There's something happening here, but you don't know what it is. Is it a new sense of patriotism sweeping the nation? No. Is it a cascade of hope? Nope. Is it the jingle-lingle-ling of change? Is it a stampede of lipsticked pigs? Is it a new wave of spirit-filled laughter? No, no, and no. A colleague of mine calls it the "campaign season of discontent." Barack Obama calls it the "silly season in politics." Things have gotten dirty. And, it's our fault.
Americans regularly say they despise negative campaigning, yet negative campaigns are much more likely to be persuasive. I guess we don't like being fat either, but it doesn't stop us from strapping on the feedbag and scooching down in the couch for another riveting episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?". Negative attack ads are lowest common denominator discourse. And they work. For a while. If we allow them.
The McCain campaign is charting new territory in the depths of their distortions and attacks this past week or so. They will soon make the '04 Swiftboaters look like Boy Scouts. Make no mistake about it, the bulk of the negativity is coming from the Rovian Republicans, not the Dems. If it were balanced there wouldn't be scores of liberals wailing and gnashing their teeth at Obama's failure to come out swinging. And it's not just nastiness, it's flat out dishonesty.
Even Don Sipple, a Republican advertising strategist, argues “I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama.”
Matthew Dowd, Republican campaign strategist for Bush, says, “I think the McCain folks realize if they can get this thing down in the mud, drag Obama into the mud, that’s where they have the best advantage to win. If they stay up at 10,000 feet, they don’t.”
Let's agree on something here: politicians twist and distort the facts. Big surprise. Obama's campaign has done it, and I don't like it. You can't win a presidential race without lying. Sad but true. So, it seems that the choice before us is to withdraw from the process, or choose the candidate whose lies are less vicious and less frequent. There's no doubting the fact that I have a dog in this hunt, and that I have picked a side, but that does not change the reality that professional fact checkers (like factcheck.org) have called out McCain twice as frequently as Obama. The Republican response? It's liberal bias in the media. My response? Liars.
Pay attention now. I'm not going to say anything about McCain that is not objectively true here. At this point in the campaign, McCain is the much bigger liar.
It actually doesn't bother me that much when McCain distorts Obama's tax plan, suggesting that it will harm families. I happen to think the analysis relies on flawed trickle-down models, but it is a political argument, and that's fair game. Or, when McCain calls Obama's health plan "state-run" healthcare. It's a naive and inaccurate characterization, but normal for political rhetoric.
However, when McCain accuses Obama of sexism over the lipstick comment--when anyone watching that utterance would know it was not aimed at Governor Palin, and McCain used the same phrase to refer to Hillary's health plan--he's lying, plain and simple.
When McCain runs an ad suggesting the Obama values comprehensive sex-ed for kindergartners, and that he thinks it's more important to teach children about sex than to teach them to read, he's a liar. Obama passed legislation to teach small children how to avoid sexual predators. Kind of ironic.
McCain has reportedly flip-flopped over 75 times in this campaign (Obama has flip-flopped too, but I couldn't find a list), and by nearly all accounts his current communication strategy is to rely almost exclusively on misrepresentation. Seriously, what is John McCain for? All we know from his ads is what he's against: Barack Obama. McCain is a bigger liar than Obama. If that doesn't matter to you, then embrace your nihilism and do what thou wilt, but if it does, then it does.
What does John McCain have left? He's not a straight talker anymore. He's not a maverick anymore. He is an admitted joey in the Bush-Cheney 'roo pouch. He used to be a statesman of integrity. Now, he's the bigger liar.
Oh, and he's a war hero. Um, like John Kerry?
I have a solution for all this, by the way. Since experience has been jettisoned as an issue, let's focus exclusively on the candidates' policy proposals for the future. Let's look carefully at them and try to exam the facts without lying. Are we capable?
****UPDATE****
On Fox News Sunday Karl Rove agrees: "McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test."
Man, if you're a Republican and Karl Rove calls you out, you know you done gone too far.
2 comments:
oh bless you, dear blogger. i will also be working on new lyrics to your previous post. though it is no "dear brother" lyrically, it certainly does have a beat you can dance too..
But just remember, Sarah Palin told Congress "thanks, but no thanks" on that Bridge to Nowhere... AND she can see Russia from her house... Besides, McCain is a POW -- do you REALLY think he would lie to us?? uh.....
Single worst political ad of all time: "The One"
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