The Tapes

Hannity will premier the first batch of Breitbart's tapes designed to 'vet' the already elected president.  If history is our judge, they will not be the only tapes coming out.  But will a tape showing a radical Obama at Harvard protesting for radical Derrick Bell really change any minds?  Most people are already aware he wasn't serving orange juice with Anita Bryant back then.  Voters pretty much put more stock in "what have you done lately" than something that occurred 20 years ago.  It has to be big.

One possibility is a revelation about Ayers and Dohrn, whom the campaign told us weren't in the picture until the infamous coffee in Ayers' living room to kick off the State Senate run in 1995.  If there's video of the two or three of them together prior to 1995, especially prior to 1990, that brings Cashill's theory about "Dreams" into play.

Also, one revelation might open a sort of flood gate, as it has with Rush's advertisers.  Political junkies are aware of at least two juicy stories the press tried to sit on; one was the Rashid Khalidi going away party tape (with Ayers and Dohrn in attendance) and the other is the interview with Percy Sutton whereupon he talked about Obama being sent to Harvard via a wealthy Saudi named Prince al-Aweed.   Funny, Politico inserted itself in that story as well, just like they inserted themselves in the tape release today.   Donald Rummy once said there are unknown unknowns.  What else might someone be sitting on?  

Anyway, if a narrative gets out that Obama was actually a hand-picked candidate by 60s-70s Marxist radicals who nurtured him up through the White House with stealth provided along the way by friends in the left-leaning media that might actually make a dent in his chances this fall.   In the least it would put him on defense and take away some of his advantage over the presumptive nominee Mittens on health care (Mitt could say that Obama will want a full state takeover if reelected, etc).  Then again, according to some in the know, Chicago has a truckload of opposition research about the Mittster, ready to pop at any moment.   Better buckle up.

NOTHING BURGER?  3/7/12

PBS claims the only editing done on Buzzfeed's tape was to get rid of some background material but they played the entire portion that included Obama's words.  PBS published the entire tape in their possession, although admitting it was probably edited after being filmed in 1990.  But they are playing coy and sneaky just like Obama and friends.  As Hannity noted, the big embrace from Obama to Bell after his introduction was snipped from the Buzzfeed version.  PBS defends them by saying they were paying for the video 'by the second', which is hilarious.  How much does Public Broadcasting charge per second, anyway?

At any rate, the video itself was far from earth-shattering and had actually appeared on PBS in 2008 (meaning only a few liberals saw it).   Still, not a lot.   But a nothing burger?  Maybe not, but maybe a tough sell.  For this to be effective Breitbart's troops will have to act like lawyers laying out a circumstantial case by establishing a pattern, which takes time and requires audience attention.  Romney has already said he won't be leveling salvos at the O (ala McCain) so he'll be running from this like the plague.   Fox News and Rush can't elevate the story to national prominence--notice Obama has already done his presser and probably won't do another one until closing day of the GOP Convention in August.  So it'll be hard to challenge him on it directly.  Yeah, it might be fun to see whether they try to throw Bell under the bus with Wright and the others, but if so that will be done by Carney.   What will happen is a complete breakdown of everything controversial Bell said that can be tied to Obama but as we've seen with the Catholic birth control issue, don't be surprised if the left tries to turn this around into a "GOP is racist" meme. 


So we'll see.  Maybe this is a deliberate strategy in play--create a lot of buzz and put out the weakest tape first so everyone poo-poos it and levels snark and criticism only to launch bigger bombshells down the road.  Or maybe it's much-ado-about same ole same ole.   It will take a lot more than what we saw tonight to make a dent.