This is like watching a baby seal get clubbed.

Doesn't matter if it's false, the story gets out there. Fund plants an article and McCain picks it up and makes an ad of it, citing the WSJ as a "source." Is there anybody who wasn't expecting this?

Always on defense...always on defense.

They're kicking the crap out of us right now, folks. What is up with our organization?

Pick an issue and ram it down their throats! Stop playing defense!

Mike:

So true. Fund is no dummy, he knows exactly what he's doing. He and the McCain campaign work closely together. Truth means NOTHING to them. They pick an attack, stay on point and repeat it until exhaustion or the media gets tired of fighting it.

Joe

Why haven't the DINO's looked into how many GOP operatives have been sent to Alaska to shore up Pathic Palin? How many attorneys, paid by the GOP, are working to throw a spanner into Troopergate investigation and how many of the witnesses attorneys are paid by the GOP? Inquiring minds need to know.

Putzs

I have to disagree that this is just lies, or just throwing mud to see what sticks.

McCain and Schmidt are systematically running ads designed to provoke strong atavistic emotions (even if only for a second). A viewer may watch the 'kindergarten sex education' ad or the 'wolves' ad, and afterwards say "Well, that didn't seem right, or fair." But while watching, the image of a lone alien male connected to issues of sexuality and children, or the image of a helpless woman facing a pack of wolves, and their ripping her flesh, have laid down a track in our memory, one reinforced by near-instinctive feelings of fear or disgust.

Now, for many voters, these tracks won't have much impact, since their deliberative faculties will override the impact. But for someone undecided -- especially for a low-information undecided voter who enters the voting booth not quite sure, and ready to 'vote his/her gut feeling', those strong fears tied to one candidate can make a difference. And the election may well be decided by exactly such 'independent' and gut-feeling voters.

This is not just mud and lies, I'm convinced -- even more so when TWO such ads come out in two days. This is a carefully calibrated strategy, one driven by research on the emotional reactions of focus groups using lie-detector-like technology. Even if the focus group doesn't 'agree' with the ad, McCain/Schmidt's people have measured their non-verbal emotional reaction, and they are tuning their ads for maximum impact at that level, and don't give a flying f*** about the ads' content or truth or even muddiness.

Fund is the guy with the creepy mother-daughter problem.
story

Could the Fund story have been wrongly sourced in the fact that the Alaska Dems did a thorough vetting job on Palin several years ago, resulting in a 63-page document of issues & incidents that go all the way back to 2002? Here's the doc link. . .

http://mudflats.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/palin-2006-vetting.pdf

Reporters are all democrats, in the opinion of Mr. Fund, unless they work for the Wall Street Journal.

Obama should have said, "You can't polish a turd, because no matter whether you buff it, shine it, or wax it, it still just a piece of sh*t and it stinks."

John Fund is giving old white journalists and their uppity billionaire employers a bad name.
It's so bad I can't read the WSJ without some taint of corruption rubbing off on me. Foh!
Smoke! Corruption! Sulphur! Elephant shit!

Maybe Fund is talking about Team McCain, do DID send a team of lawyers up to Alaska post-Palin to do the after-the-fact vetting and head the Troopergate investigation off at the pass?

Trying to destroy her, honestly? How melodramatic.

John Fund is an infamous liar and sleaze. He's one of the worst examples of that loathesome species that goes on Fox News and then just makes stuff up.

He doesn't deserve to work at the Wall Street Journal (even in it's degraded present state).

He's a disgrace.

hit back, i agree with DemocratPaul.

I havent seen this ad much... why not? I think it will be quite effective. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4yKmOs6F8g

please, Please, PLEASE! Can someone get the Obama campaign to put up an ad criticizing the McCain campaign for "crying wolf." Like right now! We may never get an opportunity like this again.

I think the single focus of Democrats should be that the McCain campaign isn't able to go a day, give a speech or make an ad without lying about something. And often stealing someone else's copyrighted material while they're at it.

Back when I was working at the law firm, we would occasionally come up against attorneys who did a lot of motion practice. The theory is you file so many motions that opposing counsel are so overwhelmed with paper that they can't respond to all the arguments. i.e., if you don't have facts, bury them in minutiae. You don't have to win the motions, just spend enough time that the other side doesn't have time to respond. At some point the other side makes a mistake, the judge rules in your favor, and the case becomes untenable.

It's clear that this is what's happening here. The McCain campaign, knowing that the media will cover every outrageous ad they put up, uses them as game changers to control the storyline. The more outrageous, the better. Eventually there are so many that it becomes a blur. With the media covering the ads, they don't even need to air them. In this game, facts don't matter as long as the media refuses to be skeptical.

What I think we're seeing now is the beginning of the mainstream media's unraveling of the McCain campaign. A skeptical media is the McCain campaign's worst enemy. If Obama plays this right, he can win the campaign right now. His mantra from this moment forward will be "John McCain, you can't trust a thing he says."

John Fund???? LOL!!! What a joke.

The same John Fund who planted a story with Matt Drudge about Sidney Blumenthal's black love child?

The same John Fund who was up to his elbows in the Arkansas project?

Yeah, if John Fund says it, it MUST be true.

I agree, newparadigm. Obama must hit back hard. In addition to the "can't trust McCain" ads, Obama should have ads highlighting McCain's long-term, and ethically questionable relationship with lobbyists. Obama has already run ads that McCain has seven lobbyists among his senior staff, but he needs to complete the circle. McCain has been dealing with lobbyists since the Keating Five scandal, which nearly cost him his job!

My reaction to the "wolves" ad is that it is eerily similar to one of Bush's ads in 2004. Four years ago, the wolves were stand-ins for terrorists, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Bush accused Kerry of weakness on defense issues. Instead of using the wolves analogy to vilify terrorists, this time the wolves are stand-ins for the other candidate! Outrageous! The Republicans are having it both ways - they are in mock horror over the "lipstick on a pig" comment and using even more despicable tactics against Obama! Another reason that Obama must launch a major counterattack and not merely defend.

Finally, as to the "lipstick" comment by Obama, I partially blame him. Although it was an apt analogy, it was a poor choice of words that he should have known would provoke this kind of reaction from McCain/Palin. Although McCain/Palin look foolish to me, the MSM have been distracted for 2 days, and that is 2 days that prevented Obama from attacking and, G-d forbid, discussing the issues.

OK, it's "later today." Where is Fund's list of Democrats or the name of his lying Republican source?

You don't at least find it curious that the denial says no one "from DC or Chicago" was sent to Alaska, while in the article Fund does not refer to any cities. Why would the denial be inclusive of these cities?

Co-worker? Co-worker? Ha! From my “Republican Family Values” file:

Fund dated and had a “sexual relationship” with an older woman, Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, who at the time was the mother of four children, one of them a daughter named Morgan, for whom he often baby sat while banging her mom. Later, Fund used Melinda as a dating service for Morgan.

Morgan was 23 years old the first time, and Fund about 43. Instead of receiving consolation from the man who had, on occasion, been her baby-sitter, Fund took her to bed. (Sounds all too familiar, doesn't it?) In 1999, confronted with an unplanned and apparently unwanted Bristol Palin-like pregnancy, Fund abandoned Morgan and, without attempting to dissuade her, allowed the distraught young women to have an abortion.

In 2000, ex-girlfriend Melinda learned that not only had Fund been sleeping with Morgan, but also that he was the father of the child Morgan would abort - without any support from him.

Fund was later arrested and charged with assault on the ex-girlfriend, which resulted in a bruised leg for Morgan and a trip to the slammer for ‘Ole John.

Republican. Family. Values.