More on those racially-charged Cochran ads
Bruce Carroll at Legal Insurrection quotes the Daily Mail (another example of British papers doing the work American ones won’t) as having uncovered this:
The article also ties a progressive activist to the payment of the radio ads. Carol Stern, a left-leaning former marketing executive, paid the Mississippi radio station to run the racially charged ads based on evidence provided to the Daily Mail.
Quelle surprise.
It’s a sad commentary that quite a lot of us seem to be going to the Daily Mail. A couple of steps above a supermarket tab, a lot of their stories are is actually the committing acts of journalism that the American establishment press won’t dom
It’s a sad commentary that quite a lot of us seem to be going to the Daily Mail. A couple of steps above a supermarket tab, featuring a fair amount of celebutard trash, the headlines and lay-out sometimes seem to be done by barely literate middle-schoolers … still, the Mail is actually the committing acts of journalism that the American establishment press won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
(Neo, Please delete the first comment – system hiccuped as I was editing, and it’s completely incoherent!)
Uh, it also said Barbour’s PAC paid a Dem operative, also. And Ace’s sidebar links to a Patterico article showing a Cochran ad that is almost identical to the racist flyer.
KLSmith:
As I wrote earlier (don’t have time to look it up right now) Barbour’s PAC paid a Democrat to do robocalls. But not the robocalls in question.
It seems that people are only too eager to ascribe all of this to Cochran and Barbour. I think you are being played, and need to be careful.
Stick to the things you know they actually did.
Never said “all”. But they sure did enough. Not going to argue with you, though. You seem to have made up your mind in the opposite direction.
The Left loves them false flag operations. Like Benghazi, commissioning the video from a Muslim Agent they had in their control and then using it as a pretext. Fast and Furious, pretext for banning guns.
Since F and F didn’t work, they are now instigating a real border invasion and hoping some kind of “emergency” will erupt.
It’s a sad commentary that quite a lot of us seem to be going to the Daily Mail.
I think it’s a fine display of real economics, as in free economics.
Only independent sources can be useful or trusted. And what’s a better reputation than being hated by the elites? See, these “journalists” are the paparazi, they are the ones getting into people’s faces. The Left prefers domesticated journalists, like Saddam’s interviewer. They know how to get “access” and keep their status in check, like MSNBC and CNN. They know their place, as proper dogs.
Ymarsakar Says:
June 27th, 2014 at 7:34 pm
Except that will make it more imperative than ever for us to bitterly cling to our guns.
You know, I think the reason that a lot of us like the Daily Mail is that they don’t give a s**t if they have access to the White House, or the good parties in Georgetown or not. They haven’t forgotten that thing about comforting the afflicted or afflicting the comfortable. So they can let it fly, and work in some genuine stories, among all the stories about the Kardashians and others of their ilk.
Let’s not forget that the supermarket tabloid, the National Enquirer, broke the story about John Edwards’ affair.
“Tabloids: Journalists doing the job the journolists won’t do.”
I think culturally speaking, Americans think media bias is like those journalists that get in your face, flash pictures and what not. But technically, aren’t those paprazzi or entertainment journalists? They aren’t the CNN type of journalists interviewing Saddam, as we are popularly familiar with.
Like when Dick CHeney shot his friend, the person that got the scoop was the in the face reporter, locally. And CNN/MSNBC got so mad and upset that a local “scooped” them. That disdain felt very familiar to their treatment of the media tabloids.
“Except that will make it more imperative than ever for us to bitterly cling to our guns.”
True for the families in Texas and Nevada getting besieged and invaded. But when DC sees that, they will feel even more motivation to disarm the “right wing militias”. For everyone’s good.
SGT Mom,
You take good journalism or good anything where you can find it. In college, we had a humor magazine with a regular habit of running circles around our school newspaper with the best, most insightful coverage of breaking news stories.
During the Katrina emergency, the NOPD with the help of either the US military or National Guard, went house to house to confiscate handguns. There are even videos of this and eye witness reports, which were buried by the US Regime’s Pravda.
That’s the kind of “emergency” I refer to. Of course the NOPD soon went AWOL, aka looting places, and the disarmed residents were cannibalized. Or something similar, as the media reported.
So the time when you most need guns… is the time when the US government comes in and confiscates them. By force. Just as Casey did to the Sunni Iraqis. The promise was, “you don’t need AKs in your tribal militia, we will protect”. Then they didn’t, AQ took over the Sunni lands in 2005, and it took the AL Anbar Awakening and Petraeus coin in 2006 to push the AQs out of Sunni Iraq. By arming the tribes, not disarming them of AKs.
Well, Fallujah will seem like heaven when things go up in the US cities.
While I don’t typically read the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, I have used the Telegraph for certain things over the years. Story checks and background checks.
Daily Mail’s greatest contribution to my research was the Santa Rog killer episode, the Wealthy Oriental Gentleman of Isla Vista or whatever they called it. The story, hours after it happened in the States, had pictures (real ones, not edited, cropped, or stock AP photos of Iraqis killing Americans) of the family, of news conferences, of the victims themselves, video interviews, links to the killer’s manifesto, links to the killer’s youtube videos. This is like a regular Intel Digest or intel profile, that I can use my “other sources” to check up on, via 3 way triangulation and data verification. It forms a larger “narrative” that I can check for inconsistencies. One narrative is hard to determine if it is true or false, if you only have like 1 or 2 independent sources for it, and everyone just “repeats” that source over and over. Which is what the US MSM does, most of their stuff comes from Reuters, AP, and stringers. Which may not even live in the US or their “middle east conflict zones” they report on to begin with.
So the Daily Mail obviously were using a number of resources or one very very good data gatherer/reporter. They collected all the information I needed to “study up”, and I was days ahead of what people who watched the MSM internet or cable news, had in terms of details. Of course most of this stuff you could get yourself (youtube videos) by your own research.
Which is, of course, where the data triangulation comes in. When there is only one independence source for my information, I call that a “rumour” or “stuff I heard”. 2 becomes solid. 3 becomes absolute truth, almost.
Back to the topic at hand, it looks like you may have been right about the race-baiting ads, neo. They probably did come from Democrats. I did allow that as a possibility in my comments on prior threads. It’s true that some conservative bloggers and commenters have latched onto them without regard for their provenance.
However, the mere fact that Cochran’s campaign hired Democrat advisors and explicitly sought Democrat votes in order to defeat a Tea Party affiliated conservative is damning all by itself. It proves that Cochran, and by extension, the GOP establishment, regards big-government Democrats as closer allies than small-government Tea Partiers. They both appear to regard the latter as the common enemy who must be defeated.
That’s much more important than the particular ads in question.
rickl:
I do think I was right about the ads. And I agree that the more important point is that Cochran allied with Democrats in this race in order to defeat the Tea Party candidate.
But I have a very different take on that (and remember, I would have preferred McDaniel to Cochran in the primary, and I don’t like what Cochran did to win it).
Have you ever heard the expression “Politics makes strange bedfellows?” There’s a reason that’s a famous saying. It’s because politics is a cutthroat game, not a tea party (lower caps, not upper caps). Politicians like to win.
Cochran has been in the political game for a long, long time. He knows politics and he knows Mississippi and he knew what it took to win, and he did it. He didn’t commit any crimes and he didn’t do anything a lot of politicians wouldn’t have done. Nor does it mean he would always choose to ally with Democrats. He did it as a tactic in this race, and although it was pretty sleazy that’s what politicians are for the most part—sleazy. If you wait to have only politicians of integrity you’ll probably be waiting forever. You think Cochran’s Democratic opponent will ally with the Democrats less often than Cochran? Think again. Cochran is also not a conservative. But he would caucus with the Republicans and help them—and the conservatives among them—have a majority. And that’s a whole lot better than the Democrats having one.
Eh, I just noticed that I used the word “regard” three times in my last comment. That’s why I don’t consider myself to be a writer.
It’s a weird quirk I have. I use the same word repeatedly in a comment, and it’s completely unconscious. I only notice it afterwards.
He did it as a tactic in this race, and although it was pretty sleazy that’s what politicians are for the most part–sleazy. If you wait to have only politicians of integrity you’ll probably be waiting forever.
Remember Leonidas at Thermopylae?
Socrates before the Athenian death panel?
Themistocles, Athenian general and politician?
The point is, the system must be designed to punish crazies and corruptos, while rewarding virtue. If not personally, then socially.
They only do these things because it works. When it doesn’t work, because the consequences are too horrible and fair for them to tolerate it, then they stop. That’s a system or social engineering problem.
I should’ve stated this earlier, but the info above basically corroborates how I thought this went down:
Cochran’s campaign (by which I really mean McConnell and especially Barbour…Cochran is a drooling idiot) wanted Dem votes. He hired a “pro.” The pro, being a cynical hypocrite like most Dem leaders, knew what emotional buttons to push to get the troops out. She didn’t pause for one second to consider whether any of the smears were true…she didn’t care about that.
Cochran (again, read “Barbour”) may not have discussed explicitly what tactics were to be used, but I don’t imagine he much cared. If pressed, I’m sure he could’ve guessed, though.
So this in no way exculpates Cochran/Barbour/McConnell. They had more than an inkling of what they were purchasing, but they didn’t care.
Or, to quote a popular movie, “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you let the clown out of the box.”
@neo-neocon,
“It seems that people are only too eager to ascribe all of this to Cochran and Barbour. I think you are being played, and need to be careful.”
If I may presume to summarize your thesis (you’ve not explicitly stated it here):
You think Cochran hired Dems, who did legwork to GOTV. Other Dems saw an opportunity to smear the TP at least, and at best to hurt Republican turnout in the general election, and these people came up with the racist bit. Is that about right?
If so, none of that is relevant. Cochran’s campaign (and by that, I really mean McConnell and Barbour…Cochran is a drooling idiot) put themselves in a position where this was possible. They enabled this deception by turning to Democrats.
It’s like hiring a hitman, then acting surprised when bystanders get shot.
(If I’m wrong about your thesis, please correct me)
Note also, that this is the generous interpretation: Barbour could’ve composed the racist flyers/robo-call script *himself.* We may never know.
Again, it doesn’t matter.
Matt_SE:
That’s my thesis, basically.
But you’re missing part of it–which is that I agree they shouldn’t have done it and should actually have expected it.
That’s negligence and stupidity. But it’s not the same as them composing it and putting it out themselves, or seeing it and directly approving its dissemination, which is what people have been saying they did. I think there’s a big difference between the first option and the second, although I don’t like either and as I’ve said many times I would have voted for McDaniel anyway.
You may think it’s nitpicking and the difference makes no difference. I think differently; I prefer to know the facts and get mad at what actually happened than what some Democratic operative wants me to think happened. I don’t like people jumping to a false conclusion and spreading that around. The truth is bad enough and quite sufficient.
Also, it is symbolic of the fact that I think the right is very gullible and does not understand the nature of the left. The rift on the right is being exploited by the left, and the right is playing into their hands. I see this in a lot of small ways, including the MSM. I don’t like it. I wish the right would smarten up.
I sincerely hope that this Mississippi imbroglio will prove to be a “teachable moment” for Tea Partiers. I hope they will better understand not only the power of establishment Republicans, but the limitation of focusing much of their efforts winning high profile Congressional races.
The above underscores the central issue I have with “The Tea Party” (I realize employing the definite article implies this is a homogeneous, centrally organized movement, which it is not). While the Tea Party movement is strong on the descriptive, it is hopelessly weak and clueless on the prescriptive.
At their best, Tea Party candidates (Cruz, Lee, etc.) clearly and powerfully articulate the challenges of entitlement state, the dangers still lurking in Obamacare, the pitfalls of exponential deficit spending and the crony capitalist corruption so rampant in both political parties. While these messages will always be distorted by a hostile MSM bent on portraying Tea Partiers as racist crackpots, it still can resonate strongly in middle America.
But, what is to be done? The primary answer from Tea Partiers is: ardently support maverick challengers to establishment members of Congress, regardless of the background, experience or political sophistication of said challenger. This resulted in Cruz, Lee and Paul. But it also resulted in O’Donnell, Angle and Mourdock. Many Tea Partiers seem to think that if they continue to run serious challengers to the GOP establishment on the Hill, win or lose, said establishment will eventually be cowed into submission. I find this conclusion utterly naive. Rather, the establishment will (and has) buttressed itself with other allies. The Chamber of Commerce, first and foremost. And, as Mississippi demonstrated, under the right circumstances, even Democrats.
To be clear: I wholeheartedly agree Cochran’s (Barbour & McConnell) behavior was despicable; whether or not he was behind the fliers. But it shouldn’t come as such a great shock.
My hope is that the Tea Party comes to better understand Washington is largely beyond reform or redemption. Control of the Presidency and Congress matter far less than most think; as the IRS affair exemplifies, an entrenched, unaccountable bureaucracy will do as it pleases regardless.
Any significant political/economic reform will come from the states. Indeed, it already is. I am pleased Tea Partiers strongly support Scott Walker (although I wish they would downplay his possible presidential run). But I would like to see much more focus on state elections: gubernatorial, legislature and propositions; on state policy and budgetary debates; on challenging the influence of public sector unions on state budgets. These aren’t as glamorous or high profile, but in the end they are likely to have a much more powerful impact.
But I would like to see much more focus on state elections: gubernatorial, legislature and propositions; on state policy and budgetary debates; on challenging the influence of public sector unions on state budgets. These aren’t as glamorous or high profile, but in the end they are likely to have a much more powerful impact.
And you think the Tea Party national leadership exists to order such things?
Either they have already happened and You Know NOthing about it, or you know it because the media noticed it and killed it.
“That’s negligence and stupidity.”
I know some people see a difference, and in the personal sphere intent does matter. But when it comes to government, it doesn’t. We’re not mind readers, and politicians are expert liars. We will probably not discover the truth, beyond a reasonable doubt.
In that case, you judge pols by what they do, not what they say, or say they think/believe/feel.
For politicians, negligence is the same as commission. They’re experts…they should’ve known better.
If you wait to have only politicians of integrity you’ll probably be waiting forever.
Wasn’t that politician McDaniels, and didn’t the majority of Republicans vote for him?
It’s not just that so many politicians don’t have integrity, it’s that they are more than willing to destroy those who do. Cruz & Lee are men of integrity who have targets on their backs for the simple reason that they don’t join in with the corruption.
Remember Serpico, the one NYPD cop who wasn’t on the take? He didn’t lecture his co-workers, didn’t try to rat them out (to whom?) he merely refused to take shake-down money, and that by itself was enough to mark him for death?
The fact that good men are so despised in Washington (not merely ignored) is a sign that the Beltway has ripened in its iniquity and has broken the compact with the electorate. The capital needs to be moved to Omaha and everyone connected with politics in Washington should be exiled to Nunavit.
For politicians, negligence is the same as commission. They’re experts…they should’ve known better.
The McDaniels campaign should have expected that Cochran would team up with democrats to suborn voter fraud?
Really? Because Republicans do this all the time?
Don’t give those weasels an ounce of grudging admiration for their hardball. Unless you’re outraged by wickedness, you might want to check if your moral compass is still well-magnetized.
The Tree of Liberty must be watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants. People will eventually have to choose their side, unless they flee the country as neutral refugees or government in exiles.
Matt_SE says, “It’s like hiring a hitman, then acting surprised when bystanders get shot.”
Not exactly. It’s like hiring a hitman and then hoping not to be charged with murder when he fulfills the contract. If Barbour hired these people to do these things, then he is guilty with them. If Cochran was in on the contract, then he is also guilty with them.
Which is why I think neo is mistaken to withhold judgement from the Establishment. If they generated any part of this action short of carrying out the actual deeds, then they are guilty as well.
@dicentra,
“For politicians, negligence is the same as commission. They’re experts…they should’ve known better.”
That criticism was aimed at Cochran, not McDaniel. The point was: any reasonable person could predict that once Democrat operatives were involved, things would turn racial and ugly. That’s why we don’t use them, among other reasons.
As betsybounds says, “If Cochran was in on the contract, then he is also guilty with them.”
That’s what I was getting at (with my imperfect analogy).
So you see, I’m actually holding the Cochran campaign to a higher standard than normal, because he’s an expert pol and could’ve easily seen this coming. And I find him guilty.
What he’s done is beyond the pale. There is no forgiveness for this. Anyone associated with this move should be drummed out of the party.
betsybounds:
I’m not withholding judgment. I said several times that I consider what Cochran did wrong, and I would have voted for McDaniel.
I just object to saying Cochran called the Tea Party racists. My guess is that he didn’t see the flyers before they went out, and that they were designed that way by the left because they knew it would cause a firestorm on the right. And here’s the firestorm, right on schedule.
I judge Cochran for stupidly hiring Democrats to campaign for him–never a good idea, always a very risky one. I judge him for being a politician who wanted to win and didn’t mind doing something very stupid and destructive. But I don’t judge him for writing those pamphlets, because I don’t think he did. He should have known the Democrats he hired would be up to no good, though, obviously.
Again, as I think I wrote somewhere in one of these threads, he was stupid and negligent, and that’s what he’s guilty of.
Cochran might just be another fall guy, too mind addled to do much of anything, instead offloading his work to the Republican staffers. Like the ones that leaked information to damage Sarah Palin, those types of staffers.
Or C’s just obeying orders from the Republican Top.
The chain can go pretty long.
Bottom line: I don’t reward representatives for failure. Cochran screwed up, big-time. Doesn’t matter why he screwed up…he screwed up, when he should’ve known better.
He’s also now compromised; owing the Dems favors. You think he’s just going to be able to laugh that off? You think the Dems will forgive the debt? He’s compromised.
What the Dems thought/planned in all of this is irrelevant. If Cochran judged poorly, he’ll judge poorly again. It’s all on him.
He needs to go. And if the only way to get him out is electing the Dem, I can live with that.
Ditto for McConnell…in fact, as the mastermind, ditto times ten.
I hope that Republican voter turnout in both MS and KY are historically low (I trust Dems will do their usual best to GOTV on their side). I even hope many R’s vote for the D.
This will signal that the voters are not going to take this crap anymore.
If not, then I revert back to a previous prediction: Republicans are going to have to suffer years of feckless/destructive leadership before they get the point.
Well I don’t much like the idea of sending messages (or, as Matt_SE says, signal) with votes. A vote is just a vote, and even when an R votes for a D, whoever gets the most of those, wins. That’s it. If you want to send a message, try Western Union (archaic usage, there, but you see my point). Apart from that, though, the RINO (GOP? What are they now, anyway?) Establishment will just clock this win and go on thinking that they don’t care who wins, so long as it isn’t the Tea Party–and that they know how to get rid of THOSE bahstuhds.
I do not know what the answer is. I used to think that it lay in actual conservatives taking over the Republican Party in the same way that the ’60s New Left took over the Democrat Party–which they certainly pulled off pretty nicely. But it took them years, and we do not have years. We may not even have many months. If it isn’t done sometime before November 2016 (maybe even before November 2014), it will be over. We may be pressed to, following Clausewitz, continue politics by other means.
I will add that I’m not much inclined to hold Cochran innocent for the flyers if he didn’t see them first or send them out himself. The chain of contacts and events suggests pretty strongly that, even if he (and/or Haley Barbour) didn’t know what they contained, he almost certainly knew the hirelings had been told to do “whatever it takes.” And that means, well, “whatever it takes;” presumptions of innocence are only required in courts of law. Out here in the real world, we are free to conclude whatever the evidence suggests. So.
Whether they are guilty of this or that, doesn’t matter, when no punishment or execution is implemented.
What’s the point of determining what they are to blame for, when they will merely skate on by and be rewarded for evil?
That’s why I don’t place a high priority on this argument. Since the conclusion doesn’t really matter one way or another.
As for conservatives falling for Leftist tricks, I know that very well and I share Neo’s frustration. After all, a lot of people, even here, fell for the 2 media interviews for Sarah Palin. They would always, always, take at face value when the media reported on Republican problem or not. And this was 2008, not 2012.
It’s as if they think the media is biased, but would never make stuff up as they go along, so if a scandal happens to a Republican, it must be true, the media is just “biased” in reporting it. I had a different reaction. If the Leftist media told me something happened, I would not believe it until I had verified it myself. If the Left told me Sarah Palin used 150k of campaign funding for clothes, I would look it up myself and find it was Republican staffers and Establishment F punks that used the money on their own because they disliked Alaskan style.