Microsoft is turning into the McCain campaign

Less than four hours before Steve Jobs introduces new laptops today, Microsoft is already circulating whiny-baby, anti-Apple Talking Points??

They offer charts comparing the feature lists of similarly priced Windows and Mac notebooks and make numerous accusations of an "Apple Tax." The email is interesting: nothing they say is incorrect, but none of it is new. Most importantly, all of it misses the point completely.

Seriously. Talking points??

Hmm, maybe after this campaign is over, Steve Schmidt can get a job after all...

Wait a second:

(Left to right: Steve Schmidt, Steve Ballmer, artists' renditions)

The Meta-Narrative of Steve Schmidt

By many accounts, Steve Schmidt is less than a pleasant fellow.

In a new article in Newsweek, the author Holly Bailey claims that:

The man in charge of John McCain's day-to-day presidential campaign is tired of reporters saying he's Rove's "protégé"—the implication being that he is willing to do anything to win.

The article goes on to detail how "pained" Schmidt is this campaign has turned out this way--neglecting, of course, of the single-minded way that the McCain campaign, under Schmidt's direction, has injected toxic negativity at every turn.

The article also makes curious mention of one of Schmidt's prior jobs:

After Bush won in '04, Schmidt took a job at the White House working for Dick Cheney. The vice president had the worst persona in politics—his popularity was in the low 20s—and Schmidt was given the unenviable task of giving the dour, secretive vice president a personality makeover.

Hmm, a campaign consultant whose job was to make over the image of a violently unpopular Republican political figure. (A job he failed to do, by the way.)

Say... you don't suppose that Schmidt, with his client John McCain highly favored to lose--and lose big--isn't possibly trying to pull the same PR shenanigans with the press for himself, do you?

Exit Turd Blossom 2.0?

Enter the kinder, gentler Schmidt whose feelings get hurt when someone even mentions Rove in his presence?

And, bingo:

Privately, Schmidt's friends say he has expressed worry about how he will be viewed after the campaign. "He does not desire to go through life with the tag of Karl Rove disciple attached to him," says one friend who asked not to be named talking about private conversations. "He has a life to go back to that has nothing to do with politics … But he also wants to win."

Aww, poor baby.

Maybe next time, Schmidty will realize that actions have consequences.

Lies (and the Lying McCain Staff That Tell Them)

Ha. The McCain staff calls out The New York Times for not calling them out for being liars.

Except that the McCain staff seemingly lies while doing it.

This election is close, why?

Orwell-Rove

Jon Taplin has the most succinct and apt description of the Republicans' Orwellian message I've seen here.

Old Republican Tricks

Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign chief, is a disciple of none other than Karl Rove.

He's a scary mother--and he's a quick study.

Jake Tapper writes:

Did you read the National Enquirer this week?

I didn't.

Why am I bringing it up?

Because I just got an e-mail about it from the McCain-Palin campaign.

He goes on to quote Schmidt:

"The smearing of the Palin family must end... The efforts of the media and tabloids to destroy this fine and accomplished public servant are a disgrace...

"Members of this campaign went to off-the-record lunches with reporters today...and they were asked if she would do paternity tests to prove paternity for her last child. Smear after smear after smear, and it's disgraceful and it's wrong. And the American people are going to reject it overwhelmingly when they see her."

Tapper concludes that the McCain Camp is just uneccessarily fanning the flames of these rumors.

But actually what Schmidt is doing is far more insidious and Rovian.

By lumping all of these sources together: the traditional media, the tabloids, the blogosphere, Schmidt is trying to create this amorphous blob of a media strawman--one that is spending every single moment trying to crush his candidate.

But this is a complete fallacy. In fact, this is little more than the promise of a "Global War of Terror"-style Orwellian perpetual war that can never end, but delivers McCain a conceptual opponent that, unlike Barack Obama, he may actually be able to defeat.

(Steve Schmidt, artist rendition)

By the way, with respect to the National Enquirer story-- which before the ABC piece I had only seen referenced on the right-wing National Review blog section here.

Well, all I can say is: Wow. If that one turns out to be true--and pursued by the media--then John Edwards ended up doing the Democrats a serious solid this year.

UPDATE:

It seems like the McCain people are turning the National Enquirer pushback up to an Edwardsian 11.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much?