Everyday they Swiftboat this President
There’s a lot of hubbub about a new ad featuring conservative Navy SEALs. These purported ex-soldiers claim that President Obama is taking too much credit for the historically brave decision he made to go after bin Laden in Pakistan last year. Think Progress has pointed out that this ad has much in common with the 2004 “Swift Boat” ad that peed on war hero John Kerry.
Well, it ain’t 2004 anymore.
In 2004, Fox News was a smaller yet growing presence on cable. YouTube didn’t exist. DrudgeReport hadn’t caught Bieberfever for Mitt Romney.
Most importantly, Osama bin Laden was alive.
The “Swift Boat” sandwich served by Bush/Rove allies in 2004 worked because John Kerry was not yet defined in the American public’s mind. The country was still in 9/11 shock and fooled into thinking we’d won the Iraq war. It’s difficult to remember how hard it was to criticize President Bush in the mainstream media. (Watch the SHOCK in the audience Colbert’s Correspondent’s Dinner performance again to see how that invincibly lasted until 2006.)
Swiftboating is constant now. The old fashioned idea of one being able to “Swift Boat” a candidate is a fantasy (but this WON’T stop the Koch brothers from trying). Twitter and Facebook spread so much information so fast that anyone who cares to can find all the information they want to confirm their biases at any time. We’re all being swiftboated and swiftboating all the time.
Plus what’s the core takeaway of this one ad? This President is too proud of killing our most loathsome enemy. He’s spiking the football. Way to spread the image of Mitt Romney having football after football spiked on his face.
So this weekend the President spoke to 20,000 people in person and exponentially more online to officially launch his campaign only six years after Mitt Romney launched his. DrudgeReport, of course, posted a photo taken before the event with a headline about the President speaking to an empty arena. :(
That’s balance. The right thinks the mainstream media reporting this President’s actual accomplishments without calling him a Muslim shows they’re biased. So they feel justified to lie all day all long.
The right is stuck with Mitt Romney, a candidate with zero foreign policy experience except a record of exporting jobs. In his one term in office, he was 47th in job creation and lost popularity every minute of the day.
So they have to make this popular President with his incredible record of creating 4 million jobs, confronting America’s enemies and ending war seem nearly as bad as Mitt Romney. That’s a difficult task but they managed to get people to blame this President for Bush’s economy in 2010. They’re sure they can do it again.
Swiftboating is a new word for basic political practice. It’s framing and it’s happening all the time. You can fight back. Never mention Mitt’s name without the word #unfit.
Mitt is unfit to unseat this President and if we let him argue otherwise that’s worse than any swiftboating.
