about it here.

Those are the true rules of faux neutrality.; 8/28/08, 8:27 AM
Valley Buddha said...: "McCain joked to Jay Leno that his social security number was eight. The Democrats have that video they could show to make fun of McCain's age. That'll go over big."

Ya. I always love making fun of the older people I barely know about how close they are to death. I am sure the senior citizens will just LOVE it when the Obama campaign starts calling McCain shaky, absent minded, or anything else.

Good luck with that.; 8/28/08, 8:32 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: All they have to do is run several alternating short video clips of Bush speaking and Obama speaking. Then ask the question; “Do we really want eight more years of this?”; 8/28/08, 8:34 AM
AllenS said...: Brian--

My comment was meant as a joke. Good luck with that.; 8/28/08, 8:37 AM
Meade said...: "Kerry was devastating last night..."

No he wasn't. Who exactly did Kerry devastate last night? It's not like Kerry has ever been anything but a political opponent of McCain. The only thing that could make this ad more devastating to Obama would be a clip of Michelle saying she in fact really doesn't trust the guy and never has.; 8/28/08, 8:38 AM
Elliott said...: "Cruel Neutrality" is the NEW "Fair and Balanced"!!; 8/28/08, 8:38 AM
Simon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/28/08, 8:41 AM
Simon said...: Peter V. Bella said...
"All they have to do is run several alternating short video clips of Bush speaking and Obama speaking. Then ask the question; 'Do we really want eight more years of this?'"

That'd be a great ad, but I think it'll have to be done by a 501 or a youtuber. Can't see the McCain camp or the RNC doing it.; 8/28/08, 8:42 AM
ricpic said...: Hillary hit it out of the park (Christ! did I just say that?) Obama's where he is because of ONE speech.; 8/28/08, 8:43 AM
Henry said...: Most of these ads are too long. The Obama passage at the end doesn't add anything because what he's saying is so vague and because the clip is clearly out of context.

I think the ad should have stopped with the Biden statement. No one cared before what Biden thought, but they do now, thanks to Obama.

And Biden's blank stare at 0.45 seconds is very convincing!; 8/28/08, 8:56 AM
TJ said...: "It's not like Kerry has ever been anything but a political opponent of McCain."

Except when they were almost running mates.

Try again.; 8/28/08, 9:07 AM
MadisonMan said...: The imagery in the ad falls short (Play it with no audio). A devastating ad has both audio and visual impact.; 8/28/08, 9:09 AM
Anonymous said...: This isn't an ad but it is amusing.; 8/28/08, 9:24 AM
EnigmatiCore said...: "Kerry was devastating last night..."

He usually is, which is why he failed as a candidate in 2004.; 8/28/08, 9:34 AM
EnigmatiCore said...: Oh, wait. You must have meant he was devastating to McCain as opposed to himself.

Different strokes, I reckon.; 8/28/08, 9:35 AM
Shark Girl said...: How did this man get so popular? That's what I don't understand. He himself said he would have to start learning, and was not comfortable doing things that way.

I don't know yet who I'm voting for, but I know it won't be Obama. I see too many unanswered questions about him, and all his "symbols" he has on his Web site bothers me.

Next, he'll create a world-wide symbol and call it the mark of the beast... and...and...

Oh yeah, I don't understand why he downplays the "race" issue as not important, but that he accepted the Democratic nomination on the anniversary of MLK.

Was it a coincident that that happened, or was it planned?; 8/28/08, 9:40 AM
Andrew said...: I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!

O.K. How about this one this one or this one ?; 8/28/08, 10:03 AM
Cedarford said...: Johnny B. said...
Kerry was devastating last night in his contrast of Senator Mccain and candidate McCain -- but we didn't hear one word about it here.
Those are the true rules of faux neutrality.

Yeah, Kerry devastating....Meanwhile on the Convention Floor, people knowing Kerry would follow Bill Clinton were already self-medicating themselves with stiff shots, percodans, phenobarbitol as Clinto began winding up. Or settling with just sticking red hot needles in their ears as Kerry started talking to reduce the pain of his pomposity..

==============

Shark Girl - You have your Saint Martin facts off. Obamessiah did not accept the nomination on the "anniversary" of what Democrats and schoolteachers refer to as "THe Greatest American, The One of Total Moral Authority"
(Never mind the sealed files, diverted funds, plagarism, and all the drugs, whores, and alcohol that "are distractions about Saint MLK")

No, today is The Day. The 45th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech MLK sorta borrowed from another Reverend, with a little helpful ghostwriting from his communist NYC radical Man Friday - Stanley Levinson.

August 28th, 1963.

This is The Day of the New One - that future generations will mark, when not only the sick will be healed, the oceans rise slowed and the planet begins healing - but The Day when the Speech to follow the worshipped "I Have a Dream Speech" was orated by the New Black Messiah...to his own worshippers...(and to those future generations destined to Mark key moments of the Obamessiah, according to Barack, Himself); 8/28/08, 10:06 AM
Peter Blogdanovich said...: Remember the scene in "Ghost Busters" when they launch what is essentially a suicide mission, and as they trudge forward toward their doom, Bill Murry suddenly says,"Hey, I love this new plan!"
Well, that's what the Dem's were doing last night.; 8/28/08, 10:09 AM
Noah Boddie said...: > "McCain joked to Jay Leno that his social security number was eight. The Democrats have that video they could show to make fun of McCain's age. That'll go over big."

Reagan once gave a long quote from Abraham Lincoln, and then followed that with "...and when he told that to me..."

Here's something conservatives have an easier time with: making fun of themselves. It's called a sense of humor, something most leftists were born without.; 8/28/08, 10:15 AM
M. Simon said...: It is all about the OODA loop.

Obama's campaign is a web 1.0 expert. Blogs and text. McCain is a web 2.0 - video, rapid response.

Obama is fighting the last war.; 8/28/08, 10:34 AM
Jim Howard said...: Andrew those are decent ads, but hardly devistating.

First of all it's not really helpful to Obama to talk much about Iraq, since the record clearly shows that McCain has called the shots much more accurately than Obama. Obama's surrender now policy is clearly wrong even to honest people who opposed the war to begin with.

It's also not really helpful to Obama to bring up the issue of tax cuts, since no rational person who favors lower taxes would vote for Obama anyway.

So McCain remains undevistated.; 8/28/08, 10:42 AM
MadisonMan said...: Peter, that's not a very good example. The plan worked.; 8/28/08, 10:59 AM
Jim Hu said...: jim howard, I think the Iraq part is stronger than you do - and I'm a dead-ender who supported the war throughout - the "easy" clip hits at McCain's claim to have known what was needed all along. I don't know if there's a context problem (did he say it could be easy if we started with more troops, for example).

But the problem for Andrew citing these is that they aren't Obama ads. They're third-party. I think a lot of Dems wish Obama was using these, or versions of these, but AFAIK the most negative things they've actually tried have been much less hard-hitting.; 8/28/08, 11:02 AM
JorgXMcKie said...: Am I the only one who remembers Bill Clinton's "middle-class tax cut"? I mean the one he promised that never happened? Why should I believe Obama any more?

And I don't know if that ad is devastating, but the steady drip, drip, drip seems to be driving some in the Obama camp a bit crazy. Especially the ones trying their darnedest to repress the First Amendment rights of their opponents.; 8/28/08, 11:07 AM
Simon said...: Dave said...
"I don't know if that ad is devastating, but the steady drip, drip, drip seems to be driving some in the Obama camp a bit crazy. Especially the ones trying their darnedest to repress the First Amendment rights of their opponents."

...Using as their vehicle for doing so a bill sponsored by our own candidate.; 8/28/08, 11:10 AM
Pauld said...: Andrew:

Those ads are not devastating because they last about three minutes. First, no one except political junkies watch three minute ads on You Tube. Second, if a point cannot be made in less than 30 to 60 seconds, it is not a devastating point.; 8/28/08, 11:26 AM
Anonymous said...: frankly, i can't wait for the debates. it's too bad the obama campaign has kept him in the vault (at least jesse jackson is keeping him company there) and there aren't fresh inartful statements to go around.

for the past 8 years i've had a good laugh at all of the bushism (i always wondered how conservatives are oblivious to it). i guess obama must be karma.; 8/28/08, 11:39 AM
jeff said...: "It's not like Kerry has ever been anything but a political opponent of McCain."
Except when they were almost running mates.
Try again."

Yes, I think we all remember the campaigning McCain did for Kerry, all those appearances together and his plea to the American people to join him in electing Kerry.

What was your devastating phrase again? Oh right.
Try again.; 8/28/08, 11:58 AM
holdfast said...: Peter V. Bella said...

"All they have to do is run several alternating short video clips of Bush speaking and Obama speaking. Then ask the question; “Do we really want eight more years of this?”"

As a conservative, all I can say is: sad but true.

If you recall, Bush actually delivered a few good speeched in his first term. Totally prepared and telepromptered, but when he is on an issue he actually cares about (war on terror, AIDS in Africa) he was actually pretty good. Not as good as Obama but not nearly as horrible to listen to as Kerry. However, both men tend to go all to hell if they have to go off the script. Bush is certainly worse (especially the tongue thing) but Obama is still pretty awful. Bush is clearly worrying how what he says will be protrayed in the press and by John Stewart and he ends up locking up like a cheap andrid. Obama is trying to figure out how he can say something without freaking out either his base or the majority of Americans (see the Warren church debate thing). The net is that both are awful whereas McMaverick revels in that stuff.; 8/28/08, 12:00 PM
former law student said...: Shocking, shocking to expose Obama's faux naivete in 2004. And to have been criticized by his vanquished opponents. Oh the man is going down for sure.

Obama's surrender now policy

You only surrender when you're losing. Quit that loser mentality; the US won the war in Iraq years ago. The country is now stabilized, our services are no longer needed, and we can withdraw our forces in an orderly manner.; 8/28/08, 12:00 PM
Original Mike said...: Andrew, which was the devastating part; where McCain called himself out for cowardice with respect to the Confederate flag, or where he admitted, as any honest person would, that he didn't know whether the Fed should change interest rates? I respect that kind of honesty.; 8/28/08, 12:01 PM
EnigmatiCore said...: "You only surrender when you're losing"

Which is what he wanted us to do.

It never dawned on him to try to win.

Worse, Democrats have a tendency to see fights (excepting against Republicans) as losing battles.; 8/28/08, 12:18 PM
Jim Howard said...: "You only surrender when you're losing."

Or when you are so committed to the idea of an American defeat that you refuse to acknowledge victory when it's clearly within our grasp.

Obama has spent too much time listening to Harry Reid and his ilk.

Obama's hard timetable plan is a surrender plan, pure and simple. No adult would advocate such a thing after the clear success of the surge.; 8/28/08, 12:25 PM
Alexander Fulks said...: It never ceases to amaze the cheering and love the Democrats give such losers like John F. Kerry and Al Gore. Its like being a loser is a qualification to greatness in their minds. In that light, no wonder Democrats cheer for defeat.; 8/28/08, 12:32 PM
Noah Boddie said...: The reasons Democrats are so hot for a timetable for withdrawal is that they learned themselves that a deadline is an unflinching enemy. When time is against you, you will lose. Time always wins.

They learned this valuable lesson at the hands of Katherine Harris, and it hurt real bad.

Now they wish to give this ultimate weapon to Al Qaeda, for no other reason than to finally avenge their humiliation in 2000.

Sad.; 8/28/08, 12:42 PM
JBlog said...: If'n I was doing McCain's anti-Obama ads, it would Obama buddies Wright-Ayers-Rezko 24/7.

Wright is a racist.

Ayers is a terrorist.

Rezko is a crook.

Repeat as necessary.; 8/28/08, 12:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Andrew's problem, and why those advertisements are not devastating, was summed up in the very first comment:

"As foul as McCain is, Obama can't compare himself in any category that matters when selecting the next President where he comes out looking better than McCain."

It doesn't help to slam McCain in a way that, after a few minutes of thought, leads to the conclusion "McCain sucks, but Obama is even worse". That's never going to be devastating to McCain.; 8/28/08, 12:47 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Well, I just don't consider those to be ads. Those are roughly edited film clips, and not from the campaign. Perhaps an ad could be made from that raw material.; 8/28/08, 1:08 PM
chickelit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/28/08, 1:08 PM
garage mahal said...: Obama's hard timetable plan is a surrender plan, pure and simple. No adult would advocate such a thing after the clear success of the surge.

Perhaps you missed Bush just committed to surrender and defeat in Iraq, then?; 8/28/08, 1:12 PM
chickelit said...: Andrew: Those ads don't get traction because they don't resonate. Each "point" they make could be undone with a sound bite of someone now on team Obama, which is the message of the McCain ad.; 8/28/08, 1:13 PM
vbspurs said...: Since early August, Team McCain has KILLED Obama in video format. Each one is more effective, and pertinent than the latter.

What is striking is that they are not even intended for us Republicans. They are aimed at the heart of disaffected Clinton supporters who think the less qualified guy of THOSE two, got the gig.

So for that, McCain's communications staff are geniuses.

Cheers,
Victoria; 8/28/08, 1:14 PM
TJ said...: Jeff, you said that Kerry and McCain have always been political opponents. I replied that there was a time when a) McCain almost left the Republican party and b) entertained the idea of running with John Kerry against George Bush.

Obviously, he did neither of those things so why would he have campaigned for Kerry? I didn't say that he had.

Your use of "always" is what I was disputing, not their present disposition toward one another.; 8/28/08, 1:51 PM
TJ said...: Correction: Your use of "ever [...] anything but" not "always."

Sorry for misquoting you, Jeff.; 8/28/08, 1:54 PM
blake said...: It's a dilemma.

You can't run on positives, because you have nothing remarkable in your record.

You can't run on negatives because wherever your opponent is bad, you're worse.; 8/28/08, 3:13 PM
Revenant said...: You only surrender when you're losing. Quit that loser mentality; the US won the war in Iraq years ago.

That's very interesting, because the Democratic Party line was, until a few months ago, that we've failed in Iraq. Prior to that, it was that victory was impossible. Now we're hearing that we won "years ago".

Barack Obama is like a guy saying, in 1941, that we need to pull our troops out of combat. He says it again in 1942, and 1943, and 1944, and 1945... and what do you know, in 1946 he's actually right. The man's a visionary!

The country is now stabilized, our services are no longer needed, and we can withdraw our forces in an orderly manner.

It is good to see that you and Obama finally agree with the Bush/McCain plan for Iraq.; 8/28/08, 3:23 PM
Revenant said...: Jeff, you said that Kerry and McCain have always been political opponents. I replied that there was a time when a) McCain almost left the Republican party and b) entertained the idea of running with John Kerry against George Bush.

Entertaining the thought of joining forces with a political opponent doesn't mean the person has ceased to be your political opponent. He only ceases to be your political opponent when you DO join forces with him. So Jeff's claim remains correct: McCain and Kerry have always been political opponents.; 8/28/08, 3:29 PM
blake said...: Actually, I can see why the dogmatic left would believe that: Even considering the "other side" is apostasy. I've seen this tack a couple of times: "You must reject McCain because he is an apostate!"; 8/28/08, 4:23 PM
BC said...: Andrew said...
"I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!

O.K. How about this one this one or this one ?"

Not even close!; 8/29/08, 1:12 AM
OBloodyHell said...: > Obama is infinitely unqualified to run the country and people disagree with how he would fail at trying.

Oh, let me count the ways...

Sit down, this should take a few million years, and you might as well be comfortable.

What? You only popped in for a quick word or two?

Well let's all do our best not to experience directly all the fun that those older amongst us knew as the Jimmy Carter years... With some special, modern "PC" issues thrown in along with the international terrorism.

A quick one off: Obama's "soft power" will be about as effective as Carter's was in dealing with Iraq and Russia.

Soft power only works when it's backed up with the possibility of a sharp stick.; 8/29/08, 3:26 AM
OBloodyHell said...: A Functioning Link, at the moment, since it's not easy to find straight up -- most links right now go to a broken YouTube entry or an equally broken BlipTV feed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89m0pC_bpY

I believe one key phrase to be searching on is "Know Enough?" if that link stops working. AmericanIssueProject would be another keyword, since I don't anticipate Obama's people allowing that one to continue existing, either. AIP Homepage if nothing else works.

YouTube. Remember how much they stand for Free Speech, right here, right now.; 8/29/08, 4:15 AM
M said...: do you really need someone to point you do ads devastating to McCain?

And who's nephew made this ad?; 8/31/08, 7:57 AM
Simon said...: marleyinoc said...
"who's nephew made this ad?"

Whose. If you're going to attempt condescension, it helps to grasp basic precepts of written English.; 8/31/08, 10:04 AM