September 12, 2008 09:03 PM UTC

McCain's Campaign Is A "Blizzard of Lies"

• 1 Comments
• by: Go Blue

From today’s NY Times.

Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?

These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign – and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 – my first year at The Times – trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful – you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” – she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”

Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she accepted the handout, but spent it on something else. You see, long before she decided to cancel the bridge, Congress had told Alaska that it could keep the federal money originally earmarked for that project and use it elsewhere.

So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction.

Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.

And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”

Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.

One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues – on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.

But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.

And the Times isn’t alone. More on the flip side.

A few more of today’s headlines.

The “Straight Talk Express” has detoured into doublspeak

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone’s taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.

The McCain-Palin campaign made at least three other aggressive claims this week that omitted key details or made dubious assumptions to criticize Obama. It equated lawmakers’ requests for money for special projects with corruption, even though Palin has sought nearly $200 million in such “earmarks” this year.

New election low: distorting the fact-checking

The Sept. 11 memorial bells chimed with beautiful clarity Thursday, from Shanksville, Pa., to ground zero and beyond, a reminder of tragedy and our nation’s real enemies.

What a welcome respite, that serene sound, after days of presidential politics that roared and sputtered with a cacophony of distortion, innuendo and outright lies.

It got so bad the day before the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that FactCheck.org — one of the nonpartisan journalism websites heroically trying to strain truth amid all the sound and fury — had to put out an extraordinary news release.

It chastised John McCain’s campaign for — now get this — distorting FactCheck’s debunking of distortions.

Tiptoeing Through the Mud

It has been hard to remember lately that the country is in the midst of one of the most consequential presidential elections of our lifetimes.

The campaign is a blur of flying pieces of junk, lipstick and gutter-style attacks. John McCain’s deceptions about Barack Obama’s views and Sarah Palin’s flip-flopping suggest an unedifying scuffle over a city council seat.

The media bear a heavy responsibility because “balance” does not require giving equal time to truth and lies. So does McCain, who is running a disgraceful, dishonorable campaign of distraction and diversion.

The Scream Machine

There was a time when Republicans campaigned on their ideas, programs and values. This year — lacking ideas, programs or values — John McCain and Sarah Palin are running for the White House on an elaborate fictional narrative of victimhood. Their supposed persecutors are Democrats and the news media, and the aim of this whole charade is to keep Americans from talking about ideas, programs and values.

Every day, the McCain campaign brays anew with over-the-top indignation at “the outrageous attacks” on Palin’s family. The McCain people don’t cite specifics, because there are no specifics to cite. What newsworthy Democrat has ventured any personal criticism of Palin or any member of her family? What serious news outlet has done any such thing?

While Krugman dubbed it a “Blizzard of Lies,” I consider this to be a shit storm. The McCain campaign insults the American people every day with their fake staged outrage and perpetuated lies against Barack Obama.

McCain used to be better than this. Unfortunately he’s given in to the Rovian politics of smear and fear and will say and do anything to get elected. As Krugman said, “how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.”

As this campaign indicates, McCain would make an even worse President than Bush.