McCain runs a cowardly sleazy ad, early

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 by Dave Winer.

0. Here's a blogger doing what a blogger should do. 

1. McCain is running an ad that, without saying anything that can be rebutted, shows images of promiscuous or crazy young white women in a commercial filled with imagery of Barack Obama, a black man. 

2. Marshall says (and so far is right) that the press will, during the campaign, say the ads are controversial and hard-hitting, and after the campaign, as they did with the same tactic used against Harold Ford, a black man running for the US Senate in Tennessee, will say that what they were doing was transparent and unfair. (So far the attacks on Obama are tame and mild compared to what was run against Ford in 2006.) 

3. It's good to have bloggers in the mix, being listened to, because the candidates and their backers should be held accountable for what they say and do, while the campaign is going on. McCain should take the hit now, not after the election. 

4. The press has done some nasty sleazy hits of their own in recent elections. The Dean scream was manufactured by the press; only after he withdrew did the mea culpas come. The Swiftboat ads, unsubstantiated smears, were run nationally, for free, by the networks. That should not be tolerated.  

5. The ads were backed, we find out, by people who now want our respect. Shouldn't smears be two-way? Why not expose the people who created and financed the ads while the ads are running? Isn't the job of the press to seek the truth? Isn't that what we're told they do better than mere bloggers do? 

So thanks to Josh Marshall, who has the attention we don't, for using it for a good cause.