Comments on: The Winning Ways of Our Lying Pols

By: kritt11

kritt11 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:27:54 +0000

greenschemes- If Biden was just reciting a historical fact — why would it cause an uproar? Maryland (my state) was also a slave state that was forced to side with the union because of its proximity to the nation's capital. There — another historical fact.

And many voted for the Iraq War because of twisted , forged and cherry-picked intel. After they discovered the lies that were told and saw the war being mismanaged– they realized they'd been had.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:29:25 +0000

Steve Chapman at Reason also calls out McCain in a similar article.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/128781.html

Crooked Talk
Why is John McCain running a dishonest campaign?

Steve Chapman | September 15, 2008
...
Now politicians are not saints, and campaigns are not conducted under oath. We all expect a certain amount of deceit from people running for office, in the form of fudging, distortion, exaggeration, and omission. But the McCain campaign's approach, as this episode illustrates, is of an entirely different scale and character. It is to normal political attacks what Hurricane Ike is to a drive-through car wash.
...
Why does McCain insist on running such a mendacious campaign? There is plenty an honest conservative might say in opposition to Obama: He's wrong about Iraq. He's wrong about Iran. He's wrong about offshore oil drilling. He wants to raise taxes. He favors abortion on demand. He would appoint liberal judges. He would impede school reform.

But 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.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:21:31 +0000

DLS says: Shhh. The media have decided already -- discussion of Biden's liabilities

The post isn't about Biden, it's about McCain becoming what he used to despise.

The Ugly New McCain
By Richard Cohen
Wednesday, September 17, 2008; Page

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.

By: DLS

DLS — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:32:57 +0000

Shhh. The media have decided already — discussion of Biden's liabilities are VERBOTEN.

Obama gets no credit for cheap exploitation and fluff. He gets credit for seizing the economy as an issue, only earning credit because his campaign has blundered so much lately and this is a welcome rare exercise of good judgment (admittedly not requiring an IQ above room temperature to realize the issue should be seized).

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:50:57 +0000

Manjoo is dead wrong when it comes to encouraging the Obama camp to start lying. It won't work for them. Any lie Obama tells or approves that gets caught becomes twice the scandal it would be for a normal pol – he gets hit once for telling a lie and a second time for claiming to be a new sort of politician while playing by old rules. Besides, McCain's stack of lies is starting to wear him down. Obama let him run out all that rope – avoiding the press, issuing attack ads full of lies, and letting the media vet Palin – and now McCain is hanging his campaign with it. The press is turning against him, probably out of frustration since he won't actually talk to them anymore. It seems like every day brings a new Palin scandal and the best defense they can come up with is that it's sexist to ask her questions about her record. McCain and his surrogates are getting reamed out by TV anchors over the various lies he's told both on the stump and in his ads. Between his appearance on The View and Tucker Bounds' appearances on CNN and FOX News, you can tell that the media is not inclined to sit back and let McCain lie his way into the White House. Obama doesn't have to do anything other than present the issues and what he plans to do about them because McCain is busy sinking his own ship.

By: greenschemes

greenschemes — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:25:59 +0000

. Lott noted that his home state of Mississippi had voted for Thurmond when he ran for president on a segregationist ticket in 1948. Lott then added, “And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Lott was clearly kidding too. But the furor over those remarks led to Lott’s resignation as the Republican leader in the Senate

And Joe Biden Said:Delaware, he noted, was a “slave state that fought beside the North. That’s only because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.”

Why didnt Biden resign? Why no uproar?

Military service record: At the height of the Vietnam war in 1968, Biden was prime for the draft at 26 years old but was rejected for “medical reasons“.

Hmmm sounds like George W. Bush. Why no uproar?

Biden supported the Bush Administration post 9/11and voted in favor of the Iraq invasion. Flip-flopping. Our favorite campaign hyphenation.

Hmm. Those people who voted for the war have no judgment. Why no uproar?

I know lets just beat on Sarah Palin.

The facts are pretty clear that McCain had to go negative to win votes. The truth just doesnt seem to matter to anyone anymore unless its being used against you.