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#DIRTYWORK

Obama's Tactic Is to Make Republicans Look 'Weird'

Dems use #Skeeters and birthers to distract from GOP policy, says pundit

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t

Image: Politix

Whenever leading Republicans try to grab media attention with a policy speech, Obama's minions swoop in and create a distraction like #skeeters to remind everyone of the GOP's Donald Trump fringe. That's according to Slate's Dave Weigel, who feels sorry for Eric Cantor and his much-neglected attempts to promote competent Republican leadership this week.

Weigel thinks the release of Obama's skeet-shooting photo was carefully timed to ruin Eric Cantor's two-day rebranding tour. The photo was released on Sunday, together with Obama aide David Plouffe's tweet starting the hashtag #skeeters. Plouffe followed up Monday with another tweet, "The skeet birthers are out in full force in response to POTUS pic. Makes for most excellent, delusional reading. #whereistrump."

Trump is only mentioned to amp up the virality of Skeetgate, Weigel suggests, creating an irresistible media magnet that overrode all other political stories.

So Eric Cantor's worthy opposition to the medical device tax went unnoticed – even though the tax is overdue some public attention, since it's opposed by many Republicans and even Democratic progressives like Elizabeth Warren. Instead, Obama's skeet-shooting photo became the media circus of the week so far.

A Google news search for the medical device tax yields only around 3,200 stories, Weigel points out. But "a search for tales of Obama and the great skeet hunt: 135,000."

Republicans describe the Obama camp's tactic of drawing media attention to the Donald Trumps of the party as "finding four people on Twitter and making it look like they speak for us." The GOP solution is to get their most sensible-sounding people out front and center – like Eric Cantor. But alas for Republicans, the media isn't playing ball. And neither is the public: stories on Cantor's policy statements will never get anything like the number of clicks earned by a good Skeeter story.

Via Slate.
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When Obama's team promotes birthers and #Skeeters, does it make Republicans look bad?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • jessejaymes
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    Here's the bottom line. You can't make people look like fools who don't offer the opportunity. The right wing went after Obama for saying he skeet shoots. Should have left it alone. People who live glass houses and all that stuff ya know?
  • Tralee
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    @jessejaymes Ever gone skeet shooting? Gun is pointed UP at the clay disk that was shot UP into the air, sort of similar to shooting at ducks flying, Obama was aimed at what? A tree stump? They should have left well enough alone, the picture of Obama and a gun was definitely not a picture of a man skeet shooting.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Tralee Ever stood on a rise when the target release is at the foot of that rise? It's something done for poor tracking shooters. I know of a place in Los Angeles that has that exact set up. But even if it were an outright lie it's still something that is none of your business.
  • o
    thatgirl
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    @Tralee Ever missed the clay on the first shot, then nailed it right before it hit the ground? I have plenty of times, and also have plenty of pics that show me shooting level to nail that clay before it hit the ground.
  • frigginhell
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    @Tralee funny that keeps being said over and over by photo experts who fail to realize the gun is actually pointed up. look at the photo, get a protractor if you're blind, it's not a huge angle but the barrel is clearly going up not down. You have no idea where the target is in it's path when he fires and nobody ever said he was any good at it. but then again, this goes to prove to the point i suppose. you're making a controversy out of something that isn't a controversy and trying to invent evidence of a conspiracy where there is no conspiracy. unless you count the people who keep trying to say he's pointing at the ground over and over a conspiracy.
  • View all 39 replies >
  • bsking
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    Okay you got a president who need some moron in a basement somewhere in his underwear on Twitter... to create a distraction for him...... and in the upside down inside out World of liberalism... this makes the Republicans look bad....

    ....... we're in the worst trouble than I thought...:-O
  • InjusticeSucks
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    Sad thing is its the Republicans in the Underwear doing the distractions for the O The GOP is doing all it can to Make O look like a genius and the republicans like... well you finger it out(But be sure to use Spray tan to help them look Nice and ORANGE)
  • Denizen_Kate
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    "... some moron in a basement somewhere in his underwear ... " Actually, these particular tweeters are in offices in the West Wing.
  • JimCO55
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    Bsking, this problem has been around for years as the old story line of dog bites man is not news ... man bites dog is news! So it really doesn't matter if this is pointed out or not, the Trumps of this world will continue making stupid tweets and there will be plenty of people ready to repost it for all the world to see!
  • View all 6 replies >
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @MongoAPillager obamas trying to make GOP look weird? Todd Akin, murdock, bauchman, palin. They don't need Obama to look weird, they do fine on their own.
  • Keyjo
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    The State Hospital for the criminally insane is just down the street.
    You can drive by it when the patients are out getting exercise, no mistaking what it is, no need for a sign out front.
    People fondly nick named it, " Republican Headquarters!"
  • PNWest
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    HAHAHAHAHA. Very appropriate. During the Larry Craig scandal a few years back I remember seeing "GOP Caucus Room" written on the stall door in an airport men's room.
  • WMCOL
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    Republicans make themselves look weird, not Obama.

    Who challenged Obama about his shooting?
    Who challenged his birth record?
    Who lied about national debt when Obama sworn in Jan. 2009?

    Republicans throw that crap out there and then when it is smeared all over their faces they cry foul. TS.
  • WMCOL
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    @MongoAPillager
    >>>a black feller challenged Obamas skeeting<<<

    Makes no difference that the right-winger was black. Same effect, just more sickening.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Actually, I questioned the skeet-shooting photo, and I'm not a Republican. As a one-time skeeter myself, I thought the president looked very awkward. The stock was too short for his long arms, he didn't have it seated into the shoulder properly, and if he was firing at a clay pigeon, he was aiming too low (like, missed the first shot and was trying to blast it before it hit the ground). I don't disbelieve that he's done some skeet-shooting, just that he can't be very good at it and doesn't have a very good teacher.
  • WMCOL
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    @Denizen_Kate
    Well, he never said he was good at it, just that he does it. Like so many other recreational shooters who shoot a few times a year. It's been several months since I've been to the range. Not good. Used to shoot once or twice a month.

    I have no idea what the Prez was shooting at, a target released downhill from him or some other kind of target.
  • DARSB
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    I like Dave Weigel a lot but he's learning to see conspiracies in coincidence - much like the conservatives he covers. Take the #skeeters - if Republican Rep Marsha Blackburn had kept her mouth shut, that photo of the President with shotgun would not have seen the light of day.

    Seriously, there is no need for Democrats to plot to embarrass the GOP. It is possibly the one thing left Republicans are good at.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    Obama wants to make GOP look weird? they do a great job on their own can't get pregneny from rape, see russia from my kitchen window, i'm not a witch, etc...
  • PolitixMary K
    Mary Noble, Senior Editor
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    Good point about Weigel's over-interpretation. It's also peculiar that Weigel has come up with a conspiracy theory to explain how Team Obama are responding to conspiracy theories.
  • u
    Yank
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    Yet you don't see many of the faux pas or Bushisms done by Obama or Biden getting the same attention. They may get a quick joke on the Daily Show or Colbert Report, but that is about it.
  • u
    Cheenoguy
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    @Yank
    We do, but you are right that it is approached differently. Bush was mocked for the stupid things he did. Any mistake Obama makes is pounced on by the right as proof that he is Kenyan/Marxist/gay/king...
    I think most of us view Biden the way we view Bush. An intelligent person who appears dimwitted. It isn't as prominent in the media as it was with Bush, but he isn't president either. Obama comes off as intelligent most of the time so how you react to his mistakes largely ends up being based on how you view him. The right sees those mistakes as proof that he is an evil dictator set on taking away everyone's guns and sending white folks to FEMA camps. Democrats trust him explicitly and see his mistakes as evidence he is human. Those of us on the left see it as either just a human mistake or as further evidence that he is in the pocket of the rich just as much as almost every other politician.
  • u
    albert
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    Obama didn't do anything to make the republican's "WEIRD"if thats the only word we can use ,they did it all by themselves,they really are that bad and getting worse everyday.
  • PNWest
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    As long as the GOP lets party representatives like Marsha Blackburn, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Allen West, Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Sarah Palin and the like anywhere near a live microphone the GOP is going to look like a bunch of nuts. What does it say about the party when Ron Paul is the sanest of the bunch?
  • jaybebo84
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    The current GOP does not hold the ideals of the true conservative citizen...I think Boehner is a putz...same with Cantor...until these guys get back to real conservative values...balancing the budget...defending Constitutional rights...limiting government meddling...they will always look like a bunch of idiots...
  • jessejaymes
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    You remember when you first knew that the GOP had gone over the edge? When Sarah Palin walked out on that stage at the GOP national convention and started talking all I could hear was Minnie Pearl HOOOOOWWWWWDDDY!! All that was missing was the hat with the price tag still on it.
  • u
    equalityboy81
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    I don't think Obama has to do anything to make the GOP look weird. I'm not saying all Republican citizens are weird but the party sure has become such and gives those people a bad name.
  • u
    Chromalord
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    The GOP doesn't/didn't need any outside help making them look crazy. They have been systematically doing that on their own for quite some time now.
  • u
    BelinKS
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    Any person with any common sense knows that the republicans are nothing like Donald Trump! This is a feeble strategy worthy of grade school squabbles. Obama must feel very threatened to pull this crap. It's time to be serious and Obama sees Cantor's intellect and ingenuity as a threat so he is trying by any means possible for the public not to hear what Cantor has to say!
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Obama isn't doing anything, even if some on his staff are having a little too much fun. The problem is that Republicans allow ridiculous people like Trump, Akin, Mourdoch, Bachmann, and so forth to get in front of microphones and spout nonsense, and the GOP does little or nothing to disavow these characters.
  • u
    BelinKS
    !
    @Denizen_Kate
    Not true. The republicans have said they are not in line with what people like Trump believe. No one can stop a nut fringe from getting in front of a microphone. The left leaning news outlets are only to happy to put them on the air and use their show to try to make people think that is what republicans believe. They would never invite a head of the republican party on to refute that. a republican leader can speak publicly about this issue and the left leaning networks will never air it unless they could pull something from the speech out of context and twist it to mean something never said. Fox is the only network that would cover these speeches that have happened so many times that the liberal left leaning democrats will never watch then make the claim you just did. They have been refuted, you just never saw or heard it.
    Obama knows exactly what his chief of staff is tweeting. I wouldn't be surprised if he dictated the tweets to be sent.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    @BelinKS - The GOP continues to support the most extremely ridiculous within their ranks. They may give lip service to not being in line with them, but when it comes to winning elections, anything is fair game. I'm sorry to hear that you get your information from Fox. I don't trust their fairness any more than I do MSNBC's.
  • u
    BelinKS
    !
    @Denizen_Kate
    I didn't say I watched Fox. I said that is the only news network that would air the many public refutes to those crazies. The left leaning news outlets are not going to. I don't watch MSNBC either. I'm sick of the biased news coverage! Only Fox leans to the right. All the rest lean to the left, it just so happens that MSNBC is the worst. I would love to hear the news stories reported just as they are without anyone putting in their two cents worth opinion in. The news should be straight forward and the people should form their own opinions after hearing the straight truth. The original news castors would be rolling over in their graves if they could see how news is delivered now! For that matter, the original government would be doing the same if they saw how our leaders are running our country now!
  • o
    thatgirl
    !
    Awwww, dont be bitter! Tell Trump to take that squirrel off his head and wash off the orange, and I promise we'll attempt to take him more seriously. Of course, he's gonna have give uo the trophy wife thing, too........
  • Denizen_Kate
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    No tactic is needed, no trashing by the left required. Conservatives used to be reasonable, intelligent, no-nonsense people. What happened to them?
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @thatgirl trump doesn't consult with me. I am not responsible for him. But after reading the posts on this thread you wonder why I don't like liberals?
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Denizen_Kate so if its not needed why continue to do it? You are aware that the left is not a shining example of good sense?
  • View all 18 replies >
  • AlexMIA
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    Yes it does, but it doesn't matter atleast as far as I'm concerned! My social views may all be liberal but I will never side with them because their tactics make me sick, and their fiscal and constitutional views suck!
  • DogLady_1
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    If the GOP is embarrassed by birthers and other right-wing extremists, perhaps they should stop giving them such a huge platform in which to express themselves... just sayin'...
  • Tralee
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    LOL - right the "Shooting" picture. Strange, skeet shooting is usually done with the gun pointed UP toward the clay disc. And, just for laughs, our very left leaning local (state wide) paper had a cartoon of Obama "Skeet Shooting" 2 feet off the ground compared to the Dukakis Picture of him in the helmet in the tank. BUT - Obama is making good use of the Rules for Radicals, he and the DNC are aptly employing Rules #5 (Ridicule if man's most potent weapon),#10 (If you push a negative long enough,it will push through to be a positive) and of course the ever useful #12 (Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.) along with a bit of rule #2 (never go outside the expertise of your people - better known as keep it simple stupid, the masses can only remember the smallest of sound bites for repetition.)
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