My first consultation on Thursday morning this week was with Phineas Filch, of the Republican National Committee. To say he looked like the cat who ate the canary would be a pale understatement. No, he looked like the cat who ate the canary, the goldfish, the hamster – as well as the gerbil, then lured the dog into chasing him outside into an oncoming bus.
“Tom,” he began in a delighted, conspiratorial tone as he sank into the chair situated directly to the right of mine next to my desk, “Obama totally screwed up when he made his ‘you didn’t build that’ comment. We’ve got him – the President of the United States, no less – on national television, appearing in ads trying to talk his way out of it. The RNC wants to strike while the iron is hot, Tom. And I’ve been tasked with examining strategies to leverage our advantage.”
“Okay,” I replied, “first, let’s examine what happened. Obama was delivering a stump speech in Roanoke, Virginia, and said, quote, ‘If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.’”
“Correct,” Filch gleefully concurred.
“And the Romney campaign took the phrase ‘you didn’t build that’ out of context and put it in an attack ad that makes it look like Obama was referring to the businesses American entrepreneurs built – obviously on their own – instead of the infrastructure the American public built.”
“Right,” Filch cackled as he rubbed his hands together in delight, nodding his head at me a bit too rapidly for comfort. “And now, since that’s been so successful, it got us thinking, you know, about how we might use this approach to go after Democrats in general so we Republicans can take over the Senate and increase our strength in the House.”
“Understood,” I told him. “How about this – you put together attack ads composed of multiple, out-of-context quotes from every Democrat president since Woodrow Wilson.”
“Is that… possible?” Filch wondered. “Are there, you know, enough recordings and films of Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Truman – you know, the old guys – to do that?”
“With modern digital technology,” I assured him, “practically anything is possible. If we can find a written quotation from any Democrat president since Wilson, a bogus ‘film clip’ of them uttering a phrase of it, completely out of context, can be readily faked up.”
“Outstanding,” Filch chortled. “What have you got in mind?”
“Give me around three quarters of an hour,” I requested, “and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
So, for about forty-five minutes, I prepared examples while Filch diddled around with his iPhone, answering his email, texting his colleagues and so forth.
“There,” I notified him as I completed my work. “Here’s what I’ve managed to put together by way of demonstration for your boss back at the RNC. Let’s start with old Woodrow Wilson himself. He said, quote, ‘America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.’ Truly a noble sentiment. Now, all you folks at the RNC need to do is show a clip of him delivering a speech and use a synthetic voice program to render something resembling his actual voice saying, ‘America is not anything…’ and only the lip readers will be able to tell it’s faked. Here’s another one. Wilson actually said, ‘I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.’ Piece of cake, that one. In your attack ad, Wilson says, ‘I would rather belong to a poor nation…’ and the roots of Democrat perfidy, reaching deep into the turn of the last century, are revealed to the American voters.”
“Oh, I like this,” Filch enthused. “Let’s hear some more!”
“No problem, I’ve got a boat load of it, sir,” I assured him. “Let’s take a look at this little gem, ‘The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.’ Obviously, the guy was a college professor, huh? Okay, let’s trim that down a bit, shall we? How about this: ‘The awakening of… China is the most significant event of our generation.’ There you go – Wilson shows us that Democrats are all foreign sympathizers, no?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Filch giggled like a school girl in delight. “All a bunch of China-loving rats! More! More!”
“More is what I’ve got plenty of,” I affirmed. “Here we go. Old Woodrow once said, quote, ‘You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
“Ew!” Filch interjected with an air of frank disgust. “That sounds almost like what Obama was saying in Roanoke!”
“So it does,” I agreed. “In your attack ad, you take it out of context so he’s saying, ‘You are not here to make a living… You are here… to impoverish yourself.’ How about that?”
“Excellent!” Filch vouched with a toothy grin.
“Now let’s move on to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democrat Republicans all love to hate.”
“You bet your booty,” Filch vehemently acknowledged. “Hate, hate, hate that bastard, we do!”
“FDR said,” I began, “quote, ‘A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.’ In the attack ad, you change that to, ‘A conservative is a man who has never learned how to walk.’ See? It appears both condescending and insensitive to the handicapped.”
“Love it, love it, love it,” Filch snickered. “This strategy is going to crush, I tell you – absolutely crush!”
“Here’s the next juicy tidbit,” I continued, “FDR once said, quote, “I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.” Rather witty, actually, but all you need to do is hack off the unnecessary stuff at the end and you get, ‘I’m not the smartest fellow in the world,’ which is tantamount to Roosevelt declaring he’s an idiot. Then there’s this one, where he said, quote, ‘Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.’ Stepped right in the cow pie there, didn’t he? You change it to, ‘Our future economic soundness depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.’ You bet, FDR – isn’t that what Democrats always do? Okay, then he once observed, quote, ‘Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.’ Pretty Machiavellian advice, but effective, I’m sure. What the RNC needs to do with that one is have him say, ‘Put men in positions of conflicting authority,’ which makes him sound – well, not to put too fine a point on it – like a lunatic. Okay, then there’s this one, ‘Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are,’ which you guys can chop down to ‘Rules are not sacred…’ and, here we go, ‘Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion,’ which abbreviates nicely to ‘Atheism… is the only real religion.’ And finally, there’s this one, which says, quote, ‘Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.’ That’s awfully long-winded, wouldn’t you say? How about you make that a bit more succinct? I’d suggest something like, ‘Newspapers… justify the beginnings of dictatorship.’ Hardly sounds like FDR was a proponent of the First Amendment now, does it?”
“At last,” Filch gloated, “thanks to modern technology, the Republicans can have their revenge on FDR the SOB!”
“Sweet and served cold to be sure,” I commented. “Moving on to Harry S Truman, he said, quote, ‘Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.’ Cuts back nicely to ‘Don’t ever apologize,’ which makes him look aloof and arrogant. Okay, then we’ve got, ‘If I hadn’t been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.’ Actually, Truman was a pretty good pianist, so that particular gig wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch for him. Just shorten that to a clip of him saying, ‘I… ended up… in a bawdy house’ and let the folks in Peoria draw their own conclusions. Now here’s one where he was trying to be profound, like Wilson: ‘The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.’ Whew! Mighty heavy thoughts for a haberdasher from Missouri, huh? The RNC can just use the part that goes, ‘The human animal cannot be trusted,’ for the attack ad, I think. Oh, and then there’s this one, where he said, quote, ‘The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.’ Not a whole lot of digital massaging should be necessary to render Truman saying, ‘The Marine Corps is… equal to Stalin.’ Then here’s an example of Truman trying to be modest and insightful at the same time, when he said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.’ Distill that down to ‘I was trying to be great,’ which is the real point of all that aw-shucks corn pone of his anyway, and you’ve got some genuine dynamite. And here’s Truman trying to strut his chops as a great pragmatist, discussing the relative merits of JFK and Nixon: ‘You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So – I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.’ Trim away the fat, and what have you got? ‘I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best.’ Immature Democrat? Sounds like Obama, doesn’t it? And lastly, there’s this one, with Truman aping Eisenhower, who planned stuff like the Normandy Invasion, with, ‘You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.’ A nice out-of-context treatment there gives us ‘I believe in plans… to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee,’ a sentiment which captures that traditional fuzzy-headed Democrat mindset with perfection.”
“Nectar of the freakin’ gods,” Filch raved. “Pour some more!”
“That brings us to John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” I complied, “the iconic Democrat president. He said, quote, ‘I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.’ Shorten that to, ‘Life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours,’ and suddenly the Democrat super-hero starts sounding like a nut case with a tin foil hat. Okay, then he once said, quote, ‘I don’t think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.’ Given the people he had preparing those reports, I believe him. But slice that back to ‘I don’t think intelligence reports are all that hot’ and it sounds as if he liked remaining uninformed. Moving on to issues of political corruption, Magic Jack once tried to make a joke that went like this: ‘I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; “Dear Jack, Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.”’ Cute, right? Wait until the Democrats see a clip of JFK saying, ‘Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary.’ And the female vote? Well, what have we here? JFK trying to express his budding feminist sentiments with, ‘I’m always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.’ Yeah, right, JFK the notorious philanderer – role model for Bill Clinton, no less. It’s going to look a lot different when you excerpt it to read ‘I’m always… nervous about… women who are active in politics,’ now isn’t it? All right, now here’s JFK making a stab at a Statement of Great Significance: ‘Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.’ All that palaver boils down to ‘Our problems are man-made,’ doesn’t it? Have JFK tell the voters that in 2012 and see what they think of the Democrats then. Oh, and apropos of our current efforts, Phineas, check this one out: ‘The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.’ What did JFK say? How about, ‘The great enemy of truth… is not the lie.’ Sounds completely deranged, no? And for the voters who are obsessed with homeland security these days, back in the nineteen sixties, what was Kennedy’s relevant comment? It went like this: ‘The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.’ And what part of that does the RNC use in its attack ad? Why, ‘The very word “secrecy” is repugnant,’ of course. And what about the young voters, then? They have no recollection of the Cold War and slept through history class just like everybody else, right? Sweet – because here’s JFK saying, ‘There are many people in the world who really don’t understand – or say they don’t – what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.’ Sure, you and I know what he was attempting, in his clumsy Democrat way, to say, but do those crucial youth demographics have a clue? No way, Jose! Shorten that to ‘There are many people… who really don’t understand… the Communist world.’ Put like that, it appears that Kennedy used to pound down vodka shots with Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. Oh, yeah, and then there’s this doozy, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ Sounds reasonable, but just extract the last part and you’ve got ‘Make violent revolution inevitable.’
“I knew it, I knew it!” Filch exulted. “Kennedy was a Communist!”
“And take him out of context properly,” I pointed out, “and ever voter under fifty who sees the RNC’s attack ad will agree. Which brings us to Lyndon Baines Johnson, or MacBird as some called him. He said, quote, ‘I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard.’ Obviously, all we need to do there is have him say, ‘I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything… because I didn’t go to Harvard.’ Makes him look ignorant and resentful. Then there’s ‘No member of our generation who wasn’t a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.’ Take that out of context to read, ‘No member of our generation who wasn’t a Communist… is worth a damn,’ and voilà, LBJ’s a Commie, too, just like Kennedy. Of course, JFK made JBJ the head of the space program, which resulted in LBJ saying, quote, ‘ The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.’ Take that out of context, and you’ve got, ‘The moon should be free…’
“No, no, strike that one,” Filch fretted. “Newt Gingrich said pretty much the same thing, and we don’t want to remind the voters of it!”
“Okay,” I shrugged. “No problem. There’s so much material, we can certainly afford to be choosy. How about this one, where LBJ tries to be pithy: ‘The Russians feared Ike. They didn’t fear me.’ Just use the last part, so it reads, ‘The Russians didn’t fear me.’ Naturally, they wouldn’t, right, because LBJ was a closet Commie, or so you can make it appear. Then there was LBJ the Philosopher, who said, ‘There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.’ Yeah? Well, that one comes down to ‘Deny your responsibility,’ which should look pretty good coming out of LBJ’s mouth with a some effective digital enhancement. So, let’s move on to LBJ the Pervert, with this quote: ‘There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.’ Abstract that one to say, ‘The relationship has got to be… incestuous.’ Sure, it’s not exactly clear what he’s referring to there, but that’s the idea, isn’t it? Once the voters hear ‘incestuous’ anyway, they’re going to figure LBJ was banging his daughters or something. And the minority vote? How about taking this quote here: ‘We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter – and to write it in the books of law,” and taking it out of context so that it reads, ‘We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights,’ so that it ends right at the beginning instead of rambling on and on like that? Minorities in this country don’t have any more sense of history than anyone else, so it shouldn’t take much to bamboozle them into thinking Johnson was a racist.”
“Bamboozle! Awesome word, absolutely awesome,” Filch agreed with a broad and satisfied grin. “Complete control of both houses of Congress and the White House – I can hardly wait!”
“Next, Jimmy Carter,” I pressed on. “Here’s nice one from him: ‘America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.’ Well, okay, we both know how Americans think they have the moral high ground on that issue, so shave that one down to a clip of Jiminy Peanuts saying ‘America did not invent human rights’ and that should be quite sufficient to make people mad at him. Everybody thinks he’s kind of weird anyway, so if you take a quote like, ‘Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom,’ and shorten it to ‘Government is a contrivance,’ nobody will have any problems believing that’s what he really thinks. Oh, and then here’s his totally lame attempt at a joke, which goes, ‘I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.’ Talk about low-hanging fruit – what, exactly, did Jimmy say? ‘I have often wanted to drown… my wife,’ that’s what! And then, of course, there’s his famous quote about Baptist Sin, ‘I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.’ What’s that, Jimmy? Did we hear you say, ‘I’ve committed adultery,’ loud and clear? Yes, I think we did. Gay rights? Jimmy told us, ‘We must make it clear that a platform of “I hate gay men and women” is not a way to become president of the United States.’ And what does that come out as (no pun intended) when we take it out of context? Why, as ‘I hate gay men and women,’ that’s what. Can’t you just picture Jimmy Carter saying that in your RNC attack ad?
“Like I’m seeing it in 3D!” Filch shouted. “Keep going!”
“Last, but not least,” I concluded, “is Bill Clinton. Let’s start with this fetching bon mot: ‘Frankly, I’m fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn’t.’ Fighting words, to be sure. However, in your attack ad, he’s going to be saying, ‘I’m fed up with… family values.’ And here’s Slick Willy trying to convince us that he feels our pain: ‘People really don’t care if politicians attack each other with untrue stories. They figure if you don’t want to get hurt, you shouldn’t have filed for office. They figure whatever happens to us, our lives will be better than theirs.’ Yeah, but what if the voters see him saying, ‘People don’t care if politicians attack each other… our lives will be better than theirs.’ The shoe’s on the other foot then, isn’t it? And how about rampant voter apathy? Let’s take this Meaningful Observation that Clinton squeezed out about unity, which goes like this: ‘Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on September the 12, 2001, cared who won the next presidential election.’ Oh really? How about if the RNC shows voters an image of Bill Clinton that says, ‘Not a single American… cared who won the next presidential election.’ Finally, there’s this – ‘I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo; your time has come and gone. It’s time for change in America.’ Take that out of context so Clinton’s saying ‘I have news for the forces of greed… your time has come,” and the public will be convinced that the Democrats are in league with Satan Himself.”
“Tom,” Filch effused as he rose to shake my hand, “your services are wicked expensive, but times like this prove Washington gets what it pays for when it comes to you!”
“Thanks,” I replied, “all in a days work.”