New Palin Problem: Report Says She Did Not Visit Iraq As Claimed

Win or lose, Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is now facing a problem: most politicians develop credibility gaps when they get IN power and he is now developing a major one before he gets into the White House. As The Washington Post’s The Trail notes, there is a new report that Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin didn’t visit Iraq as claimed — and it’s going to add to a developing negative campaign narrative.

Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin are scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America — which, according to a new report, did not include Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

Palin made an official visit to see Alaskan troops in Kuwait in July of 2007. There, she made a stop at a border crossing with Iraq, but did not actually visit the country, according to a new report in the Boston Globe.

Earlier, McCain aides had said that Palin visited Iraq, and expressed indignation at questions about her slim foreign travel.

The campaign also said she had been to Ireland; that turned out to have been a refueling stop.

In her ABC interview, Palin said she had also been to Canada and to Mexico, where her advisers said she went on vacation.

This will boil down to whether the Globe report can be shot down by the McCain camp in terms of accuracy. At this writing, the news story that Palin’s claim was not totally true stands.

The is the key section of the Globe report:

Following her selection last month as John McCain’s running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a “military outpost” inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin’s foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.

But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as “K-Crossing,” on July 25, 2007.

Asked to clarify where she traveled in Iraq, Palin’s spokeswoman, Maria Comella, confirmed that “She visited a military outpost on the other side of the Kuwait-Iraq border.”

It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called “the trip of a lifetime.” Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.

Meanwhile, earlier today Bloomberg rant this report that called into question the McCain crowd counts:

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.

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

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.”

“Since day one, this campaign has been consistent that we’re not going to win or lose based on crowd size but the substance of John McCain’s record,” Bounds said.

The Obama campaign reportedly sent this story to reporters.

And so McCain now enters a danger zone that goes beyond whether he wins the White House or not.

Even if he wins the election, this means he would go to the White House with the news media, many Democrats and many independents believing he lied his way to win the White House . Politicians and lying have been linked in the American mind for years. For instance here’s one old joke:
STRAIGHT MAN: It’s election year. The candidates are working the outlying districts.
COMIC: Yeah. They’re out lying in them..
OR
STRAIGHT MAN: George Washington never told a lie
COMIC: Then how was he elected?

But those are often told with a kind of bemused “Aww, those tricky rascals! You know these politicians: can’t live with them, can’t live without them!” tone.

McCain’s campaign is increasingly being accused of flat-out lying and repeatedly doing so even when seemingly corrected.

This means that more than ever the media will cross check and confirm any McCain-Palin campaign assertions. And it’ll be news — adding to the ongoing narrative — if the assertions prove false. Right now with Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign still essentially shell-shocked over Palin’s nomination and the resulting increase in McCain’s poll numbers, it won’t matter as much. But if McCain starts to sag in the polls, the seeds now planted for a negative press narrative will quickly blossom and won’t help him.

Most Presidents had to earn their credibility gaps once they get into office. McCain is now shaping up to be a President who could come to office with a built in credibility gap — which means he will not have that crucial safety net of support beyond his loyal base if he runs into trouble.

It’ll be one more President who comes to office with the support of the base and little credibility among with those who didn’t vote for him.