McCain Gets Called Out Some More for Lying

by The Puppet Mistress | While right wingers splutter excuses and justifications, and the polls of "likely voters"show just how easily some Americans can be swayed by advertising, more and more members of the media are assessing the damage that McCain---whether he wins the presidency or not----has done to McCain and his "straight talk" brand.

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....

He has been a serious public servant willing to say unpopular truths when he thought it best for the country, but he's more than willing in this election to put his name on campaign lies. The leader who says he would rather lose an election than lose a war now risks losing his reputation in an attempt to win the White House.  (St. Peterburg Times)

The Obama camp has apparently decided---rightly, according to me---to rise above it.  For now, anyway.

Sensing, perhaps, a turn in the media against McCain's stunts, Obama spokesman Bill Burton puts out a scorching statement:

“We will take no lectures from John McCain who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern Presidential campaign history. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office he is seeking,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.  (Ben Smith, The Politico)

Jonathan Martin wrote a piece which seems to second this.

McCain’s tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns. In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical.

A series of ads — including accusations that Barack Obama backed teaching sex education to Illinois kindergartners and charges that Obama called Sarah Palin a lipstick-wearing pig — have provoked a cascade of criticism of McCain’s tactics.

The furor presents a breathtaking contrast to McCain’s image as a kind of anti-politician who plays fair, disdains politics as usual and has never forgotten how his 2000 presidential campaign was incinerated by a series of loathsome dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary.

The defense from the candidate himself — heard only on “The View” because he hasn’t held a news conference in more than a month — is to essentially assert that he’s savaging Obama because the Illinois senator wouldn’t agree to the series of town hall meetings McCain proposed at the end of the Democratic primary season...That’s the candidate’s public answer — and one that a former adviser suggested that McCain may have convinced himself to believe is true..  (The Politico)

As Martin says, the attitude of the campaign and its enablers and supporters is, essentially, "We don't care what you think." (The Politico) 

Their strategy boils down to this:  If a bratty candidate can't get attention by behaving well, he will draw attention by behaving like the brat he apparently really is."(The Politico) 

Apparently they might even be lying about the size of the crowds McCain's been drawing since he added Palin to the ticket.  It's come to this:  journalists don't even believe his reports about the number of people who are attending his events.

Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can't substantiate the figures McCain's aides are claiming....

In recent days, journalists attending the rallies have been raising questions about the crowd estimates with the campaign. In a story on Sept. 11 about Palin's attraction for some Virginia women voters, Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign....    

``The 23,000 figure was substantiated on the ground,'' McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. ``The campaign is willing to stand by the fact that it was our biggest crowd to date.''

Yes, but see, Tuck, considering some of the other statements the campaign has been willing to "stand by...."   

See how that works?

Yes, we'll see how that works.  I can imagine that it's possible to overplay that particular hand.  After a certain amount of arrant nonsense gets called out, I imagine that the fact that the lies are lies will begin to sink in....to the point that people won't believe anything the candidate says.

And, indeed, why should they?  I agree with those who laugh at the polls and see this as the politics of desperation.  But if indeed he does get elected, the part of America who elected him will get the president they deserve:  one whose word is as meaningless as George W. Bush's or Dick Cheney's.

Not to mention a Vice President who makes Bush look like a Rhodes scholar. 

I used to think McCain wasn't too bad for a Republican.  Now I can imagine looking back to the Bush years with nostalgia.

Big Tent Democrat has a somewhat different view of what's happening to Obama:  lame blogging on the Left. 

Wait.  It's the bloggers' fault?  Here's what he says; decide for yourself.

[T]he problem is the target Obama's Tier 2 (blogs and Media (see MSNBC in particular)) is aiming at - Palin. Get tough on McCain. Talk about how McCain is tied to Bush. The Obama Tier 2 (blogs and MSNBC) are doing a lousy job because they are shooting at the wrong person. They are not getting played....

In the blogs, the campaign has been about Sarah Palin for 2 weeks, not McCain/Bush. Let's get back to McCain/Bush.  (Talk Left)

Oh, fine.  I won't even mention that Sarah Palin has been caught out in another dubious grappling with the truth, this time concerning her Iraq trip or "Iraq trip."  Or mention that The New York Times seems to have confirmed to its satisfaction that "Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal."  (New York Times) 

Okay, just a little, all right?  Let me give you a teaser, a taste:

when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.  (New York Times)

And apparently one of her lackeys recently ordered an "astringent"-eyed (ouch) blogger to STOP BLOGGING RIGHT NOW.  (NYT)

52 days is still a lot of time in campaign lifetimes, though.  I think McCain might have made a tactical mistake starting the lies early enough to be called a liar in public (and on The View!)  We'll see how it goes.

Memeorandum has more blogger discussion here.

RECENT POSTINGS at IDLE & BN-Pol:

Palin's Politics of the Personal:  "Stop Blogging Now!"

Ex Republican Senator Calls Palin "Cocky Wacko"

Wait.  "The View" has to Show the Media How It's Done?

A Hard Road for Supporters of the Good Guy Party

"Ari Melber Shows How It's Done"

Palin's Pathetic Interview with Charlie Gibson & Why It Might Not Matter

McCain Lies About Palin's Earmarks: Palin Revives Discredited View of 911

Comments

[yarrrrrr]

NYTimes:

Last summer State Representative John Harris, the Republican speaker of the House, picked up his phone and heard Mr. Palin’s voice. The governor’s husband sounded edgy. He said he was unhappy that Mr. Harris had hired John Bitney as his chief of staff, the speaker recalled. Mr. Bitney was a high school classmate of the Palins and had worked for Ms. Palin. But she fired Mr. Bitney after learning that he had fallen in love with another longtime friend.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122092043531812813.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
What happened in between? According to Mr. Bitney, Gov. Palin got a call from another old friend, Scott Richter, informing her that his wife, Debbie Richter, and Mr. Bitney were having an affair. Mr. Bitney had kept that secret from the governor, even as he told her of his divorce, he said.

Allies of Republican presidential nominee John McCain like to point out that his running mate is the governor of the largest state in the union. But at times, Alaska seems more like a small town, run by folks with overlapping professional, political and personal ties that can be difficult to untangle.

Gov. Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, were also close friends of the Richters. Ms. Richter served as treasurer of Gov. Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and her inaugural committee. After taking office, Gov. Palin put Ms. Richter in charge of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division at the Department of Revenue. The fund allocates oil revenues to Alaska residents; this year each Alaskan is expected to receive $3,269.

The two couples owned property together on Safari Lake, north of Wasilla, according to Gov. Palin’s financial disclosure reports. Each couple had its own cabin on the land, where the families would vacation side by side, according to Ms. Richter. In the most recent disclosure form, the governor reported that she and Mr. Palin now own the property with Mr. Richter alone.

“They were, you know, professionally my bosses, but they were my friends,” Mr. Bitney said of the Palins. “And so what caused them to want me to leave the governor’s office was my relationship, my divorce, my dating a woman with whom they had a personal relationship.”

When Gov. Palin was notified by Mr. Richter in July 2007, she called Mr. Bitney into her office. She already knew he was going through a divorce, and, Mr. Bitney said, he had “led her to believe there weren’t going to be any more surprises.”

Mr. Bitney said the governor “indicated to me that she was hurt, disappointed and upset, and that she didn’t know what she wanted to do.”

A few days later, Gov. Palin’s chief of staff “indicated to me that I needed to leave the governor’s office,” Mr. Bitney said.

“I understand why I had to go,” Mr. Bitney said. “I accept that. I was in the governor’s office and a trusted adviser. I betrayed that trust by not being forthcoming about what was going on in my personal life.”