James Carville, Karl Rove, and… Moby?

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie had this to say earlier today:

"We now know that some time this fall Kerry campaign operatives intend to go into pro-life chat rooms on the Internet to spread a scurrilous story that President Bush drove a former girlfriend to an abortion clinic, and paid for her abortion, according to the New York Daily News."

He's apparently referring to this article which does quote someone to that effect. Except "someone" is techno artist Moby, who (as far as I know) doesn't count as a "Kerry campaign operative." But hey, maybe he could get together with Joe Trippi and start a consulting firm.

Comments

[joe]

Quite a jump to "Kerry campaign operatives" Gillespie makes. Kerry has always run very clean campaigns.

Guilty conscience?

[Ruthless]

It's not even the Ides of February and dirty tricks, not to mention sleaze, is already hip-boot deep.
This is great news for Hit & Run. And great fun for its readers.
It will drive the point home to all but the stupidest the futility of democracy selecting the best man for the job.

Anarchy ueber alles!

The Emperor has no clothes in that the emperor has no "job."
The world would be a much better place if all politicians would get down off their high horses pretending they can improve the world. It can only be done by individuals individually.

[Mo]

Bush campaign workers are outraged that dirty tricks are being used in an election.

John McCain was unavailable for comment.

[TM Lutas]

I remember when dirty trick advocacy usually called for a severing of any campaign relationship. Is Moby going to continue to be welcomed at Kerry campaign events? If so, the Republican spin on this story gets a bit more credibility.

I know that I would want to stay clear of any artist who advocated voter turnout suppression. That's toxic to the system no matter how small or large the government is.

[Critic]

I thought Carville was great as Gollum.

[joe]

TM, I hope you're ready to stick to those principles. Ed Rollins bragged about paying black ministers not to tell their congregations to vote during a New Jersey race in the 1990s. In 2002, flyers were put up in black neighborhoods in Baltimore saying you could not vote if you had unpaid parking tickets, and giving the wrong date for the election. Radio ads were run in the south that same year featuring a woman's voice with an African-American accent saying "Democrats have done a lot of bad things."

And you know the crap Bushies pulled on McCain in South Carolina, right?

[Andrew]

S'pose it's a warning to us...this is supposed to happen on the blog-sphere right?

The point of Moby's comments was to encourage amateur partisans with little or no connections to formal campaigns-- like kids tearing down campaign posters and smearing bumper stickers.

[Doc]

It was Bob Barr (Mr. DOMA) who drove his wife #2 for an abortion. At least according to her with a little help from Larry Flynt (a favorite anti-hero of mine).

Bush was probably too high on coke to get it up anyway.

[Jason Bigaldo]

While I'm not sure if it constitutes "campaign operative," Moby has volunteered his services for the Kerry campaign by performing concerts at Kerry fundraising events, such as one held at the Intrepid museum in NYC.

Then again, Moby never says that he is going to do this. He says "you could" do this. While Kerry campaign officials assumed that this was the operative that Gillespie was referring to, it's not entirely clear. Was Moby smart enough to come up with this idea on his own? Or was this suggested to him by some one else? Perhaps there are already plans in place to do this or something similar, and having Moby publicly suggest it serves two purposes. One it increases the number of people thinking up and creating stories. Two it distances the activity from the Kerry camp, and creates plausible deniability.

"Of course we didn't do or suggest any such thing, it was that darn Moby, and he's certainly no 'campaign operative'."

Could it work? Worked on Julian.

[james]

Jason, when is your big day with Ed Gillespie? Who's wearing the dress?

[piledaddy]

Gillespie should know all about this kind of smear campaigning; his misrepresentation (and outright lies) on all the major news networks, regarding the moveon.org "Bush in 30 Seconds" ad contest, was masterful.

And while Voodoo Child may be Moby-lizing his "troops" to start rumors against Bush, it seems that on the other side of the aisle, Matt Drudge is starting his own smear campaign against Kerry. Unconfirmable rightwing rumors about a supposed Kerry extramerital flap have been around for awhile; Drudge Report decided to dust it off yesterday.

I wonder what Chairman Gillespie thinks about that. I suspect that he will, once again, expose his hypocrisy. Remember his disgust re: moveon.org? Well, he was curiously silent when ads aired morphing Max Cleland into Osama Bin Laden and others that showed Tom Daschle superimposed next to Saddam Hussein.

It seems that Ed Gillespie doesn't believe in that whole "what's good for the goose" thing. He likes to express his outrage when the left smears the right, but is ominously silent when the roles are reversed.

[Toby]

This is just propaganda by Rove and PNAC. As a conservative and Republican I am outraged. Did you know Bush is planning on locking up all libertarians and conservatives? It's true!

[Fred]

A good construct to describe this situation is "seditious Republican mendacity." Lot of it going on.

Haven't come up with a Democratic equivalent yet. But give me time. Anyone? Anyone?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Every time I hear Moby open his mouth I have less regard for his brain.

[Too_Easy]

This Kerry thing is completely bogus, with no proof whatsoever, and Kerry flatly denied it on "Imus" this morning. Case closed, that's good enough for me. I'm glad to see the mainstream media not falling into the herd instinct to pursue such a baseless story.

Did you hear that this guy's cousin's friend at work's uncle overheard his wife's niece's brother not completely deny that he was unsure if he had seen Bush in Alabama in '73? It's gotta be true. "Honorable discharge", smishcharge. The burden's on Bush to prove he's not lying! I hope the media tear him a new one on this.

[Moby Fan]

Actually Moby is a very smart man. Why? Because first of all he is bald, like people from the future. Second, he wears glasses. Third, he is liberal and liberals are smarter. Fourth, he references and samples from pop music, very creative! Lastly, he speaks very s l o w l y and p_r_e_c_i_s_e_l_y which is a sign of true intellegence.

All of us should hail Moby, our true intelletual superior!

[Critic]

"intelletual"?

Point made.

[Julian Sanchez]

Err... I guess it "worked on me" if the totally speculative scenario outlined above is, in fact, true.

[Jason Bigaldo]

lil' james, tomorrow's the big day sweety. Don't be jealous, if it wasn't for Ed, i'd choo-choo-choose you as my Valentine.

I don't doubt for a second that Rove, Gillespie and the rep boys will be up to some dirty tricks, but Julian seemed to be saying that, in this case, the Kerry camp weren't up to the same sort of thing. I was merely showing one possible way in which it was conceivable that they were.

As for the Kerry/intern story, it is also conceivable that Rove et al. are behind it. But I don't think so. Drudge doesn't strike me as some one who would follow orders. I think it is more to do with his opportunism. The story has been floating, the big media has been digging, and obviously nothing is concrete has been found so far. So Drudge stakes his claim. If nothing comes to fruition, he was just saying what he heard. If something does come about, Drudge is now the man that brought you Monica Lewinsky AND Alex Polier. Why yesterday? The National Enquirer was going with a Kasanova Kerry story today. While I think it's only tangential, it's close enough that they could make first claim should anything come about (I know, what's his face that worked for Clark mentioned it on his blog on Feb 6th, but the big guys have trump power).

Julian, of course it would have to actually be the case for you to actually have fallen for it. I was being a smart ass, following the smart ass tone of your original post. Imitation, flattery and all that.

[geophile]

I hear no end of references to Bush's smearing of McCain in 2000. I'm not from South Carolina, so you'll excuse my ignorance. I would genuinely appreciate a link, I'd like to see it all for myself.