TheAgitator.com
McCain’s Continuing Assault on the Truth
Monday, September 15th, 2008Steve Chapman’s column this morning nails the John McCain campaign’s assault on truth and voter intelligence (an already easy target) of late.
In that vein, Mickey Kaus reported Friday that McCain’s campaign is now running a Spanish-language ad attacking Barack Obama for failing to support McCain’s comprehensive immigration bill. It’s yet another McCain ad chock-full of egregious distortions. What the ad doesn’t mention:
• Obama (like McCain) voted twice to end Senate filibusters on that bill.
• Both filibusters were led by the Republicans, not Obama or the Democrats.
• McCain himself said in the primaries that if the same bill were to come up for a vote in the Senate today, he would no longer vote for it.
In fact, it’s pretty difficult to discern anything truthful about the ad at all.
In John McCain’s defense he is a lying sack of shit.
In John McCain’s defense, we the voters been rewarding bad behavour like his for some time now.
Well it appears to be a winning strategy. He is ahead on In-Trade, he is ahead on Real Clear Politics’s aggregated poll, and according to Real Clear Politics he has moved ahead in the electoral count–i.e. states where if the election were held today McCain would be the expected winner.
And with each new lie it keeps Obama on the defensive. McCain tells a fib or a whopper and then Obama and crew have to run down the facts and try to present them. If the actual truth of the matter is more complicated, then it is pretty much a futile effort.
Still it is a long time till election day, so who knows. I’m thinking though that Obama may have already lost the election. He just can’t seem to get it together anymore. Like the fight against Hillary took it out of him, hence the return to the standard Democratic playbook (e.g. his acceptance speech at the convention could have been delivered by any of the following: Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Clinton [either of them], Mondale, Carter, etc.).
A Spanish language ad for a Republican Candidate?
Get out your Gallagher rain coats. The heads of Lou Dobb’s, Hannity, and everyone at The Corner to explode like an overripe watermelons.
I don’t see this as all that bad.
1) McCain pretty consistently supported pro-immigration policies, all at the expense of his standing in the GOP. The fact that Republicans might have been leading the filibuster doesn’t really mean anything. McCain wasn’t leading it and its not a generic Republican that is running for President.
2) While its troubling that he said he would not vote for his own bill now, I don’t see that as much different than Obama saying that he didn’t support NAFTA, but telling the Canadian government under the table that nothing was going to change. People say things to the extremes in both parties. I don’t like it, but it doesn’t make him despicable.
Westy –
McCain did change his position a bit on immigration during the primary, though you’re right, he’s has always been pro-immigration, and generally seems to still support it.
My problem with the ad is that it implies that Obama is anti-immigration, or opposes a pathway to citizenship, which he clearly isn’t, and doesn’t. The ad blames Democrats for sinking McCain’s bill, and tries to make it look as if the Democrats and Obama are opposed to giving illegals a shot at citizenship. It was the GOP that sank that bill.
That McCain no longer supports the bill he’s falsely criticizing Obama for opposing is just gravy.
In 2004 I heard a discussion on NPR in which one political consultant threw out a soundbite attack and the other political consultant spent some time taking it apart. The first one then said (paraphrasing), “If it takes me five seconds for me to attack your candidate, and two minutes for you to defend him, I win.”
I appreciated his honesty.
Precisely, the phrase, “A lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on,” comes to mind. This is why candidates lie. Voters want to be told what they want to hear, and there is little downside, especially close to the election. Which ever candidate’s “message/lies” connect with the larger portion of the voting public wins. McCain seems to have hit the right topics so far.
Hmmm, my bottle of scotch was getting a bit low last night. I think I’ll need to stop and buy another…sigh it is going to be a long 7 weeks.
Radley,
I haven’t seen the ad (and don’t understand Spanish to listen to it online anyway), but is it an unfair to say that Obama was not on the frontlines of the immigration debate? I think its fairly accurate to say that, while not opposing these immigration bills, Obama has not stuck his neck out to support them either. McCain has done that, his recent statements notwithstanding. I also think we all know that a McCain Presidency would likely be pro-immigration. I don’t see his statements as a policy shift, so much as campaigning.
Is this worse than saying that McCain wants to fight in Iraq for 100 years or that he thinks that there are no problems in the economy because he said that the “fundamentals are still sound.” Seems like both parties are misusing sound-bites and making disingenuous claims. I think the media is riding McCain a little harder on them right now — and a little bit disproportionately.
“In John McCain’s defense, we the voters been rewarding bad behavour like his for some time now.”
So does that make us his enablers? Does that mean we get to stage an intervention and harangue him into going to truth rehab or joining Liars Anonymous?
McCain is pro-ILLEGAL immigration and so is Obama. Anything other than “get in line, follow the laws like everyone else” is by definition ILLEGAL. If the laws need to change to make what today would be ILLEGAL into a LEGAL method, then get the law changed, otherwise it’s still ILLEGAL.
And turning ILLEGAL immigrants into LEGAL ones is rewarding their bad behavior.
SO…the Republicans suck. The Dems do too. We know that. Since this is Libertarian leaning site…where are the analyses of the Libertarians and what they are up to? I’m sick of McCain and Obama…where’s the info on Barr?
And turning ILLEGAL immigrants into LEGAL ones is rewarding their bad behavior.
I don’t consider risking death in the desert to work long hours to do low-paying, backbreaking work in order to send it to your family to be “bad behavior.” And I don’t consider obeying arbitrary laws to the point where you’re willing to let your family live in abject poverty to be “good behavior.”
There can be no moral obligation to obey an immoral law.
All you “the law is the law” or “rule of law” types can blow me. You’re a bunch of mindless sheep twats.
Good question. I think it does if we reward the behavior with our votes. That’s telling the politicians (and the consultants they pay to come up with this stuff) that it works and they should continue it. That’s what enables them.
BTW, I don’t intend that as a pro-Obama statement. Both camps are deceptive and both think that telling the truth is electoral folly. Voting for either one of them encourages them to think the policy of deception worked.
Regarding the five second versus two minute bit: I would like to hear one or the other candidate say, “Any time you hear the opposition summarize my position in a five-second sound bite, they are telling you they think you are stupid and will accept a short lie over a long truth.”
But, the lying will continue. I don’t think there is any one issue where one of these candidates could suddenly be forthcoming about a pro-Constitution policy stand that he is willing to fight for that would get me to vote for him. In the aggregate, they are both looking to move us further away from a limited government of enumerated powers and that means they are un-vote-for-able to me. How many lies they tell between now and the big lie one of them will tell about defending the Constitution on January 20th is interesting theater, but it’s a sideshow since I couldn’t vote for either one.
I would, however, send HBO pay-per-view money for a 90-minute debate solely on how they plan to address social security and medicare, moderated by people from Cato and, for balance, from a competing socialist-leaning think tank. They could title it “Saving Ponzi”.
A lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on…
But today we don’t have to go anywhere outside our house to get the facts straight. There’s no need to get cynical.
I think if you’re an Obama supporter, right now you have to stop thinking the election is a long way away and start arming yourself now with the facts that matter and spread the truth. When you stack the two candidates together and look at the facts, there is no question Obama has outperformed McCain and has the better judgement and better solution for our country.
Lets all do what we can to STOP conversations about smears and lipstick and talk about the facts.
If the GOP wins this election again this year, voters will have essentially shot this country in the face. We can NOT let this election be swayed by BS.
Quite right.
Think about what people like Lee are saying. They want to prevent people who clearly want these jobs at a wage lower than most Americans are willing to accept. Also, Lee and is ilk, want and think that it is better that Americans do these jobs. Americans who are probably better educated. Lee and is brethern just don’t understand the fundamental concept behind trade. Both parties agree to the trade because both parties believe that they will be made better off. As such preventing these kinds of trades makes both parties worse off.
I don´t vote in the US, but at least McCain acknowledges that Latinos exist. Obama is ignoring Latinos.
[...] Assault on the Truth” September 17, 2008 Radley Balko comes through again with some more coverage of McCain’s lies and a little fact checking to top it off: Steve Chapman’s column this morning nails the John [...]