Shame on You John McCain & Steve Schmidt (who even looks like Dr. Evil)

This is Steve Schmidt, the veteran campaign strategist and public relations expert, who is heading up day to day operations of the McCain campaign. In his career to date he has been:

    * Communications director for Senate campaign of Matt Fong. (1998)
    * Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito. and Chief Justice John Roberts
    * Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney.
    * Member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004)
    * Campaign Manager for re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (2006)

He was a chief player in the George W. Bush re-election campaign in 2004 and is seen as a Karl Rove protege.

This is Dr. Evil, (born Douglas Powers) is a fictional character, played by Mike Myers, in the Austin Powers film series.

Schmidt has been a driver of the rapid move to the gutter by the McCain campaign over the last 3 weeks.  This has been exemplified by the disgusting ad, about which Steve Waldman writes:

Saying that Republicans are taking Obama's comments out of context doesn't come close to capturing this. What Obama probably meant is pretty much the opposite of what they're implying he meant.

The line used in the McCain ad, a campaign memo, and on just about every conservative blog in America is Obama's quote: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

Witnesses who attended the closed-door talk at which Obama suposedly said this have claimed that Obama's  actual words were:

"It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign -- that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions" [my emphasis]

There apparently was no transcript but this version fits what Obama has said in the past.

After getting a rousing welcome from students in Virginia,

he said::

"This crowd is not about me. it's about you. I've been a receptacle for your hopes and dreams."...

Early in his campaign, he commented on how so many people had flocked to his campaign. "I do think that I've become a receptacle for a lot of other people's issues that they need to work out."

He's repeatedly described himself as a "flawed vessel" and said that the race "wasn't about me."

Another line often cited to show Obama's arrogance is the idea his quote that "we are the ones we've been waiting for" -- the implication being that the world has been waiting for the Obamas.

Again, read the full quote:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

His point was that change will not come by waiting for someone else but that "we" have to do it ourselves. This is classic community-organizer-speak. Take control of your own destiny, etc, etc.

There are plenty of things to mock or criticize Obama about, both stylistically and substantively. And I have no doubt that he has a very healthy ego. But in the debate about whether these McCain ads were funny or appropriate, let's not lose sight of this basic fact: the quotes cited by Republicans to illustrate Obama's Messianic complex were taken grotesquely out of context. That ought to matter.

As the Rove/Cheney/Dobson grip on power is challenged, I fear we will see more & more of this over the next 3 months.  When you retain power by fear, then people expressing hope is worthy of disdain.  Dr. Evil's drive for world domination was fictional - people like Schmidt & Rove & Cheeny & McCain - well their drive is well documented.

So much for McCain as a person who wanted a different kind of campaign:

Comments

[Christy]

I totally missed all the Left Behind stuff in the ad - but then, I have studiously avoided that particular series. Honestly, I thought it was funny - maybe because I'm not exactly surprised that his campaign has headed gutter-ward and because it was sort of goofy. I think it will only work on those who were never going to vote for Obama anyway. It looks bit amateurish, and un-Presidential.

And this has been bugging me for quite some time: "We are the ones we have been waiting for" is clearly a reference to Alice Walker's book "We are the ones we have been waiting for: LIght in a Time of Darkness." - a book of essays aimed at activist-y types that mostly makes the point that it's up to all of us to work for change and live in integrity. Alice Walker is not exactly an obscure author, and yet I haven't heard anyone in the media mention her in the entire campaign, despite the prevalence of this particular phrase. Between MIchelle Obama and Oprah, there's no way that phrase isn't an entirely intentional hat tip to Ms. Walker. This does not relate directly to McCain's ad, but sometimes the media's incompetence bugs me.