John McCain and the Lying Game

By Joe Klein, Time. Posted September 20, 2008.

John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of
political propriety.

Politics has always been lousy with blather and chicanery. But there
are rules and traditions too. In the early weeks of the
general-election campaign, a consensus has grown in the political
community -- a consensus that ranges from practitioners like Karl Rove
to commentators like, well, me -- that John McCain has allowed his
campaign to slip the normal bounds of political propriety. The
situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our
normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less
than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity and
inaccuracy Â… or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's claims
skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers,
even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board,
are calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain
done to deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his
transgressions of degree or of kind?

Almost every politician stretches the truth. We journalists try to
point out the exaggerations and criticize them, then let the voters
decide. When McCain says, for example, that Barack Obama favors a
government-run health-care system, he's not telling the truth -- Obama
wants a market-based system subsidized by the government -- but
McCain's untruth illuminates a general policy direction, which is
sketchy but sort of within the bounds. (Obama's plan would increase
government regulation of the drug and insurance industries.) Obama has
done this sort of thing too. In July, he accused McCain of supporting
the foreign buyout of an American company that could lead to the loss
of about 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. McCain did support the deal,
but the job loss comes many years later and was not anticipated at the
time. That, however, is where the moral equivalency between these two
campaigns ends.

McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the
problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless
assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a
consistent--and witting--disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million
Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National
Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new
nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that
Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to
say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always
opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating
demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics.

Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad
claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for
kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned
kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The
accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said
McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting
"lipstick on a pig" was another clearly misleading attack -- an
obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for
the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's
assault on the "lite media" for spreading rumors about Palin's
personal life -- actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the
tabloid press -- was more of the same. And that gets us close to the
real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate
can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent
and phony diversions.

This new strategy emerged during the first week of Obama's overseas
trip in late July. McCain had been intending to contrast his alleged
foreign policy expertise and toughness with Obama's inexperience and
alleged weakness. McCain wanted to "win" the Iraq war and face down
the Iranians. But those issues became moot when the Iraqis said they
favored Obama's withdrawal plan and the Bush Administration started
talking to the Iranians. At that point, McCain committed his original
sin -- out of pique, I believe -- questioning Obama's patriotism,
saying the Democrat would rather lose a war than lose an election.
Ever since, McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and demeaning
ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been
widely documented and exposed. The strategy is an obvious attempt to
camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the
insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on
most issues -- especially economic matters -- with an exceedingly
unpopular President.

The good news is that the vile times may be ending. The coming debates
will decide this race, and it isn't easy to tell lies when your
opponent is standing right next to you. The Wall Street collapse
demands a more sober campaign as well. But these dreadful weeks should
not be forgotten. John McCain has raised serious questions about
whether he has the character to lead the nation. He has defaced his
beloved military code of honor. He has run a dirty campaign.