Talk host: Time for Obama to fight back or prepare to be 'swift-boated' Nick Langewis

Published: Thursday May 22, 2008



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Print This Email This GoLeft TV's Mike Papantonio sees a pending "swift-boating" for Senator Obama as the "Karl Rove filth machine" brings back seasoned Republican operative and Bush ally John Timothy Griffin to work for Senator McCain's presidential run. Papantonio worries that the Democrats could take the same advice from the same brand of "intellectual advisors" that had Senator Kerry's doomed 2004 presidential campaign staying largely silent on accusations of "flip-flopping" and "elitism" in addition to the infamous "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" attacks on his service in Vietnam. "Griffin," he goes on, "was dealing with such brain-dead, spineless opposition in the Kerry camp, that Kerry never thought it was a good idea to do the same thing to 'the Shrub.' Instead, Kerry just sat back above the fray." Griffin, the McCain campaign's Director of Research, brings his experience from his time as Deputy Research Director for President Bush's 2000 run. He would also serve as a legal advisor for the "Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team" during the battle that would culminate in Bush being awarded the presidency by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. Griffin would later work as aide to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove from September 2005 to September 2006. Journalist Greg Palast also uncovered e-mails that implicated Griffin as part of a vote caging scheme in the run-up to the 2004 election, thought to target 70,000 voters, including soldiers, students and people of color with mailing addresses in heavily Democratic districts, for disenfranchisement. Unless the Democrats and the Obama campaign hire a "bottom-feeding, Griffin-like reptile" of their own, warns Papantonio, Democratic voters are in for a repeat of the 2004 campaign. The entire installment of "The Pap Attack," entitled "Warm & Fuzzy Democrats," is available to view below.