The Media Call McCain and Palin on Their Trail of Lies
Newsday. Posted September 15, 2008.
A rundown of 25 responses in the media to McCain and Palin's
bald-faced lies from the past two weeks.
The McCain campaign has spent the last couple weeks making claims and
accusations of dubious accuracy, mocking independent fact checkers,
and telling everyone who will listen that the "media filter" doesn't
matter.
They better hope they're right, because they're getting a lot of
pushback:
The Boston Globe has a story reporting that Sarah Palin's claim to
have visited Iraq last year was false -- she only got to a Kuwait/Iraq
border station on a trip to meet Alaska guard troops. Previously, she
acknowledged that her visit to Ireland had involved changing planes.
Bloomberg reported that the campaign's estimates of crowd sizes last
week during McCain/Palin joint appearances may have been false.
McCain's assertion on "The View" on Friday that Sarah Palin didn't
take any earmarks as governor of Alaska when she did earned him four
Pinnochios -- a liar ranking -- from the Washington Post's
factchecker.
The NYTimes frontpaged "an avalanche of criticism" of McCain for
"regularly stretching the truth" on Saturday.
And, in a memo, the Obama campaign helpfully summarizes a litany of
other denunciations:
The reviews are in on McCain's strategy of distorting, distracting and
outright lying to the American people and what that says about his
character, but the St. Petersburg Times put it best when they said his
"campaign of lies disgraces McCain" and "McCain's straight talk has
become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent
stain on his reputation for integrity."
St. Petersburg Times (Editorial) "Campaign of lies disgraces McCain"
McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and
double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for
integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will
backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were
so attracted to him. LINK
Atlanta Journal Constitution (Jay Bookman) The volume and audacity of
lies pouring from the McCain campaign is startling and even
historicThat's really something, lying straight out about a FactCheck
group, knowing that you're going to get caught but not giving a damn
about it. With stuff like this, the McCain camp has cut any remaining
tethers to reality and integrity and is now floating wherever the
winds of illusion and whimsy may take them. It's quite remarkable, and
quite insulting to the intelligence of the American people. LINK
Pittsburg Post Gazette (Tony Norman) Where have you gone, John McCain?
You once said you'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Is it
worth winning an election if it means forfeiting your soul on the
altar of political expediency?Where is the honor in reciting lies for
something as transient as political advantage? What are we as voters
supposed to make of political ads that accuse Barack Obama of
advocating sex education for kindergartners? Despite the
intellectually dishonest maneuvering of your campaign, many Americans
admire you, John McCain. Before you embraced the darkness, I was among
those who disagreed with your politics, but considered you honorable.
Now it's hard to look at you without seeing the scoundrels who made
you what you are today. LINK
Kansas City Star (Barb Shelly) McCain stoops to deception, distortion:
Maybe you've seen it. The campaign ad cites the authoritative journal
Education Week to claim that Democrat Barack Obama has been missing in
action on education reformShamelessly misleading the public?These are
old tricks we've been seeing in local elections for years. Distort.
Twist. Deceive. Damage. And the winning candidate drags a load of
public contempt into office. I had hoped for better from McCainJohn
McCain may win the presidency this way, but he will lose the respect
he has acquired over the years. LINK
Boston Globe (Scot Lehigh) Pretzel logic from the McCain campaign:
Here's the question voters should be asking themselves this week: Just
how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am? The answer: Dumb
enough to hoodwink with charges so contrived and cynical they make
your teeth acheAs the nonpartisan campaign watchdog
FactCheck.org has
made clear, this is a thoroughly dishonest ad [Kindergarten]. No
matter. The McCain campaign has shown it's ready and willing to say
preposterous things to win. LINK
Washington Post (David Ignatius) Stopping at nothing to win: Thinking
about the Palin choice, you begin to ponder other moves McCain has
made on the road to winning the Republican nomination. McCain was
right a few years ago to warn that Bush's tax cuts would have
potentially ruinous fiscal consequences; now he favors extending the
cuts that have produced a crisis of debt and deficit. Why did he
switch his position, other than political opportunism?In May 2006,
after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win
conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for
the sake of winning. "I don't want it that badly," McCain answered. "I
will continue to do what is rightIf that means I can't get the
Republican nomination, fine. I've had a happy life. The worst thing I
can do is sell my soul to the devil." He was right. LINK
Washington Post (Eugene Robinson) 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 victimhoodCreating the false impression that Democrats
and journalists are unfairly attacking Palin serves another purpose as
well: It helps create the impression that legitimate and necessary
questions about her record -- such as her one-time support for the
Bridge to Nowhere or her history of seeking the congressional earmarks
she now claims to reject -- are somehow out of bounds. LINK
Chicago Tribune (Steve Chapman) To McCain the truth is expandable:
McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough
to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with
ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible
enough to believe. He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is
willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to
lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his
soul. LINK
Chicago Tribune (Frank James) "McCain plays dirty on Obama & sex-ed"
So the McCain ad, in the way it contorts the truth, is pretty shocking
from a candidate who has promised to bring change and reform to
Washington, a man who's urging Americans to live for a cause larger
than themselves. This is an old-fashioned, unreconstructed politics
whose goal, first and foremost, is to get the candidate elected, the
truth be damned. McCain has said he'd rather lose a campaign than lose
a war. But it appears from this ad he'd rather lose any purchase he
has on straight-talk than lose this presidential election. LINK
Chicago Tribune (Eric Zorn) `Sex ed' ad educates us on the character
of John McCain: The surprise came at the end: I'm John McCain and I
approved this message. With that infamous admission, McCain
surrendered his integrity and signaled a willingness to say or do
anything to get elected We used to expect better from John McCain. No
longer. LINK
TIME (Joe Klein): A new rule here: Rather than do the McCain
campaign's bidding by wasting space on Senator Honor's daily lies and
bilge--his constant attempts to divert attention from substantive
issues--I'm going to assume that others will spend more than enough
time on the sewage that Steve Schmidt is shoveling and, from now on,
try to stick to the issues. LINK
TIME (Joe Klein) Apology Not Accepted: he is responsible for one of
the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy
that I won't abet its spread by linking to it, but here's the
McClatchy fact check.. I just can't wait for the moment when John
McCain--contrite and suddenly honorable again in victory or
defeat--talks about how things got a little out of control in the
passion of the moment. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. LINK
TIME (Joe Klein) Another McCain Flip Flop: Army Times, which is
not--last time I checked--a radical left wing publication, takes John
McCain to task for changing his position on the Future Combat Systems
program. This is yet another example of how running for President has
driven McCain off the deep end. In the past, he was one of the more
consistent voices against foolish Pentagon weapon systems. Here's a
program that McCain previously wanted to end. Then Obama says he wants
to slow-walk itand McCain--reflexively, it appears, and unable to
recall that he previously opposed it--decides to support it. LINK
New York Times (Paul Krugman) Blizzard of Lies: I'm talking, instead,
about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of
the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest
2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of
things to comeAnd now the team that hopes to form the next
administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look
like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how
that team would run the country? What it says, I'd argue, is that the
Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration
would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain
and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much,
much worse. LINK
New York Times (Editorial): The most disheartening aspect of a
scurrilous Republican ad falsely accusing Barack Obama of promoting
sex education for kindergarten children is its closing line: "I'm John
McCain, and I approved this message." This from that straight-talker
of yore, who fervidly denounced the 2004 Bush campaign's Swift Boat
character attacks on John Kerry's military record. What a difference
four years makes, especially after Mr. McCain secured the nomination
by hiring some of the same low-blow artists from the Bush campaign.
LINK
New York Times (Larry Rohter): The advertisement ["Disrespectful"] is
the latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the
facts. The nonpartisan political analysis group
Factcheck.org has
already criticized "Disrespectful" as "particularly egregious," saying
that it "goes down new paths of deception," and is "peddling false
quotes." LINK
New York Times (Michael Cooper and Jim Rutenberg) McCain Barbs
Stirring Outcry as Distortions: Mr. McCain came into the race
promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the
kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the
Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a
calculation advisers made this summer -- over the strenuous objections
of some longtime hands who helped him build his "Straight Talk" image
-- to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the
eyes of voters LINK
ABC News-Political Punch (Jake Tapper): One can only imagine what the
John McCain of 2004 - who called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads
"dishonest and dishonorable" - would say about this ad I suppose one
could twist this stuff any way you want if your only point is to make
an inflammatory charge. And win an election The New York Times'
"Checkpoint" ("Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy "),
Factcheck.org ("Obama, contrary to the ad's insinuation, does not
support explicit sex education for kindergarteners") and the
Washington Post's Fact Checker ("McCain's 'Education' Spot Is
Dishonest, Deceptive") say the ad is a gross distortion. I agree -- in
both senses of the word "gross." LINK
AP (Charles Babington): The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into
doublespeak. 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 said Friday that Palin never asked for
money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor, even though she
has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year. He says Obama
would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80
percent of families would get tax cuts instead. LINK
Huffington Post (Sam Stein): When does being a governor or mayor for a
short period of time not disqualify your credentials on national
security? When you are John McCain and your task is to defend your
vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. When does being a governor or
mayor for a short period of time ABSOLUTELY disqualify your
credentials on national security? When you are John McCain and your
task is to defeat primary opponents Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani . .
. Fast-forward nearly a year, and the argument McCain made back then
is being used against his vice presidential pick today. Only Sarah
Palin held the post of mayor of Wasilla for less time than Rudy
Giuliani headed New York City. And her gubernatorial stint in Alaska
is shorter than that of Mitt Romney's in Massachusetts. McCain, not
surprisingly, has changed his tune. LINK
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