Jon Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" Video Classic Karl Rove-Like Tactic To Discredit Ron Paul

On Wednesday, an anonymous account was created on YouTube and a few brief minutes later a video using this anonymous person's account was uploaded depicting Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian Candidate" because he was Obama's U.S. Ambassador to China, speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has an adopted Chinese daughter. The person(s) behind the video intended to make it appear that the campaign of Ron Paul was behind the negative attack ad. A link to the video was almost immediately sent to Huntsman's campaign where the first viewer of the video was associated with Huntsman's campaign website. Not surprisingly, the Huntsman campaign pointed fingers at Ron Paul's campaign and the media gleefully chimed in, blaming it on the candidate by implication because one of his supporters supposedly created it.

Only a fool would truly  believe that a Ron Paul supporter actually created that video. What we know is that polls show that only Paul is in a position to compete against front-runner Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, where an open primary allows voters of all stripes to participate in Tuesday's election. Huntsman, who has devoted all of his efforts in New Hampshire, can't break 10% in Granite State polls, while Ron Paul has surged to 20% or better in some polls, although well behind Romney. Huntsman and Romney are fellow Mormons who have no love lost for one another. The video most likely was part of dirty tricks operation by the Romney campaign to kill two birds with one stone. The subject matter of the ad clearly is aimed at stirring up xenophobic fears towards Huntsman at the same time making those who back Ron Paul's campaign appear to be simple-minded racists. The diabolical nature of it is a classical Karl Rove-type negative campaign operation against political opponents.

Throughout his career as an operative within the Republican Party, Rove has been at the center of one dirty trick after another. Rove, who was raised in Nevada, took his first role running a U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois in 1970 after dropping out of the University of Utah. During the campaign, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign headquarters of a state treasurer candidate, Alan Dixon (D), where he stole letterhead bearing the candidate's name. He then printed up fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, in order to successfully disrupt Dixon's campaign rally. The college drop out became a key figure in the dirty tricks operation of Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign and became involved in a highly disputed election to head up the national College Republicans organization. Rove manipulated the credentialing of delegates to the convention to claim victory over his opponent. The dispute was taken to the RNC Chairman, George H.W. Bush, who declared Rove the winner. When the losing candidate wrote to Bush inquiring how he could have concluded Rove won the election fairly, Bush sent the young man the "angriest letter" he had ever received in his life.

After serving as chairman of the College Republicans, Rove settled down in Texas where he worked for campaign organizations associated with the Bushes and their allies. Rove helped Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm defeat Ron Paul for a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. When he worked on the campaign of former Texas Gov. Bill Clements, he claimed his offices had been bugged by a political opponent, an allegation dismissed by the FBI and police after an investigation was conducted. Critics believed Rove had made the story up and planted an inoperable bug in his own offices to cast suspicion on Clements' political opponent a short time before the election. A common Rove tactic is to create whispering campaigns about political opponents, including accusations they are gay, a tactic employed against Texas Gov. Ann Richards when George W. Bush ran against her. Rove used push poll questions asking voters their impression of Richards if they knew her staff was dominated by lesbians. Rove's step-father, incidentally, later lived an openly gay life with a same-sex partner after divorcing his mother, who committed suicide. George H.W. Bush would fire him from his 1992 re-election campaign after he got caught leaking negative information about a close Bush campaign ally to columnist Robert Novak.

Rove's dirty tricks operation reared its ugly head again when he ran George W. Bush's race for president in 2000 during the Republican primaries. Suggestions that McCain was not a natural born citizen because he was born in Panama while his father was serving in the Navy emerged. Rumors were circulated via fliers during the South Carolina primary that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that he was gay and that his wife was a drug addict. McCain was accused of being guilty of treason because of things he told the Vietnames while being tortured in a POW camp in Vietnam for five years. Other rumors were spread that McCain was mentally unstable and had actually gone insane while a POW in Vietnam.

As a Fox News analyst today, Rove's attacks against Ron Paul have been especially sharp and always focus on marginalizing him and his supporters as much as possible. Rove claims not to be working on behalf of any of the candidates, but his public statements leave no doubt that Romney is the candidate that he believes should be nominated by the Republicans in 2012. Fox News commentators all ape the negative attacks Rove fuels during his appearances on the cable news network. Fox News, not surpisingly, did all it could to tarnish Paul over the Huntsman video despite absolutely no evidence that anyone associated with his campaign had anything to do with its production. Yes, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that only the mind of someone like Karl Rove would have created the controversial Huntsman video. Watch as Fox News blames it on Paul's people without any substantiation. I can barely stand to watch Fox News any more because of the way it has permitted a low life like Rove to manipulate the political discussions in this country.



UPDATE: Cando.com says its analysis points to the Jon Huntsman campaign itself as likely being behind the attack video against him, which makes it all the more sinister if true.