McCain Sinks Into Desperation - Succumbs to Rovian and Bushian Strategy - (PWE)

Glenn Greenwald of salon.com writes today about John McCain's new (old) strategy against Barack Obama - attack and discredit him personally. As Mr. Greenwald notes, this is page 1 of the Republican playbook:

"There's obviously nothing surprising about the McCain campaign's reliance on the standard, personality-based attacks that the GOP uses every election year."

What Mr. Greenwald correctly points out is much more disturbing is how the media willingly and obediently accepts and disseminates the Republicans' demonizing messages about Barack Obama. Case in point is today's piece by Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times which not only highlights the McCain shift in strategy, but also spews many of the attacking message points that the McCain team (now led by Steve Schmidt) is trying to disseminate.

As Mr. Greenwald writes:

"This is exactly what happens every single election cycle. The Right spews some petty, personality-based attack, and the chirping media birds then mindlessly repeat it until it's lodged into our discourse as accepted fact. That's the media strategy on which the Right is relying to win the election this year again -- dictating the songs sung by the vapid, chirping press birds -- even as they petulantly and incessantly complain that the same media stars who serve this strategy are stacked against them."

Mr. Greenwald provides a variety of links that relate to this issue, so feel free to peruse those as well. There is a lot.

At Dreg Blog, we have a feeling this strategy is going to backfire against McCain and Schmidt and Rove this year. We believe (optimistically) that the American people are too aware of this issue-less strategy and are sick of it. This time, they are looking for someone who can make a difference and do care about the issues that are making their lives more difficult. They are less likely to be swayed by silly personality attacks.