Mediacheck

YouTube Shines Light on Dirty Politics

How video vigilantes are outing whisper campaigns in US presidential campaign.

By Ben Shingler, 21 Oct 2008, TheTyee.ca

Video: dirty politics

'Terrorist' is just the beginning.

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It's been especially evident during the current U.S. election that the Internet's become the champion of the politically outrageous, ignorant and scary. In traditional forms of media, voices on the margins are generally excluded from public debate, but the Internet has changed that. It's shed light on disturbing corners of society that normally go unseen by the viewing public.

This video, viewed 1.5 million times on YouTube, taken by a citizen journalist at a John McCain/Sarah Palin rally somewhere in middle America, features people saying things about Obama like "I think he's a one-man terrorist cell" and "He's got the bloodlines."

Here's a similar video, outside a McCain rally in Pennsylvania, by the same guy. It features rally attendees saying such standard fares as "Obama's a Muslim!" and "He's a terrorist!" among others. And then calling the anti-McCain protesters across the street, "Commie faggots!" and "Socialist swine."

This kind of raw reporting has forced the mainstream media to explore where these ideas are coming from, and has, in part, lead to mainstream reporters holding the McCain campaign to account. Still, one of the most interesting TV news packages put together on this topic comes from AlJazeera.

The negative public attention and polling results created by such videos is possibly why the McCain camp has started to scale back its personal attacks on Obama (Palin's claim that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" being the most vicious). And McCain spent much of last week trying to put out the flames started by such accusations.

To be fair, there's definitely some ignorance on the Obama side as well. Take this collection of interviews from Obama supporters in Harlem put together by the Howard Stern show. To the question, "are you more for Obama because he thinks the troops should stay in Iraq or because he's pro-life?," one respondent replied: "I think because the troops should stay in Iraq, I'm definitely with him on that." And to the question: "If Obama wins, do you have any problem with Sarah Palin being the vice president?" "No, I think she'll do a good job."

But it's no coincidence that most anti-Obama videos of this kind come from McCain supporters. So it can't be the case, as some on the left might argue, that Republicans don't have a grasp of the issues. Could there be something to Palin's claim that the "liberal media élites" are out of touch with small town America? Palin's supporters apparently think so. With little prompting, they boo the mere mention of the New York Times.

It's a group that, despite having their choice of president in the last two elections, paradoxically seems to feel pushed to the margins by the mainstream media. Perhaps online video -- the champion of the marginal -- will help draw them back into the mainstream. But probably not.

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Benjamin Shingler is based in New Brunswick and writes regularly for The Tyee.

34 Comments:

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  • Budd Campbell

    3 years ago

    Not Available in Canada

    Just think what kind of material could be dragged to the surface if this kind of video reporting had been going on during our recent federal election. Imagine hearing the unfiltered voices of Toronto Liberal supporters and Alberta Conservative supporters.

    Personally, I would love to hear some unrehearsed statements of support for Ujjal Dosanjh. It would be interesting to see if his supporters are a righteous as he is.

  • Skywalker

    3 years ago

    I watched the video before

    I watched the video before it appeared here. If the airhead bobbing up in the camera lense is an example of the intelligence of Republicans and they let people like this vote then the country is really in a sorry state. Giving voice to the voiceless may have some merit but giving voice to morons is really a bit too much for any reasonably intelligent person. I really don't need to see every idiot in the world. This kind of video may just encourage them.

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    It's important to

    It's important to acknowledged that this kind of "outing" is taking place on both sides of the political divide. Obama attracts his share of wingnuts. The media just doesn't cover it. Also, I suspect the use of new media - and YouTube in particular - is attractive to certain demographic groups more than others. So if your users are predominantly politically active left-leaning youth ("digital natives"), then obviously the content is only going to reflect the liabilities of the opposing side.

  • Kevin

    3 years ago

    Obama's wingnuts

    If Obama's wingnuts were chanting "Kill him!" about John McCain, you can bet we'd have heard about it by now, nightbloom.

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/06/in_fla_palin_goes_for_the_roug.html

    And as for the media not covering it, how many times this month have you heard or read the name William Ayers?

    http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=obama+william+ayers&meta=

    A lot of major news outlets have run with that one, not just blogs.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Good point Kevin

    I ran across a comment from Obama himself the other day which kind of indicates how bad the situation has gotten....

    This isn't a precise quote of course and I can't give you a link but essentially he said that, '...If Fox News were the only thing I watched, I wouldn't vote for myself.'

    The suggestion that this isn't a right wing nut fest is absurd...the amount of right wingers who've pointed it out themselves is the only real evidence one needs.

    Now what was it that David Brooks just said about Sarah Palin and company...

    OH Yead, I found it ....

    [Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

    [from Jeffrey Goldberg interview in The Atlantic]

  • monty

    3 years ago

    we are not immune

    to this kind of garbage. During our recent Federal election the Conservative party reached a new low with their disgusting portrayals of Dion. They were vicious attack ads. And the major media let this junk run.Last night on the CBC At Issue program Andrew Coyne stated he was ashamed of these ads and with the media which ran them. We are moving in to Gotcha journalism, so rampant in the US. Let's try to do a bit better here. Let's aim for higher standards. And when the media sink too low, phone them and tell them, cancel your subscription, or tune in to the Comedy channel.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    you're right monty

    Although I was glad Andrew Coyne made that statement last night, it's not so long ago that he was in the perpetrator of the same sort of gotcha journalism as a columnist for the National Post.

    But, I've found myself agreeing with a lot of what he's said of late. I don't know who is more irresponsible though : Pee Wee's slime campaign against Dion - which started months before the election - or the media that made it possible.

    Responsible journalism should have shut them down from the word 'go'.

    It isn't just enough to report on this kind of thing, you have to stop benefiting from it.

    I was pleased to see that CTV has taken a body blow as well.

    Furthermore, the rot at CBC-TV is quite apparent – from a fascination with the internet and blogging to that ridiculous segment inviting random dudes and dudettes to present their random thoughts on air via Skype.

  • Budd Campbell

    3 years ago

    monty: Are there troops in our streets yet?

    "During our recent Federal election the Conservative party reached a new low with their disgusting portrayals of Dion. They were vicious attack ads. And the major media let this junk run."

    I don't disagree monty that the Tory anti-Dion ads were puerile and degrading. But do you not recall puerile and degrading Liberal attack ads in the 2004 and 2006 elections? I certainly do.

    And I also recall seeing poster after poster in "progressive" blogs praising that drivelish material.

    If the networks agreed to run the Grit trash, what were they supposed to do with the Tory trash?

    The NDP by contrast has tended to lose out on opportunities by running nice-guy commercials that may leave a positive impression, but don't win elections. That's something they're going to have to think about mighty hard next time.

  • mthurs

    3 years ago

    Nail-biter

    This morning I read that, particularly for those of us with no ability to influence the results of the US election, the general feeling these days is that of rather unpleasant oscillation; a sort of disaster dance that, at the same time, entertains a painful hopefulness and a nail-biting anxiety. I can only say that the videos displayed by this article incite in me a feeling of the latter.

  • greengreen

    3 years ago

    So hard to watch. Hopefully

    So hard to watch. Hopefully these people don't get the government they deserve.

  • greengreen

    3 years ago

    some of the pack don't evolve?

    Another thought...how stupid can humans be and still claim superiority over animals?

  • OilbertaRedTory

    3 years ago

    Troops in the Streets ?

    Not yet ....

    http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/CAP%20-%20For%20Public%20Posting%20-%2028%20May%2008.pdf

    ... but maybe soon

    http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/093008.html

    How many armed Republican wingnuts constitute a civil disturbance ?

    p.s. : If Obama had a knocked-up teenage daughter, the election would have been over months ago - shotgun wedding or no.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    This gets worse and worse

    http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/10/21/mailer/

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And here's a little more....

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/telnaes/telnaes_main.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And, from the WaPo today

    The 'Socialist' Scare

    By Ruth Marcus
    Wednesday, October 22, 2008; A19

    WOODBRIDGE -- John McCain should not have to be here, not on a crisp October Saturday scarcely two weeks before the election. Prince William County is the electoral Maginot line between the Washington suburbs and what a McCain spokeswoman has just unhelpfully described as "real Virginia." George W. Bush twice won 53 percent of the vote in this booming exurb, mirroring his statewide totals.

    But here is McCain, in front of one sign reading "Phil the Bricklayer" and another proclaiming "Rose the Teacher." If there are any undecided voters here, I have not found them, and McCain does not seem to be looking. His red-meat message is not pitched to the wavering.

    "Senator Obama's economic goal is, as he told Joe, quote, spread the wealth around," McCain warns, to angry cries of "Socialist!" Obama's tax plan "is not a tax cut -- it's just another government giveaway," McCain warns. "I won't let that happen to you. You're paying enough taxes."

    Outside the rally, a man is handing out "Obama for Change" bumper stickers -- with a Soviet red star and the "g" rendered as a hammer-and-sickle.

    (continued below)

  • G West

    3 years ago

    here's more of Marcus's piece

    There is an ugliness to the McCain campaign's closing days. Sarah Palin talks about "pro-America areas of this great nation." Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann pronounces herself "very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views." Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich, ordinarily much more sensible, says, "With all due respect, the man is a socialist."

    And McCain is the stoker in chief of the argument that Obama is Eugene V. Debs revisited. "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hardworking families to give 'welfare' to those who pay none," a McCain ad warns. "Joe, in his plain-spoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism," McCain said in a recent radio address. "And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines."

    The candidates have different visions about the proper role of government; these are fair, and important, grounds for debate. Obama has committed his share of fouls, scaring seniors about McCain's designs on their Social Security and Medicare and mischaracterizing McCain's health-care program.

    And, yes, all hard-fought elections turn nasty, despite the best intentions of the candidates. But for all the hand-wringing over Swift-boating in 2004, those charges came from an outside group, not the candidate they sought to benefit, and went to John Kerry's character, not the legitimacy of his governing philosophy.

    There are two equally worrying aspects of the toxic fallout from the McCain campaign's closing argument. The first is how much harder it will be for the next president to unite a divided country in the way that both McCain and Obama say they want. Ominous talk about socialism and welfare, about pro- and anti-America, threatens to make that task harder, no matter who is elected.

    The second is the long-term damage to the ability to move beyond the stale "no new taxes" debate and have an adult discussion about how to raise the revenue the country needs to make investments for the future, even as it provides for an aging population.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And here's the last bit

    McCain's angry denunciation of socialist wealth-spreading ignores the fact that the country has always had a progressive tax code. McCain himself once seemed to embrace the sensible notion that those who reap greater rewards should contribute more back.

    "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans," he said in voting against the 2001 Bush tax cuts.

    When McCain inveighs against Obama's plan to give tax credits to "those who pay none," he ignores the fact that the 40 percent who do not owe income tax still have 7.65 percent taken out in payroll taxes.

    Even now, McCain's own health-care plan offers a tax credit to people who owe no income taxes. In Woodbridge, McCain brags about his own "refundable tax credit" to help people purchase insurance -- just minutes after assailing Obama's refundable credit as a "government giveaway."

    "I make over $250,000 a year, between my wife and I," Thomas Jacoby, a 62-year-old contractor, tells me in Woodbridge. "I don't want to share it with anybody."

    As any parent understands, sharing is not the most natural of human instincts. But government is fundamentally about sharing for the common good; taxes are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, the price of a civilized society.

    McCain is running a campaign both uncivil and uncivilizing -- one I expect he will rue, win or lose.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And this too is interesting - Obama has his work cut out for him

    http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2606

    With the Canadian dollar dropping pennies a day, it's not hard to see that the recession is going to hit this country very hard as well.

  • clubofrome

    3 years ago

    Highjacked, tortured and left for dead...

    That's what happened to freedom and democracy. It's been happening for decades, and now there is so much confusion no one is ever going to figure out who's to blame. Not that it matters anymore anyway. The planets life support systems are now compromised to the point where our genetic diversity will soon be compromised the same as fish stocks, clean rivers and virgin forests. There is no voting our way out of this mess anymore. The corporate elite control the media, the monetary system, and the puppets elected to run for the pantomime governments. And when you go to pick up your pitch fork to protest the sham this civilization has become, prepare to face the armed forces that we humans spent 10 trillion dollars a year on. Talk about a species headed for the end of the genetic line.... Darwin awards for the lot of you!

  • Skywalker

    3 years ago

    We are so easily duped.

    It happened when the corporate elite decided to convince the masses that democracy could only be defined in terms of corporate freedom or the freedom to do business. As Ed might say the "freedom to take wealth". All the rest of the freedoms are subserviant.
    That is why when an American talks about taxing the rich more, they are branded a "socialist' or "liberal" or a "communist". In the U.S. there is a chilling effect on talking about "progressive" change. For the Americans the revolution may begin when the people refuse to send their young men and women to die in a war for oil or other corporate interest in a foreign land so a few can hang onto their wealth. Why should the sons and daughter be sacrificed so that a few can secure their foreign investments? Why should they obey when a leader in the pockets of Haliburton decides that they should go, while he avoids the conflict areas.

  • NDN_Coach

    3 years ago

    Wow such hatred all

    Wow such hatred all around.

    A couple points, why can that one woman bring an Obama doll and use it to ridicule Obama, and claim that its a free country. Yet, when questioned about her views she wants the cameraman to shut his yap? Guess the First Amendment only qualifies to republicans.

    Just remember, it is never ever Un-American or Un-patriotic to ever questiona anything is a democracy.

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    'McCain volunteer attacked

    'McCain volunteer attacked and mutilated'
    http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17789356/detail.html

  • nightbloom

    3 years ago

    'Home Shot Up Over McCain

    'Home Shot Up Over McCain Signs'
    http://www.local6.com/politics/17784129/detail.html

  • G West

    3 years ago

    I reiterate

    Quote:
    As any parent understands, sharing is not the most natural of human instincts. But government is fundamentally about sharing for the common good; taxes are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, the price of a civilized society.

    Quote:
    McCain is running a campaign both uncivil and uncivilizing -- one I expect he will rue, win or lose.

    There are crazies everywhere - especially in America - it's hardly unusual that a few of them might be Democrats. Uncivilizing is an activity that tends to be viral...

    And, as always, the exception tends to prove the rule.

    I hope you noticed that the GOP appears to have moved into stop-loss mode.

    Of course, it is still possible that the Republicans will steal the election - after all, they have done it before....

  • G West

    3 years ago

    but, nightbloom

    If you're looking for a longer 'list' you can try here:
    http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2008/10/01/TrustMe/

    I've been piling it up there for your attention.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And of course

    If you really want the effete left-liberal pro-feminist soft socialist pablum crossed with hyperbole version of THE Barack Obama endorsement puppy statement you can go that bastion of pinko politics, the New York Times.

    The whole endorsement editorial is here:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24fri1.html?hp

    I'll just quote the last few lines:

    Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”

    This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.

    The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.

    ' Cause I think that about says it all....

    Have a nice weekend in Ottawa.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Oh and this story - linked above from nightbloom -

    I mean the one from Pittsburg....seems that was a complete fabrication:

    http://news.aol.com/elections/article/mccain-volunteer-ashley-todd/224764?icid=100214839x1211407414x1200695759

    I guess the McCain forces really ARE desperate...and notice the colour of the alleged attacker.

  • OilbertaRedTory

    3 years ago

    absurdly atrocious

    oh, what a tangled web cereus weaves

    as first he practices to believe

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Indeed Red Tory

    Indeed

  • ME2

    3 years ago

    "My country right or wrong........."

    McCarthyism always lies just beneath the surface in Yankee politics. Scratch a Republican a little, or a Democrat just a little harder, and there it is.

    Thanks for the excellent posts, GWest.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Just one more - for fun

    From this morning's New York Times:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26kristof.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

    by Nick Kristof, entitled
    [b]The Endorsement from Hell[b]

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Whoops, forgot ther forward slash

    That should be:

    The Endorsement from Hell

  • G West

    3 years ago

    A little FOX 'news' for your information

    Could it get much worse than this:

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444403,00.html

  • G West

    3 years ago

    And some more...dirty politics

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

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