Merkley's Friday Dump and Diversionary Attack on Iraq by: torridjoe Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 07:30:00 AM PDT

Does everyone know what the Friday dump is? It started in Presidential administrations during the development of the TV age for covering politics. It was discovered that like anyone, journalists hate hanging around doing real work late on a Friday, so their most fervent hope on the White House beat is that they will "close the lid" and declare the newshole from them finished for the day. Scribes scatter, the real nefarious shit starts happening in the Oval Office, and we settle in for Bill Maher and a beer. Taking advantage of this propensity to ignore potential news on a Friday, administrations learned to release bad news they had to put out, on Friday afternoon. It was hoped that everyone would look at the large "dump" of paper on their desks and say "nope, that's a Monday story." Monday would come and it would be time for Monday's news, not Friday's. So whatever was in that dump, gets passed over or given the short shrift in the news cycle. Bad news goes out, and dies there.  Needless to say, this technique has filtered down, and perhaps always existed informally anyway. But you rarely see candidates rather than incumbents do it. Maybe because Merkley has electoral experience, he knows the rules of the game already and is keen to play it. But last weekend Merkley clearly tried a Friday dump--but he also mixed in a diversionary attack on Steve Novick, as insurance to drive the cycle even farther away from his own release.  {the dump and attack move by Merkley, below}

torridjoe :: Merkley's Friday Dump and Diversionary Attack on Iraq

First of all the attack, a mastery of distortion in itself: During a candidate forum at Western Oregon University moderated by David Sarasohn of The Oregonian, Novick said he wished that Democratic members of Oregon's Congressional delegation - including Senator Ron Wyden and Representatives Darlene Hooley, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, and David Wu - had not voted for resolutions supporting Armed Forces members serving in Iraq. In response to Novick's criticism, Jeff Merkley said, "While Steve has been trying to score political points on those of us who opposed the war from the very beginning, the real difference is between those of us ... who stood up and said 'this is the wrong war.' Yikes! Funny how Merkley sidesteps the entire reason for the discussion; the part praising the leadership of the office of the President as Commander in Chief (US version) vs the part praising "the courage of George Bush" for invading and taking out Saddam. He wasn't criticizing them for voting to support the troops, it was voting for the specific praise of Bush. And ONLY if the others had praised the courage of Bush, would Novick indeed "wish they hadn't." Oh dear, the smackdown he gave those guys! (Think Merkley and Blue Oregon aren't coordinated?)  Then, in a premeditated, edited and standing statement on his own candidcacy page, Merkley gets completely personal: Earlier this month, in an op-ed on VetVoice.com, Jim Rassmann, former U.S. Army Special Forces Officer and Chair of "Veterans for John Kerry" criticized Novick for his "false" attack. Rather than taking aim at America's failed leaders, at every turn Steve Novick has incessantly and spitefully attacked and insulted Jeff Merkley, a dedicated and sworn protestor of the Iraq war. Steve has used Republican talking points in a crass attempt to turn Democrats against one another - an effort that serves only his selfish personal political agenda.[insults emph me] Why so tense, Jeff? I mean, you're tight on your war opposition going way back, right? Just like Rassman says. He must have been one of the elite circle of people privy to that strong anti-war statement Merkley kept referring to as his bona fides before the war. His speech shortly afterwards, equivocal as it is, somehow stands in for his most public statement, but he's referred to this article more than once without it ever being produced or readily available.  Until...Friday, when Harry Esteve at The O published the contents. Let me zero in on the important parts, where Merkley makes his strongest statements against the war before it happens:   If I didn't emphasize it clearly enough, or you missed the important parts, here are the arguments against the war again:   And you wonder why they waited until Friday to put this out?  No honestly, this is as close as he gets: My unsolicited advice to the President is this: Make certain Iraq truly presents an extraordinary risk to the world; provide the evidence of substantial and active chemical, biological or nuclear programs to back up that assessment and to win support from our allies; and before dropping bombs, drop in George Mitchell. George Mitchell, then bombs. Oh, you latter day Tom Hayden, you! I won't reprint it because it's an essay in deceit and really sad puffery on Merkley's part, but scroll into the comments on the Esteve piece and see how money times and in how many ways Merkley overstated his credentials, and had the gall to bat around Novick's. As if it MATTERS. That's the really sad thing, the thing that explains both his actions and his subsequent failure to gain traction: he can't even attack Novick on policy, all he has is crap. I was more antiwar than you sooner--THAT is a primary attack on a candidate worthy of someone who should be walking over the competition, for all the advantages he's had?  Friday dump. Take a series of deep personal swipes at your Democratic opponent, and then quietly release the document that you've been using to establish the very anti-war cred you've been beating your opponent over the head with, that exposes that cred as ultimately fraudulent and cravenly fence-post impaled. We'll see how that works for him. Meantime, half of the new Democratic voters are young voters, and tens of thousands of them are former NAVs and Republicans. You think they're going to respond to the politics of the old, this totally off-topic smearjob? I say no freeeekin' way.

Tags: Democratic Primary, Willamette Week, World Affairs Council, negative campaigning, Iraq, Jeff Merkley, Steve Novick, US Senate, 2008 Elections, (All Tags)

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