shouting loudly

Republican Convention, Day 3: Shmear!

As a debate champion who spent 12 years in the activity, I am utterly appalled at the repugnant, personal attacks that Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin leveled at Obama and Biden tonight. I would be shocked to see such juvenile antics from a high school freshman.

If I tried to document every ad hominem blow, every sleight-of-hand straw-man attack on policy issues, and every bit of shallow mockery of Obama’s life of service, it would take me all night. Here are a few bits from what I see as particularly low:

• Attacks on Obama’s work as a community organizer

Anybody who’s ever done anything like community organizing knows that “hard work” is an understatement. With an Ivy-League BA in hand, he dedicated 3 years of his life to improving the lives of those in staggering poverty. After that, the man was editor of the Harvard Law Review–a guaranteed ticket to a very big paycheck. He passed that up to help mobilize poor people to reshape politics. This is a morally unassailable career trajectory in my book, and deliberately and repeatedly mocking it is beneath low.

• Repeated lies that Obama will increase your taxes

Unless your family makes at least $250,00 per year, he won’t. Most of us will see a tax cut much larger than the one we’d get from McCain. Even before tonight, FactCheck.org had concluded the Republican attacks on Obama’s tax policy are a well-established “pattern of deceit.” This is no small opinion; Dick Cheney cited FactCheck.org in 2004 as an authoritative, independent source, and they’re quite toned down in their responses to less-than-true claims. When they say the Republicans are lying repeatedly, that’s an official out-of-bounds call.

• Attacks on Obama’s experience in leadership

The speakers both literally claimed that Obama has never led or accomplished anything. The crowd chanted “Ze-RO! Ze-RO!” while holding up zero-shaped hands. This is just preposterous, especially from Palin. Compare the Obama and Palin timelines. My roommate and I kept shaking our heads.

He was President of the Harvard Law Review, which put him in charge of a staff of 80–which is 27 more than the entire staff of the town of Wasilla. And if you think these 80 folks didn’t take their work seriously, or that managing them doesn’t take a tremendous amount of talent, you could not be more wrong. It’s something like running a medium-sized law firm, at which everyone thinks they should have your job, while taking classes. It’s an accomplishment in the same order as winning the Heisman Trophy–or the Conn Smythe–as far as I’m concerned. Then, he headed Project Vote! in Chicago and successfully registered 150,000 new voters.

Now, his campaign organization rivals the state of Alaska in terms of bodies coordinated (2,500 staff plus tens of thousands of volunteers vs. 15,000 state employees). It’s not that running a campaign is itself qualification for being President, but running it so well–perhaps the best-run presidential organization in history, especially compared to McCain’s erratic outfit–does suggest his strong leadership skills.

In contrast, Palin’s time in office has been characterized primarily by petty politics and cronyism. Before Troopergate, she let the small bit of power in the Mayor’s office go to her head; her time was marked by explicit cronyism, with citizens pushing for a recall.

Other than low-ball tactics and vague promises to shrink government, here’s just about the only other thing that was said:

Did I mention that John McCain was captured and tortured in a POW camp in Vietnam? I’m not sure if you knew that. Just making sure. Because this man fought valiantly for our country and he’s a true war hero. Oh, and by the way, let me tell you about how heroic McCain was in Vietnam. He was shot down and …

UPDATE: Great fact check article by the AP, basically saying the Republicans were dishonest.