When Republicans Attack

When analyzing a political commercial, it’s important to pay attention to the audio as well as the text and images.

The following radio ad from John McCain ostensibly replies to a claim from Barack Obama.

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McCain’s “Stem Cell Response”:

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Obama’s ad is available in a post on Ben Smith’s Politico blog (along with Smith’s analysis): Obama: Stem Cell.

And McCain’s original stem cell radio ad is also on YouTube:

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The music on McCain’s Stem Cell Response ad consists of three sections:
1. A rapid, repetitive minor key piano phrase, reminiscent of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells theme (used on the soundtrack of The Exorcist), from the beginning to the 15-second mark, with a subdued percussive attack at the word “attacks” (11 seconds), and a strident string transition at 13-15 seconds. The words of this segment criticize Obama’s characterization of McCain’s views.
2. The second section (16 seconds to 26 seconds) shifts to a chronicling of McCain’s efforts in favor of stem cell research, highlighting the need for this medical approach. The music here is dominated by a pulsing bass line.
3. Section 3 (27 seconds - 60 seconds), describing the benefits of stem cell research for citizens, shifts to a stirring, uplifting major key ascending 3-note horn motif, punctuated by urgent bursts of strings.

McCain’s original radio ad had no minor section, just a vibrant string passage and a more complex, hymn-like melody. Rather than simply “responding” to Obama’s remarks, the new ad seeks to redefine the oponent, not in oppositional terms of false (Obama) vs. true (McCain) but of Villain (ominous, threatening) vs. Hero (healing, redeeming).

So while the words may assert that Obama has mischaracterized McCain’s support of stem cell research, the music paints Obama as a negative (sinister, high-pitched, minor-key) force to be defeated by the heroic deeds of savior John McCain. The enemy–according to the musical narrative–is not disease, it is Barack Obama.

McCain Stem Cell Ad press release (includes text of ad)

McCain Stem Cell Response Ad press release (includes text of ad)

Politifact coverage of distortions (primarily from Obama)

Remember those phony emails “proving” that Barack Obama was a Muslim? Apparently the McCain Campaign wants you to think he’s Japanese, in their latest web ad, “McCain Is Right.”

Not only does the ad embed a rising  sun image in the background:

Frame 750, 25.029 seconds

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It also scrolls the text across so that for a few frames the alphabet doesn’t seem western:

Frame 759, 25.329 seconds

Frame 760, 25.362 seconds

Frame 787, 26.263 seconds

Frame 788, 26.297 seconds

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And the final frames present a foreign-looking Obama (notice goatee-like shadow on Obama’s chin and the square cropping of his jaw).

Frame 865, 28.867 seconds

Detail of chin

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Such a portrayal fits in with the Republican tactic of implying that Obama “is not one of us” (a favorite rhetorical trick of Sarah Palin).

At least the emails were more open in their lies.

Not content with mere negative images of Barack Obama, the Republican Attack Machine stepped up its subliminal attack in the new 30-second TV ad, Dome.

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The ad’s overt narrative is that Obama’s big government tax increases will put the nation in danger. (For an objective analysis of the ad’s misrepresentations, see FactChecker’s discussion, “There He Goes Again“).

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Washington is represented as a battleship casting its shadow onto the nation:

Frame 77, 5.117 seconds

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The sinister shadow of the Capitol darkens unsuspecting homes with “painful taxes.”

Frame 202, 13.425 seconds

Frame 229, 15.219 seconds

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At the helm of this menacing craft is Barack Obama:

Frame 99, 6.579 seconds

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depicted in transitions to and from the above shot as a skull grinning beside a pinkish-red (pinko?) Capitol::

Frame 83, 5.516 seconds

Frame 141, 9.371 seconds

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(Notice how if the above 2 shots were photographically negative, the eye sockets would be mostly white, not black. Obama’s face is whitened and the eyes darkened to create the sinister image.)

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Who is the target of the Skyrocket of Taxes?

Frame 275, 18.277 seconds

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A sleeping infant wearing a pristine white t-shirt, oblivious to the Skyrocket’s threat.

Frame 317, 21.068 seconds

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But fear not, a superhero appears miraculously. His eyes, unlike the hollow sockets of the evil Skyrocket commander, beam out blinding light to dispel the shadows and protect sleeping Americans.

Frame 398, 26.452 seconds

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As the final frames state, “Change is coming.” But will this change be revealed by the light of truth, or concealed by the shadow of subliminal manipulation?

The latest TV ad, Crisis, seems to move away from the recent McCain negative strategy, focusing instead on the ability of McCain/Palin to resolve the economic crisis. Until you look at the press release for the ad, designed to provide the media with unfounded negative generalizations: “With an economy in crisis, the American people cannot afford Barack Obama’s agenda of higher taxes, new bureaucracy and economic isolationism.”

The latest McCain ad, “Disrespectful,” gives new meaning to the phrase “negative campaign ad.” Several transitions segue into photos of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden from (literally) negative images. Notice also how frequently the shots cut off part of Obama’s and Biden’s heads.

Frame 82 5.455 seconds

Frame 83 5.521 seconds

Frame 86 5.721 seconds

Frame 88 5.854 seconds

Frame 114 7.584 seconds

Frame 121 8.050 seconds

Frame 144 9.580 seconds

Frame 151 10.45 seconds

Frame 194 12.906 seconds

Frame 199 13.239 seconds

Frame 248 16.499 seconds

Frame 254 16.898 seconds

Negative  Language:
The phrase “How disrespectful,” spoken by a chiding female narrator, recalls the old stereotype of the uppity Black man (see frame 121) dissing the white woman. The commercial also uses negative terms like “celebrity” (i.e. a superficial attention getter); “star is fading”; “lashed out”; “desperately”; “wrong.”

Misrepresentation:
The ad implies that Obama “dismissed” Palin as good looking (frame 121), when in fact the remark came from Biden, and in a humorous, self-deprecating way, with the audience about his own looks, (see Jake Tapper’s ABC blog entry and Andrew Romano’s Newsweek commentary).

The ad “McCain: Fact Check” uses a number of propaganda techniques in its brief 31 seconds:

• Imagery
• Positive / negative words
• Poisoning the well
• Misrepresentation

Imagery: The video paints the Obama camp as vicious predators via footage of a hungry pack of wolves (scavenging for dirt on Sarah Palin). Additionally, three photos of Obama (in black and white) convey anger and despair. In color photos (taken with the camera looking up at their faces), Palin and McCain smile and look determined.

Negative Words: “attacks”; “false”; “misleading”; “dig dirt”; “drops in the polls”; “try to destroy [Governor Palin]: [Obama's Politics of Hope are] “empty words.” Obama is referred to by his last name; Palin is called “Governor Palin.”

Poisoning the Well: The McCain ad uses this powerful logical fallacy not only to predict future bad actions by Obama but to associate such behavior with desperation: “As Obama drops in the polls, he’ll try to destroy her.”

Misrepresentation: The video associates the spoken statement “The attacks on Governor Palin have been called false … misleading” with an image (superimposed over the picture of a grimacing Obama) of the FactCheck.org logo and the phrase “completely false”…”misleading” 9/8/08.

McCain ad misrepresentation

But as FactCheck.org itself points out in its September 10 posting “McCain-Palin Distorts Our Finding,” FactCheck used the phrases “completely false” and “misleading” to refer to anonymous Internet postings, not to any statement by Obama: “We have no evidence that any of the claims we found to be false came from the Obama campaign.” FactCheck also notes that the McCain ad distorts its quote from The Wall Street Journal (the Journal did not use the phrase “dig dirt” to characterize the mission of a team of lawyers Obama allegedly sent to Alaska (a mission that Obama’s campaign say did not happen).

The pictures of Willie Horton in the following ad (courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image), made by an independent political action committee, burned into viewers’ minds the association of murderous black rage with permissive liberal policies on  crime attributed to Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Although the commercial only aired once, it was picked up by national news programs, which served to further embed the image.

A favorite Republican trick is to associate positively-charged words with the conservative cause and negative terms with the opposition.

Newt Gingrich wrote an influential manual, Language, A Key Mechanism of Control, providing a list of “positive governing words” such as “citizen,” “peace,” and “truth,” and an opposing list of negative terms like “corruption,” “hypocrisy,” and “radical” for characterizing opponents.

Background and lists of words, courtesy of The Propaganda Critic.

The following Swift Boat Veterans ad (courtesy of YouTube) uses both types of terms masterfully in their attack on Presidential candidate John Kerry.

Negative terms: lying / lied / not honest (6 times); lacks the capacity to lead; could not count on; no war hero; betrayed (twice); dishonored; cannot be trusted.

Positive terms (used to characterize veterans in video): served (4 times); truth.

Note how the ad progresses from “not honest” to “lied” to unheroic to “betrayed / dishonored” and finally back to “cannot be trusted.” Such a strategy was designed to shift attention away from Bush’s lack of combat experience toward a debate over the trustworthiness of Kerry and an unsupported characterization of his service.

A simple technique for exposing the lies behind a television ad is to edit the original message by splicing in footage that contradicts the original statement. This approach works best when the contradictory footage contains the candidate’s own words. Observations by journalists or pundits may be dismissed as media bias.

A number of sources in the above video (MSNBC, “The Daily Show”) might be dismissed by conservative viewers as biased. Furthermore, the quote by T. Boone Pickens (presented as “a former oilman”) is itself misleading because it doesn’t point out that Pickens currently develops alternative energy sources (wind power) for profit, and thus is not an impartial source. By providing the entire context of Obama’s statement, the video does effectively counter the McCain ad’s misrepresentation of Obama’s remark about Iran being a tiny country (see Politifact’s analysis of McCain’s distortion of Obama’s words).

Video debunking is particularly effective in reaching the type of audience that would have been persuaded by the original clip. The propagandist may also have a difficult time presenting a counter video argument because the viewer may lose track of who’s saying what.

Welcome to When Republicans Attack, the premiere site for analyzing and debunking bogus political statements.