PrintApril 18, 2008
Stalking Barack Obama
There are striking parallels between the Obama "bitter bomb" that Hillary brought up again in the debate Wednesday night and the dirty tricks campaign last year that shot down Republican George Allen's campaign for US Senate from Virginia. Both Allen and Obama were taped saying things that got them into trouble. Their taped bloopers turned into media firestorms at critical points in the campaign. George Allen is now out of politics; Obama is on the defensive when he should be giving the coup de grace to the Hillary campaign in Pennsylvania.
In George Allen's case, he was stalked by an opposition videotaper, one S.R. Sidarth, whom Allen tried to ridicule by calling him "Mr. Macaca." The Washington Post immediately seized on Allen's "racist" name calling --- "macacca" is the Latin name of the macaque monkey -- and used Allen's alleged racism to torpedo the George Allen campaign. George Allen was shafted by a piece of videotape blown deliberately out of proportion by the Washington Post. The whole campaign was reduced to one incessantly repeated sound bite. Whoever told the videotaper to stalk George Allen won big; the GOP lost a Senate seat from one little word. It was not just an accident but a slick political operation.
Look at the parallels in Bittergate. In Obama's case, a blogger for the Huffington Post followed the candidate for months. Mayhill Fowler taped Obama's "off the record" private fundraiser in San Francisco, and when ‘Bama dropped the bitter blooper, the HuffPo ran with it.
Everybody involved denies that the Hillary campaign was out to shaft Obama, but then of course they would. There is an uproar behind the scenes at the Huffpost and the Obama campaign, while Hillary Wednesday night lambasted Obama for elitism and for consorting with snotty San Francisco liberals. Those are Hillary's homies he's raising money from.
Arianna Huffington now claims to be amazed that the story had this kind of legs. She blames it all on the conservative media. But Huffington signed off personally on releasing the Mayhill Fowler video, which appeared on the HuffPo on April 11. The videoblogger, Mayhill Fowler, denies any bias, and swears by her journalistic integrity. But then so did the Washington Post in shafting George Allen's Senate campaign. Behind the scenes accusations are flying back and forth. According to Zennie Abrahams, (misspellings left in the text)
"Mayhill Flower An Ememy of The Obama For America Campaign...Just some FYI. The person behind the installation of the "video" with Senator Obama's comments on the plight of Pennsylvania small towns is Mayhill Florwer. She's an Oakland resident of 61 years old ... as her coverage became obviously anti-Barack, I not only backed off, I stopped contacting her, except to tell her that she was being biased.All of her coverage at the time was pro-Hillary and Anti-Barack. Plus, she had the nasty habit of quoting Barack or any supporter without taking notes or using a camcorder. That habit was SO BAD she pissed off key members of the Obama For America campaign in Northern California. "
Obama's supporters suspect a dirty trick.
Meanwhile, back at the HuffPo,
"Mayhill Fowler is catching holy hell for her post about the San Francisco fundraiser and "Bittergate": The Huffington Post is anti-Obama. She enjoys an "above the fold" space only because she's willing to go after Obama. She must be on somebody's payroll. She's a Clinton operative. An Obama-basher."
Can you imagine James Carville whooping it up back there with the Clintons?
What we know is that the modus operandi of the Obama taping is almost identical to the videostalking that shot down George Allen's senatorial campaign.
Does that prove the Hillary War Room is behind the ‘Bama bomb? No. Will we ever find out? Maybe if James Carville ever writes his tell-all autobiography.
Meanwhile, expect a lot of videostalking in every political campaign from here on out. Andrew Sullivan has just released "A tough new video montage [that] shows footage of Clinton from 1992 through 2008 from her first 60 Minutes interview to her lies about sniper fire, NAFTA, and Iraq. At this point, Hillary Clinton has no one left to lie to."
But that's old news. Everybody who cares already knows that. What Obama needs is a revealing new soundbite showing an unknown side of Hillary. With a tightly locked-up Clinton staff, it is doubtful that she will give an opposition videostalker a chance to score. But we won't know until we see it.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com
