Blog P.I.

Almost a year ago, Blog P.I. called out a tone-deaf oppo docment from the RNC making a ham-fisted and easily-refuted argument against Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, and by extension the entire lefty netroots. Today U.S. News’ Washington Whispers points out another one, which is even worse.

This time they sought to draw attention to John Edwards’ high-rolling, high-spending ways (which every political reporter already knows about) with a mailer trying to sully John Edwards’ name by tying him to… Johnny Cash?

Seriously:

Unsurprisingly, Cash’s estate contacted the RNC (and presumably U.S. News) to ask that the Highwayman’s name be removed from future editions. So apparently now they’re calling him “Johnny Bills,” which doesn’t make any sense.

But it makes more sense than trying to drag down Johnny Cash’s name. At least an unidentified RNC official conceded the mistake to Washington Whispers:

We’re in a ring of fire. … They called us and said they had some issues with the trademarks and all. But they were cool about it. I mean, we have the same constituency.

Or maybe they thought associating Edwards with Cash would somehow… hurt Edwards? The connection between the two Johns is non-existent, except maybe that both their middle initials is “R.”

As a Johnny Cash fan, you can certainly count me as displeased with the RNC’s attempt to make “Johnny Cash” sound like a bad thing. And let’s not forget, this is the same guy who once sang, in the song whence this post derives its name:

Now this should be a lesson if you plan to start a folk group Don’t go mixin’ politics with the folk songs of our land Just work on harmony and diction Play your banjo well And if you have political convictions keep them to yourself

By all means, RNC, keep hitting John Edwards on his rhetoric and economic proposals. And his being out of touch with the electorate is fair game, too. But please, leave the Man in Black out of it.