Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.: Et Tu, Senator McCain?

[babylonsister]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jesse-jackson-jr/et-tu-senator-mccain_b_132778.html

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Posted October 7, 2008 | 07:24 PM (EST)

Et Tu, Senator McCain?

snip//

What's most troubling about the McCain camp's desperate decision to unleash a barrage of character attacks on Senator Obama is that they understand perfectly the nastiness, the pettiness, the just-plain-wrongness of what they're doing.

Here's campaign manager Davis again, from an essay entitled "The Anatomy of a Smear Campaign" that ran in the Boston Globe 4 years ago, dissecting the smear campaign that the Bush team ran against John McCain in South Carolina back in 2000. A key section in Davis's essay reads:

"Campaigns have various ways of dealing with smears. They can refute the lies, or they can ignore them and run the risk of the smear spreading. But 'if you're responding, you're losing.' Rebutting tawdry attacks focuses public attention on them, and prevents the campaign from talking issues. We chose to address the attacks by trying to get the media to focus on the dishonesty of the allegations...We also pledged to raise the level of debate by refusing to run any further negative ads--a promise we kept, though it probably cost us the race."

So they know full well what they're doing. And they know it's wrong. This isn't about Wright and Ayers. This is about right and wrong.

The troubling question for John McCain is obvious: "Et tu, Senator McCain?"

And the question for the traditional media is just as obvious: Since you understand exactly what the McCain/Palin campaign is doing, are you going to abet them in this sleazy, divisive, below-the-belt behavior by promoting their preposterous charges?

Perhaps instead we could spend the last month of this campaign talking seriously about how we can update FDR's New Deal, and save the American economy from collapsing.

[Democat]

1. Most important point - not running negative ads cost him the win!

Keep that in mind, Obama.

Negative attacks are the best response to negative attacks.

Playing defense helps your opponent - offense is what is needed to win!