Read the full memo, as obtained by the Atlantic's Josh Green, here.
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Marc reenabled comments? They've been off and on for so long that people have forgotten, I think! ;p 
I just read the article, but haven't sifted through the primary sources yet. It seems like the Penn memos on owning the concept of 'American' are the only eyebrow-raisers here. If anything, this revelation casts Clinton herself in a more favorable light, having mostly, sort of ignored the 'foreignness' strategy. The stuff about her dysfunctional staff was already common knowledge.
This reminds me of something Alexander Cockburn said when yet more Watergate tape transcripts were released, full of venom, jealousy, bigotry, and Haldeman-sucking-up, some years after Nixon's supposed rehabilitation and death-as-elder-statesman: that it was "like looking up a rat's nostril."
Note to Mark Penn: 2050 isn't even a presidential election year. What an ass.
This is why it's silly for Obama to be taking flak for his "dollar bill" comment. Of course McCain et al. are going to try to de-Americanize Obama. It's naive to think otherwise. In fact, they're already doing it. Take a look at the first "celeb" ad -- notice the prominence of the Berlin Victory Column and the words "Foreign Oil" toward the end of the spot. It's clearly an attempt to tie him to foreign symbolism. To over-chastise Obama for defending himself from the inevitable was a sly preemptive move by the McCain camp to shield themselves from honest criticism. Notice how little play Bob Herbert and others got for their discussion of the symbolism coming from the McCain camp. I'd say we should just accept that there's going to be a shady back-and-forth on this. Cynicism is probably warranted all around.
You are such a jackass. I'm 70 years old. I have my wits about me and you are such a biased, failed, narrow individual. I have so many words for you that a lady of my age shout not say. Imagine them, visualize them, own them. You are such a disapointment. You are sick!!!! Mardell W
"I have my wits about me and you are such a biased" Comment of the day!
Clarification: the "I have my wits about me" part. Marc runs a great blog.
Mark Penn is not fundamentally human. I once scraped some Mark Penn off of my shoe.
It's really sad to see that Mark Penn's idea of "American" is limited to waving the American flag in the background of your campaign pictures. But if he wants to do a little bit better in the future, here's a real pro-American idea he should consider: what do you say we win this war? Oh wait, that's a Republican issue. Nevermind
Marc, what do you think of this? To me it is horrible, and goes against what is the American ideal--Obama articulated in his 2004 convention speech what I think is truly American (not Red nor Blue states but the United States of America...). But I'm such a long-term Obama supporter I realize I'm biased.
It must be my slow season, because I've carefully read over all this hellish material, in the interest of understanding how HRC, the one with all the advantages, was derailed. To my sorrow, I now believe that if she had gone with ALL of Penn's most innuendo-laden strategies to manipulate perceptions about Obama, and gone with them in time and not later, she would have bulldozed him out of her way before his message began to resonate so widely. In other words, Mark Penn could have helped her put paid to the Zeitgeist. Maybe she fired him for a classic reason -- giving timely advice that went unheeded. Thank God.
That would assume Elatia that Penn knew what he was talking about. He didn't even know California delegate count wasn't winner take all. It's entirely possible that the all-out technique could have buried Clinton not only for this campaign but pretty much for good, and would have made it harder for McCain to do the semi-subtle things he's doing now. The one thing that is clear is she ran on a very Bushlike tactic - Pretend your great weakness (management/ready to let etc) is your strength and your opponents weakness. If Obama had started this campaign with the advantages Clinton did, he would have buried her, but not even because he's a great manager of people - he's clearly good, but he looks amazing next to the Clinton clowns.
Jeezus This memo sounds like it was written by Nixon.
God, Penn sounds like a miserable sumbitch, doesn't he?
"Save it for 2050." Penn is an a**hole. Although, I suppose we have him to thank for the fact that Hillary is not the nominee. Maybe, maybe not.
I am not a Penn fan, but it does seem to me that it is well within the job description of a political strategist to present ideas that the candidate may or may not ultimately reject as "out of bounds" or otherwise ill-advised. That is important context for these memos.
I agree that this does show Clinton in a more favorable light, compared to McCain who has steamrolled over all of the lines Clinton refused to cross. I also agree with Alkali that all the ideas should be on the table, so one question is how representative of Penn's thinking is this particular e-mail. From what I have seen, and what I have read of Penn at politico, this seems to be exactly what he advocated, and is not just something thrown out during a brainstorm. Ultimately, Clinton simply wasn't as attractive a candidate this year. She decided to run on experience as the virtual incumbent during a time when the voting public wanted dramatic change. They got outworked at the grassroots, and they didn't manage their resources nearly as effectively, and they didn't have the message discipline Obama's team had. Obama was simply the better candidate in 2008.
I find it funny that so many people are shocked by this sort of thing. Mark Penn comes out of the marketing/advertising world which literally exists to lie to, and manipulate, people. To people like Penn, voters=consumers. In other words, "it's just my job to sell this product." If anything, this says more about the amorality of our capitalist/consumer culture than it does about politics.
His memo only explicitly states what all real Americans already know about the America-hating, socialist, utterly repulsive "citizen of the world" Barack Hussein Obama. Allah Akbar, Barack!!
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This blog needs more comments, so here you go Marc. =)
Posted by josh | August 11, 2008 7:30 PM