By Gonzo
The internet has changed the presidential campaign in many ways, but not all of them are good. The advent of YouTube has taken the political ‘gotcha’ games to a whole new level, and some of the tactics employed are starting to reveal what has probably gone on behind the scenes in politics for a long time.
Case in point: a video featuring Mickey Kantor, a longtime friend and advisor to both Clintons, supposedly using the “n-word” with reference to Indiana. The video is edited in such a way that Kantor appears to slam Indiana residents as “worthless white ni**ers.” However, analysis of the audio track makes it very hard to identify exactly what it is he actually said.
The video in question is basically a sound bite, completely stripped of context, perhaps to foster the assumption that Kantor is referring to the people of Indiana (a state which, perhaps not coincidentally, was recently the battleground for a crucial primary between Clinton and Obama).
The full version of the video (which is derived from D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary The War Room) depicts Kantor following up this statement with a query about the numbers in Texas. In this version, Kantor is shown speaking to James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, neither of whom bats an eye at the alleged slur. There are numerous other people in the room and Kantor is fully aware he is on camera. He even apologizes for saying the “s-word” shortly before segueing into the supposed slur. My own close analysis of the full version sounds to me like Kantor asking, “How would you like to be in the White House right now?” certainly fits the context for the full-length version; where Carville, Stephanopoulos and Kantor are celebrating new poll results showing their man (Clinton) in the lead.
Since the GOP is focusing all its energy on the likely Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, it makes little sense that they would be the culprits behind the short-length video. It makes even less sense for the Obama campaign to release such a video, since Barack has run a positive campaign from day one and repeatedly threatens to fire staffers who venture to “the dark side” of politics. Pundits, aides and advisors have continually pushed Obama to be more aggressive and to go negative when necessary, but he has consistently refused, saying “That’s not the way I want to win.” As such, he stands to lose a lot of respect and votes if this video is traced back to his campaign.
Obama has courted independents, and even some Republicans, by assiduously not playing the race card. To leak something this low in a feeble attempt to kneecap Clinton by way of an advisor who’s not very well-known would almost certainly damage Obama more than it would the Clinton campaign. The move also reeks of desperation and the type of ‘gotcha’ politics that Obama has risen above so far.
There’s another problem: Front runners are seldom desperate. The Clinton campaign, however, is one primary away from total defeat. A loss in Indiana would have been fatal to the Clinton campaign (and some would argue that their slim, Limbaugh-assisted victory was woefully pyrrhic). Would the Clinton campaign be desperate enough to frame the Obama campaign? Would they sacrifice one of their own in order to depict Obama as a race-baiting video-faker?
As Mao Tse-Tung once said, “politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.”
This tactic is what’s called a false flag attack. The name comes from naval warfare but the idea is older than Sun Tzu: a cunning admiral would secretly have one of his ships fly his opponent’s flag while wantonly attacking one of his own fleet. Then he can accuse his enemy of having viciously attacked his fleet unprovoked and thereby proceed to attack the enemy with full public support. The enemy then is rendered unable to reveal the ploy without sounding like a paranoid nutcase. Attacking your own ship makes no sense… unless you understand the power of PR.
No one can say for sure at this point which campaign is truly behind the video, but this type of maneuver probably happens behind the scenes more than the general public realizes. False flag ploys are like the dark side of public relations, which are more cynically and accurately described as “perception management.” Presidential elections are decided based on the perceptions of the electorate, but those perceptions can be manipulated; even outright tricked. And the dirtiest tricks are sometimes the most effective.
It’s almost impossible to combat such tactics. Could Obama really go on TV and accuse the Clinton campaign of faking the video and manipulating the uproar? He could, but would only manage to make himself look like a paranoid mudslinger. Taking the blame for the video is even worse. The video has the potential to damage the Obama campaign the most, making them least likely to have created it. But that doesn’t mean Clinton was behind it either, since that campaign will be damaged too. The only candidate who could really be happy about this scenario is the McCain campaign. Could they be behind it? Thanks to New Media, anybody can join in the fun and do their own independent analysis. Just be careful you don’t stray to the dark side of PR.