Sen. Obama is copying the media's "attack, attack, attack" script that they used against Gore

All the stoolpigeons knew what to say when Bush announced his vague, pleasing “principles.” Bush was showing bold leadership, they said, and Gore was being disturbingly negative. How goon-like was the corps’ script-reading? Here are excerpts from three cable discussions. The script about Gore? He was being too negative. It was all just “attack, attack, attack:”

Hardball, MSNBC, May 5, 2000:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Norah, let’s start in talking about this amazing campaign. Who would have believed that George W. Bush would have looked so clean and so good right now after that bruising fight with John McCain? He’s up five points in a number of polls this week, and yet you see Al Gore picking away at him with these left jabs of his…It’s the same thing he did to Bill Bradley — attack, attack, attack.

Russert, CNBC, May 6, 2000:
JOE KLEIN: The concern I have about the Gore campaign is that he has learned one lesson and he’s kind of becoming a one-trick pony.
TIM RUSSERT: Attack. Attack. Attack.
KLEIN: Attack. Attack.
RUSSERT: Governor Bush put forward a Social Security plan calling for a partial privatizing, and he attacks, saying that is risky…Why—why—why does Gore just, almost knee-jerk, attack, attack, attack?

Inside Politics, CNN, May 17, 2000:
CHARLES COOK: For Governor Bush, it’s a chance to show sort of bold leadership…But at the same time, getting into that area is certainly a risky thing and it’s going to test all of George Bush’s abilities of persuasion to sell this, because Al Gore is very good at the attack, just look at what he did to Bill Bradley on health care…
BERNARD SHAW: What comes to mind, Stu?
STUART ROTHENBERG: Well, in general, he has been attacking for months now and there’s been a lot of criticism that he’s been overly negative. Once again, here, attack, attack.

“Almost knee-jerk,” Russert said, describing his own reaction.


Rothenberg was right about one thing, of course; there had been “a lot of criticism” of Gore’s disturbing behavior. Indeed, The Storeboughts all knew they should criticize Gore for his troubling criticism of Bush. For a four-part critique of the clownish way your “press corps” “covered” Soc Sec during Campaign 2000, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/15/02, along with the three HOWLERS which follow it.

LOOK WHO’S ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACKING: Mort and Fred were pimping the script even before Bush announced his high principles. Here they are on The Beltway Boys on April 30, 2000:

KONDRACKE (4/30/00): Look, the dynamic here is perfectly obvious. Gore is behind in all the polls, so he's doing what worked with Bill Bradley, attack attack attack, and, you know, and he's hoping that it'll work on George W. Bush. The difference is that George W. Bush is not going to take it forever. I mean, George W. knows how to counterpunch, and I predict soon that he'll start doing it.

BARNES: Yes, he's not going to be the guy on the ropes just getting punched. No rope-a-dope for him. But look, Gore was attack attack attacking, and he's—in the beginning, and now he's been going down as a result of that attack attack attacking. He doesn't—I don't think he knows how to deal with Bush, who doesn't want to really get—engage him in a back-and-forth, wisely.

Amazing, isn’t it, to see the way these goons all agree to recite the same points? As Mort said, the dynamic was perfectly obvious all through the spring of this year.

On this program, the “boys” were disturbed because Gore had “attacked” Bush’s tax cut proposal. So they attack-attack-attacked him, and, within a matter of weeks, do did the stooges excerpted above. With the exception of two brief periods, this is the way your “press corps” behaved from March 1999 through November 2000. After that, they began to ponder: How had Gore lost the election?