A TERRIBLE WEEK FOR McCAIN THAT NO ONE NOTICED

July 11th, 2008, 10:12 am · 1 Comment · posted by Dan Lehr

It’s evident that the Chuck Todd quote we featured earlier this week — “that everything [the McCain campaign] do[es] from here on out will be an attempt to make this election a referendum on Obama.” — is the truth, either because of or in spite of McCain’s efforts.

Here’s a look at a series of gaffes & awkward moments that McCain & his supporters made this week - which were generally ignored in the mainstream media:

1. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

“Americans have got to understand that. Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace and it’s got to be fixed.”

It seems odd that McCain is criticizing the system that’s been in place since the Great Depression - I think he was meaning that we haven’t addressed the looming problem of the baby boom generation retiring & bankrupting the system — but it’s hard to tell. More on that (& an attempt to get a clarification from the McCain campaign) here.

Had Barack Obama characterized the Social Security system this way, it would have been all we had heard about this week.

2. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Yesterday’s incident re: Phil Gramm’s boneheaded comments that we’re “a nation of whiners.” Probably much to the McCain campaign’s chagrin, Gramm said yesterday he sticks by his comments. Not good. & who’s supposed to be the elitist in this race?

Had Barack Obama called us “a nation of whiners” & the economic downturn we’re in a “mental recession,” he’d be tarred & feathered from nearly all sides.

3. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

(above clip is audio only)

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki & other Iraqi leaders called for a timetable for U.S. withdrawl this week. First, McCain said

“Since we are succeeding, then I am convinced, as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable,” he said. “And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about, since he has told me that for many meetings we’ve had.”

Then he conceded that it was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to curry favor with his own people and would not influence his determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely.

& that’s a flip flop from what he said about the matter in 2004:

Question: “What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?”

McCain’s Answer: “Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.”

Had Barack Obama gone back & forth on the meaning of Maliki’s remarks, he’d be branded as a “typical political flip flopper” who “says anything to get elected.”

4. This statement the McCain campaign released this week touted the support of his economic plan from 300 blue-ribbon economists. But the Politico reported that most of those economists did not realize what they were signing off to - most of them thought they were checking “yes” on a list of basic economic principles with which they agree, not necessarily “I endorse McCain’s plan.”

If Barack Obama tried this, the ads criticizing him for this would already be out.

5. This “joke:”

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

McCain said, noting that cigarettes are the biggest U.S. export to Iran, “maybe we can kill them all with cigarettes.”

Iran’s a big place with 80 million individuals. It doesn’t seem very funny to joke about killing them all off, especially when right now there’s a good chance that a majority of the country’s people would be willing to be friends with us. Not a good move.

If Barack Obama made a joke about killing off an entire nation, many people would be saying it was a gaffe that could doom his campaign.

6. McCain denied this week that he ever said he wasn’t an expert in economics, apparently forgetting the durability of videotape:

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

As with #4, we’d already be seeing GOP ads pointing out this contrast right now if Obama had tried to get away with this.

& finally, this exchange about health care coverage (birth control vs Viagra):

7.Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Once again, just imagine the ads playing this clip in full if it were Obama fudging on an issue like this.

8. Finally, the right wing media machine made a huge tactical mistake jumping all over themselves to report the so-called “Jackson Hot-Mike Gaffe” on Thursday. Had they thought about it for two seconds, they would have realized that a day in which Iran conducts missile tests is a day that should be spent calling Obama’s rather thin foreign policy credentials into question, rather than what they did, which was to let their hatred of Jesse Jackson dictate their coverage of a story which ultimately, strategically puts Obama in a better position.

An opposing view: Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin says McCain & the GOP actually “won the week.”

Now. If you take this post as pure slam on McCain or his policies, you would be wrong - that’s certainly not my intent. The point I’m trying to make is that you should definitely expect a double-standard in this race when it comes to how much attention the media pays to whom. Obama’s gaffes or misstatements, however minimal or consequential they are, will be maximized in the media, while McCain’s gaffes or misstatements will be minimized in the media. It’s not so much that the GOP candidate is “John McCain,” it’s that he’s “Not-Barack-Obama.”