When all else fails, scare the bejeezus out of people

January 3, 2008

Let’s say you’re Rudy Giuliani. Your poll numbers are tanking, your money is drying up, your “firewall” strategy is falling apart, and you’ve gone from “frontrunner” to “you’re still here?” in about six weeks’ time.

What do you do? You pull the same trick dumb 16-year-old boys pull when they bring 16-year-old girls to see scary movies — scare the bejeezus out of ’em and hope they’ll look to you for safety and protection. Here’s Giuliani’s new ad, poised to run in New Hampshire and Florida, and on Fox News:

For those of you who can’t watch video clips online, the ad — which is called “Ready” — features a voice-over saying, “An enemy without borders. Hate without boundaries. A people perverted. A religion betrayed. A nuclear power in chaos. Madmen bent on creating it. Leaders assassinated. Democracy attacked. And Osama bin Laden still making threats. In a world where the next crisis is a moment away… America needs a leader who’s ready.”

All the while, viewers are shown images of bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and assorted pictures of people who appear to be from the Middle East and South Asia, all of whom we’re presumably supposed to be afraid of.

Jonathan Martin, who concedes that Giuliani is dispensing with any subtlety, wrote, “Call it Tancredo’ish, Daisy-like, whatever you want — but it’s raw and it’s visceral.”

Oddly enough, those weren’t the first adjectives that came to my mind.

“Pathetic” was first. “Demagogic” was second.

Ezra had a good take:

This guy’s almost beyond mockery. He’s taken fear mongering from an ugly reality of contemporary politics into a sort of envelope-pushing performance art. If his next ad doesn’t feature a heavy voiceover warning of “a deadly plague, strapped to a bomb, pointed at your children, and hidden in your kitchen,” I’m going to be very disappointed.

D-Day also had a gem.

I know Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but I think he meant to replace “patriotism” with “Rudy Giuliani’s New Hampshire ad.” He just wasn’t alive to see it. (Also, he wouldn’t have had a chance unless he was living on the island of Guam, which I believe is central to Rudy’s new “Win Guam and race to the nomination!” strategy.)

Never mind the fact that all of these challenges have grown worse under the tenure of George W. Bush, whose warmongering, imperialist foreign policy matches up best with Rudy’s blood-red neocon vision.

As for the line, “A people perverted,” Josh adds, “I’m not sure ‘perverted’ is a word that Rudy really wants to be pumping into the campaign … at the moment.”

When a candidate shifts from the subject of scorn to the subject of ridicule, it’s probably time to bow out.

This ad was the best laugh I had yesterday. If at all possible, I encourage everyone to give it a look. It all but says “CRAP YOUR PANTS–THEN VOTE FOR THE STRONGMAN!”

Il Douche’s fall really has been wonderful to see. The likely truth of Marshall’s line about how tough it’ll be for him even to get laid and win consulting gigs makes it even sweeter…

  • I seem to recall back in the mists of time a political ad featuring a mushroom cloud.

    Don’t know if that particular ad had any effect, but if it did, I’d be quite happy about it. Then again, that ad was run against a candidate in an attempt to portray him as a dangerous warmonger. In this case, it is an ad for a candidate, in an attempt to portray him as a dangerous warmonger.

  • Well, I think the video is worth watching, even if he’s not going to win, just so we can all see what fascist demogogery looks like and remember it if it ever comes up again in the future.

    It’s really sci-fi-ish, like V for Vendetta or Total Recall.

  • What do you expect from a guy who’s foreign policy advisor, Podhertz, is a cowardly neocon zionist whose only concern is safeguarding Israel? I for one am sick and tired of the neoconjews running our foreign policy.

  • We won’t need exit polls to learn who votes for Rudy. We’ll know from the smell of sh*t in their pants.

  • Rudy is the candidate I would most hate to see elected (except, perhaps, for Alan Keyes). This commercial reeks of desperation, but it is exactly why Rudy is such frightening candidate.

    Let’s hope his campaign continues to tank.

    Idlemind @ #2 – great comment.

  • Isn’t it all about fear, which leads to hate???

    –Afraid of a man who has the same middle name as a terrorist

    –Afraid of Mormons taking over the world

    –Afraid bible verses will be added to the constitution

    When in doubt, make everyone too afraid to vote for your opponent.

  • Citizen_pain writes: “I for one am sick and tired of the neoconjews running our foreign policy.”

    I, for one, am sick of neonaziminds railing against jews running our foreign policy. Bush and Cheney are running our foreign policy, make no mistake about it. And they have selected the people who handle it day to day and the people who they choose to listen to about it from the broader marketplace of ideas. Recognize your blinding prejudice or learn how politics and government works, or both. Whether it’s for money, power, the return of Christ, whatever–Bush and Cheney run our foreign policy and are running our country into the ground.

  • There are reasons why a Rudy election victory would see me moving to Ireland.

    I hope this doesn’t help him.

  • Frak complains about citizen_pain with this: And they have selected the people who handle it day to day and the people who they choose to listen to about it from the broader marketplace of ideas. Who are these people Frak? Neo-cons? check. Jewish? Check. Looks like the citizen is correct.

  • That’s great Rudy.

    But considering I live in a city that a few weeks ago saw a mentally ill teenager take an assault rifle to a mall I frequent with my children and wife and brutally kill 8 people, I have other things that scare me shitless right now.

  • CB wrote: What do you do? You pull the same trick dumb 16-year-old boys pull when they bring 16-year-old girls to see scary movies — scare the bejeezus out of ‘em and hope they’ll look to you for safety and protection.

    Wow, you don’t really feel that way about the 16-year-old boys, do you, CB? I guess I could see it happening your way, but it seems to me that horror-movie dates are not usual sleazy-guy tricks, and I bet you could find lots of women who use the horror movie as a pretense to grab the guy first!

    Frak, I think the citizen_pain comment and the Rick comment are attempts to make liberals look like anti-semites. I know, as I’m sure almost all active liberals know, that “liberal anti-semitism” isn’t a real phenomenon (unless you count some Russian anti-semites who got swept up in the Russian revolution, and who were more ignoramuses or backwoods hicks than they liberals, closing on 100 years ago), and the idea that a real liberal would write something like “neoconjews” strikes me as amazing and very unlikely. He/she would have to be a really troubles, thoughtless, insensitive, or rare (for honestly harboring such an ideology after having thought it through) person.

  • “A mayor who didn’t work for firefighters’ safety. A man who lied about air quality on ground zero. A husband perverted, who billed taxpayers for his sex-on-the-city trips. A traitor whose did security for middle-east dictators.

    In a world where the next crisis is a moment away… America needs a leader who’s not Rudy”

  • Frak: you misunderstood my point. I could give a flyin’ F if someone is Jewish, Arab, or Neptunian. What pisses me of is the stranglehold the Israeli lobby has on setting our foreign agenda. Don’t you realize that one of the main reasons Arabs hate us is our blind support of Israel?
    We are Americans, not Israelis. We defend and support our country, not Israel. Our politicians represent (well, used to) American citizens, not Israelis.
    Since when is the fate of our country contingent on our support for Israel?

  • It reminds me of the ad for the Christmas special that Bill Murray’s character showed at the beginning of Scrooged, which made the other TV execs want to vomit. When Murray did it, it was meant to be a joke. Looks like some things never change.

  • Maybe Rudy has a future in stand-up comedy. That ad is pretty funny; it reminds me of that one with the wolves closing in and looking hungry, that the Bush administration used in the last campaign.

    You can’t really blame Rudy for hammering on the I-can-save-you-from-desert-darkies-who-want-to-kill-you theme, because it’s all he knows. His worldview is simple because he’s a simple-minded guy – more tricky than actually clever or intellectual, and with a limited number of tricks in his tickle trunk.

    I’d like to see former classmates and college roomies step up and testify what Rudy was really like growing up, when most boys get in more fights than at any time in the rest of their lives. Rudy portrays himself as a granite-jawed pugilist, but he sure doesn’t look tough, and I’ll bet he wasn’t.

  • Swan Swan Swan. Don’t get your panties in a wad, you didn’t uncover a mole. I assure you, I am as liberal and progressive as any here on CB.
    But I have to say, your knee-jerk reaction to my comment is very typical of the nature of a lot of liberals like yourself that give ammunition to the trolls.
    Last I heard, liberal was a derivative of liberty. Do I not have the liberty of stating my opinion, whether you agree or not?
    Let’s be clear – Podhertz, Lieberman, the AIPAC, the list goes on, are the ones most feverishly pushing an attack on Iran. Iran has no means whatsoever of attacking US Soil. If we are going to be struck by a nuke, dirty bomb, whatever, chances are it will come from the former Soviet black market or Pakistan, not Iran. As a matter of fact, Iran reached out to us after 9-11 and offered their intelligence aid. So why attack them? To defend Israel? Would you really support that?
    Do you care more about America or Israel? If creating a Palestinian state would guarantee no more Jihadist attacks against the west, would you be for it or against?
    So, no, I am not anti-jewish. I am against the jews running our foregn affairs at the expense of our security.

  • “A people perverted?” I think the word “perverted” was the most carefully chosen in this ad. It’ll scare the hell out of the anti-gay, anti-women fundie conservatives [who on these particular issues ironically side with the Taliban.

  • Oh, and one more thing Swan and Frak, why don’t you go and check the ethnicity of the authors of the Project for a New American Century…. Perle, Wolfowitz, etc. etc.

  • I agree that we are more in Israel’s corner than any other allies. AIPAC is a powerful lobby that has succeeded in making Israel’s interests enmeshed with America’s interests. Our Jewish population is around 2%, I think. Add the Fundamentalist Christian elements who believe that the Jews are God’s chosen people and therefore more valuable than any other nationality on earth and you end up with a foreign policy that is very prejudiced in another way. Arguing for a sane and balanced foreign policy with perspective is not the same as being antisemitic. It’s past time that people get that …

  • All that stuff in the ad doesn’t even come as close to scaring me as another four years of Republican rule. That freakin’ terrifies me. Brown people? Not so much.

    Rudy should have entitled the ad “March of the Straw Men.” What a bunch of demagoguery. But what a slap at Bush when the ad mentions Osama is still free. No one to blame about that except George.

  • Swan, I thought I used the word jewish. Are you a anti-semite if you type the word jewish these days? Citizen-Pain is still correct about the Project for a New American Century, and AIPAC, Wolffie, Pearle, and the rest of them. I have a meassage for Rudy, it takes a prevert to know a pervert.

  • Would Swan or Frak like to offer a better explanation for the madness we find ourselves in? Oil and an obsession with Israel about sums it up.

  • I’m going to take a deep breath and plunge in.

    America’s policy on Isreal and Palestine is a dangerous muddle because of a number of factors.

    Not the least of which is the blind support for the most radical elements of the Isreali government coming from American Christian Evangelical End-Timers who believe that Isreal has to exist (not happily or safely, just exist) for the Rapture to occur, at which point every Jew will be destroyed, either by being converted to Christianity (all 144,000 of them) or being cast into the pit. Considering that there are some MILLIONS of Jews in the world, I don’t think much of this notion (I’m Catholic/Northern European descent, by the way).

    Then there is the Congress of the United States, which for some reason chooses to pay attention to the Constitution only rarely, and certainly not where it says the Executive Branch shall conduct the Foreign Policy (note, for instance, the Prince of Darkness’ many commentaries fronting for congressmen trying to have their own foreign policy on Columbia). Thus there will always be some congressman somewhere giving extremist Isreali politicans the green light to open a new settlement in the West Bank or to assassinate a troublesome Palestinian leader.

    And of course for the first six years of the Bushite administration they paid NO attention to Isreal at all.

    So, really, to get ONE policy on Isreal would take a crackdown by the President. If we had one (a president, not a vacationer in chief) we might have a policy now. As it is, I think we have to wait until 2009 at best.

    But hey, remember, the world ends in 2012!

  • Actually, some of you have missed my point entirely. I personally detest Israel’s policies and the U.S. policies in the Middle East and, if I were president, I would handle it completely differently and put real pressure on Israel to dismantle settlements, live within their original borders, and pressure all parties to make a just peace.
    My point has to do with WHO makes the decision to pursue any mideast policy. The neocons (some Jewish, some not) may put forth the policy they’d like, but the people who DECIDE to pursue it are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. They could just as easily have decided to pursue another policy. Neocons can’t make the president do anything. He chooses to and that’s who should get the ire of those of us who disagree. Whatever his reasons are–oil, Christianity, political support–he, as he’s told us is the DECIDER. And, I’m sorry, the canard about the all-powerful Jews making mischief is historically sickening and wrong and prejudiced.

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