Politics ain’t beanbag, and every election cycle we are treated to some ads that are vicious, some that are false or misleading, and some that are both. Neither party, nor any level of government or region of the country has a monopoly on these, although there are differences in style.
But in the more than two decades I’ve been following politics, I can’t recall seeing a campaign run two distinct ads that were as off-the-charts in both viciousness and dishonesty as the two ads run by Florida Democratic Congressman (and left-wing ‘netroots’ darling) Alan Grayson against his opponent Daniel Webster (yes, really), discussed by Caleb Howe here and here (Caleb also reviews some of Grayson’s many offenses against elementary decency, integrity and sanity over the past few years). Just when you think the rank fraudulence and chutzpah of the “draft dodger” ad can’t be topped, you watch the original clip from which the “Taliban Dan” ad is taken and you marvel that anybody could be quite this sleazy. But that’s Alan Grayson for you.
UPDATE: Erick looks further at Grayson’s background here.
31 thoughts on “Grayson Sinks Lower”
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Nice try, Crank. But everybody knows the Tea Party candidates are teh wacko extremists. This guy Grayson and, say, Alvin Greene, why, they’re just a little eccentric and their hearts are in the right place.
/sarc
I was perusing the archives for posts on things like Saxby Chambliss comparing Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden. I was surprised I couldn’t find anything since you clearly seem to be outraged over dirty campaign tactics. Likewise there seemed to be little on McCain being drug through the South Carolina mud back in ’02. This seems to be a pattern.
You won’t find that, jim, because it never happened. Chambliss never compared Cleland to bin Laden. Simply did not happen.
And maybe you could provide a link from a reputable source that explains how McCain was “drug though the…mud”.
You people live somewhere that reality doesn’t count for much, don’t you? Here’s reality: The lunatic you people have been cheering is caught red-handed pulling one of the cheapest, stupidest stunts in political history and all you have is lefty fables.
And that seems to be enough to send you on your merry way, completely happy to ignore this grotesquery you people have been supporting in Congress. This is happening right now and it isn’t a fable either.
Clean yo’ house, hippies.
Wait, let’s see. The party of Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove (who seemed to make a 25 year practice of leaking stuff to Robert Novak–Rove, so bad that Reagan fired him) complaining about tough campaigning? Negative campaigning? false campaigning? So are you guys the pot, or the are you the kettle?
Hilarious.
No one could have predicted* (TM) there would be a run on smelling salts and fainting couches for Conservatives the few times Democrats fight back.
Great job by Grayson. This is exactly how one is to respond to bullies. The GOP can dish it out, but shockingly (ha ha , just kidding) they can’t take it.
Next time Crank is playing the victim about 9/11, I hope you’ll all recall how the GOP wanted to make a pact that no party could be blamed for letting it happen on their watch. BTW, that request by the GOP was made almost a full 15 minutes before the GOP blamed 9/11 on Bill Clinton.
Also, the same people who will cry about Grayson, and even Kerry’s joke about Bush being stupid, are the ones who will protect us from the scary terrorists. Now, let me ask you, why would anyone believe these babies are really tough guys?
*saying used by the GOP meaning “anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knew…”
I’m counting the number of people in this thread who have no problem at all with outright fraudulence in campaign commercials and can’t offer a single concrete example comparable to these two Grayson ads. I’m not naive that, as I said in the post, both sides throw rough elbows at times, but these are just unusually false and vicious ads.
The Saxby ads weren’t inaccurate, that’s yet another of the victimization myths that get built up by ignoring the actual substance of the ad. Including a picture of bin Laden to illustrate the terrorist threat is not unfair at all; Cleland took a position that favored unions over national security, and deserved no immunity from criticism for that. The Saxby ad would be like this if he’d called Cleland a draft dodger.
Glad to see you’re back, Crank.
While you were out, Karl Rove called and left this message: What in the name of your BFF, Erik Erikson is this “decency thing” you speak of.
“I’m not naive…”
———–
No kidding. Just making believe you are to try to score cheap political points for one of your teams (the one that isn’t the NY Mets or the Catholic Church, this time).
And making believe you have a problem with lies, that’s rich. Let me guess, you only gave GWB a free walk for his lies about Saddam Hussein throwing weapons inspectors out of Iraq (a lie which led to the wholesale slaughter of more than a hundred thousand human beings) because it wasn’t in a political ad?
Priceless. And you people wonder why nobody pays attention to you. And why your representatives are going to be job hunting come November.
Anybody with a shred of honesty would at least try to come up with hard evidence of a campaign ad anywhere near this dishonest. But we all know you can’t do that as this is a new low even for Democrats.
Or even better, they might say they do get a kick out of Grayson but this is inexcusable. But that, apparently, is too much to expect.
You people are moral trash, no better than anybody you sneer at and far worse than most of them. And you’re going to get what you have coming in about 6 weeks. And I’ll be laughing myself sick.
Lets’ see. There is this:
https://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/07/the-worst-attack-ads-of-all-ti.html?vid=I3izn6w3Mys&vidindex=6
and this:
https://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/07/the-worst-attack-ads-of-all-ti.html?vid=1smE1Es-8QA&vidindex=4
and that took only 5 minutes to find.
Point: missed.
The Vernon Robinson ad’s pretty over-the-top, but still doesn’t score even with either Grayson ad for flagrantly misrepresenting his opponent, and you only cited one ad from Robinson; my point is that Grayson’s off the charts for both falsity and viciousness in two ads in the same month, which is what I find really astounding.
What’s your point on the Ford ad? It was pretty mean, but wouldn’t even crack the top 5 in misleading ads if the only competition was Obama ads from 2008 (recall Obama’s ads knocking McCain for being a hardline opponent of immigration and stem cell research, both of which were 180 degrees inaccurate, or his nasty ad mocking the war-injured McCain for not being able to type on a Blackberry).
Crank,
So your point is that Webster doesn’t believe women should submit to their husbands, doesn’t believe in sharia—oops, I mean dominionist—law, and won’t try to make it the law of the land if elected?
I’d like some of that “proof” stuff you’re asking for too.
Far be it from me to school the Baseball Crank, but I think you’re fighting the battle on their terms. It’s plain that the lefties feel that if they can find a single instance of right-wing misbehavior, then the misbehavior of their lords-and-masters is not only excused but demanded.
You’re arguing with them as if they had a shred of decency or intellectual honesty; They don’t. I realize that you’re being polite and you are the host, but I don’t have any such restrictions.
They are incapable of weighing these matters on any sort of moral scale because they do not have one. They cannot conceive of one. Whether this moral retardation is a result of bad parenting or inbred pathology–couldn’t tell you.
What I can tell you is this; Those ads are indefensible. There isn’t any excuse for them. Even if you felt other ads had been really terrible, you cannot stand in judgment of those ads until you condemn these. And they cannot do it. Nothing in their moral structure suggests to them that, in order to point a finger at ANYBODY, they have to first admit that these are truly rotten. And they cannot. Not one of them.
This is the rot within the Democratic Party, these filthy, empty people, not worth spit. And they’re dragging the rest of them down with them. Which is actually pretty funny.
So your point is that Webster doesn’t believe women should submit to their husbands, doesn’t believe in sharia—oops, I mean dominionist—law, and won’t try to make it the law of the land if elected?
Can’t speak for the host, but my guess is that his point is that the ad deliberately falsifies Webster’s view in order to call him “Taliban”.
Sounds to me like your real beef is with Grayson for not running an ad highlighting the issues you brought up. Glad to see you, at least, agree it’s a crappy ad.
But not a single word from you or any of your friends condemning the ad. Curious.
I hope you peple don’t spend too much time wondering why the rest of us are laughing at you. Because that would be sad. In a hilarious way, but still sad.
Spongebaby,
J
It’s always great when you show up as you make the fish in the barrel even more still. As with dch the other day asking for these supposed links my suggestion would be go to John McCain’s Wikipedia page. I haven’t but I’m guessing references to the ’02 presidential campaign are there in enoughdetail for even you to sort out
Crank, I suppose if you believe all the lies the W Admin spun about Iraq then insinuating that a man who literally gave his body for this country was in league with the worst terrorist in the world was not inaccurate. Detestable and disgusting but true in the context of tat particular world view.
My point on all this was how this post, along with others of its ilk in the past, is so “I’m shocked, shocked that there is gambling in Casablanca.” It’s just a little ridiculous.
Wow Crank the Libtard suicide bombers are out in force repeating all the nonsense that has been pushed into their little pea brains for decades. The Cleland myths-those old chestnuts-BTW-the guy was injured in an accident not under enemy fire. I am surprised we haven’t heard anything about the Willie Horton ad that no one ever saw but is also high in the libtard mythology or about Nixon’s Southern stategy which is AKA trying to peal of people who voted Democrat for the preceding 100 years, but they were ok when they voted Democratic they just became “racists” when they suddenly change their vote. 35 days or so to the beat down bitches. Assume the position.
dch,
I always wonder if you and sponge are just the same person and you are the drunken alias or vice versa. Hard to say. The name calling and requesting of links to things where the answer is doessantaclausexist.com. Are you really saying that the Willie Horton never actually played on the airways or that it was so long ago and, in the grand scheme of things, such a non-starter that it doesn’t matter. Yeah, it played. It was 20+ years ago. Okay. So Max Cleland’s injuries weren’t good enough for you but W was a war hero, right? Whatever. The whole point of this is that the shocked attitude here is so utterly ridiculous given the history of both parties that to bring it up in the way that it is here makes it seem that Crank is spending too much time at, well, tea parties. You know,real tea parties where little girls have stuffed animals and imaginary friends over for beverages.
Tell us more about the presidential election of 2002, dim jim.
Those ads look pretty bad to me. That shouldn’t be hard to admit.
What I think is noteworthy is that the Cleland ad pictured bin Laden as an example of the terrorists he was supposedly weak in figthing. And that has been condemned by the site-lefties nearly as roundly as it has been mischaracterized.
But here, Grayson calls his opponent “Taliban Dan” in Arabic script, for crying out loud and then completely screws his words 180 degrees from what he said and the same critics cannot bring themselves to say a bad word about it.
There’s cheerleading your own team and there’s moral depravity, and the site-lefties have clearly illustrated they are so far over that line that they’re actually defined the far boundary of moral retardation. I don’t think you could round up a group of lefties who would go as far to defend these ads. We’re actually seeing here the dregs of the Left (I hope, anyway.)
Oh, and assume the position indeed.
Shorter Crank, dch, and spongeworthy,
Just like W wasn’t a conservative, Rove was a Democrat.
Death panels, death panels, death panels.
I’m sorry, was someone saying something about political dishonesty?
Yes, Berto, you surely are sorry. The political independents who are abandoning Barrack Obama and the Democratic party are saying something about political dishonesty.
Enjoy your own private idaho with jim and Mac and the rest of your good time pals. Oh, the stories you’ll tell.
Berto and jim’s line of attack are quite predictable. When ever a lefty politician is called out for a position they’re taking, the leftist tack is to offer a non sequiter or a tu quoque that isn’t even in the same planet as what’s being charged against the person they’re making excuses for. Alan Grayson links his opponent to the Taliban? Bring up an ad from eight years ago by a GOP politician that doesn’t actually link his opponent to the Taliban, but kinda sorta does if yuo squint real hard and make about 20 leaps in logic in the span of thirty seconds.
It’s almost as though the left has a collective case of ADD. They cannot actually argue the merits of a point of debate, but instead immediately change the subject to something that is related only in their darkest fantasies.
Whatever. It’s commendable that jim and berto take time out of their day to offer excuses for the most despicable man in Congress, but they better hurry back to their jobs because those fries aren’t gonna serve themselves.
When Crank gets a more mobile friendly site there will be less typos from me and others on this board. Not saying he should but working this site with a Blackberry inevitably leads to miscues so, jeez, I’m super-apologetic about typing 2002 instead of 2000.
For those of you who just type rather than read first (sponge, we’re looking at you but you have pals here as well) my point is not that these ads aren’t egregious but that Crank reacts as if he has never seen anything like them ever. The jhstory of politics is FILLED to the f-ing brim with stuff 10x worse than this. To act as if this is something even vaguely original is tiresome.
Paul,
You’re a perfect example of what I just said. Please cite where I defended any of this. Hmm, seems that I said these were egregious. You and dch and sponge are happy to break out the name calling and/or the deliberate mis-representations of what is written so long as it serves what your agendas are. The outright hostility just in this thread Is sort of amazing.
dude there is run of the mill demagoguery, obfuscations, misrepresentations and there is the stuff this clown Grayson engages in-anyone who disagrees with my side is a racist, idiot, tea party people are descended from the KKK, the Republicans are oppossed to HCR therefore they want you to die. He is an idiot, he is going to lose and his ads have allowed his opponent to rake in100+k in 2 days.
And that’s his problem. Good. Hope he does. There are bad candidates all over the place that deserve to lose for their view on the world and their actions thereof. Good riddance. But don’t make the mistake that he’s alone. There was the avowed racist running as a Tea Party person in (VT?) That I hope he lost as well (and I hope you wanted him to lose even if he had issues you held in common with him that had nothing to do with his insane ideology on race). I’ve said this many times before that the political bar gets lower and lower each election. There are more wackadoos out there aspiring to office than ever. The left has plenty and so does the right. I would say that the differences are that I see folks like Obama as a moderate and people like Palin as extreme and you and yours would say the exact opposite. You think your world view is 100 percent right and that, apparently, anyone who disagrees deserves to be covered in name-calling. I don’t even think I have a specific ideology and if I do I’m not sure it is the best thing for everyone. So, there you go y’all I’m sure there’s plenty in there for name-calling and mockery galore.
Paul Zummo,
Allow me to repeat: So your point is that Webster doesn’t believe women should submit to their husbands, doesn’t believe in sharia—oops, I mean dominionist—law, and won’t try to make it the law of the land if elected?
No eyes need to be squinted.
You can argue that comparing the Christian Reconstructionists to the Taliban is too politically hot or theologically imprecise. What you cannot say is that they don’t have the same primitive worldview.
The money quote from Digby:
“I realize that it’s completely, shockingly irresponsible for Grayson not to have explained the full theological meaning of Webster’s beliefs in his 30 second ad, but the fact remains that it’s completely true that Webster believes that women should submit. But perhaps Grayson’s ad will have the perverse effect of making people in the district ask just what it is that Daniel Webster believes. And if they scratch the surface, they’ll find that he is a very extreme fundamentalist theocrat who is unfit for public office anywhere but perhaps 16th Century England or 21st Century Afghanistan.’
jim,
the best part of them thinking their world view is 100 per cent correct, is we have seen the results of their policies: almost a trillion dollars wasted using their war-first mentality, financial policies which led the world’s economy to the brink of catastrophe, etc.
Conservativism is a failed ideology in practice. But that won’t get in the way of the Cranksters carrying water for the corporate rich.
Re: the tea party being racist.
dch,
Those within the tea party (i.e the “new” Republican Party) who have a problem with big federal government are the exact same people who cheered along Dick Cheney’s Unitary Executive Theory. That doesn’t expose them as racists. It exposes them as liars, morons or both.