The McCain Campaign Lies—Er, Is Mistaken About...Well, Fill in the Blank
Robert's first rule of politics goes like this: Given the choice between a compelling, fact-based argument and a compelling, exaggeration-based argument, pols will take the latter.
A bizarre McCain campaign conference call Monday perfectly illustrates that rule.
This from Politico's Ben Smith:
Sen. John McCain's top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called "liars." They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama's record.But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt's charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama's embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter's over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when—in each case—the truth would have been damaging enough.
Of course, the reason for the conference call is that the McCain campaign has taken routine political exaggerations—see Robert's first rule—to new and startling levels. And that's prompted the press to actually call it on the strategy.
Tags: presidential election 2008 | John McCain
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Reader Comments
liars
the truth is sometimes a scarce commodity. if B hussain O
were elected would you like J jackson, a sharpton,rev wright
and the soft spoken priest hanging around the white house
giving pres advice?
Evangelicals for Liars?
I grew up in a big extended family of strict, God-fearing evangelicals. None of them tells lies. They believe the Bible says liars go to hell.
So how do evangelicals manage to support Palin?
Richard Nixon was considerably more honest than Palin, not to mention brilliant, a foreign-policy expert, and the man who opened the door to China. The more we learn, the more we realize that even her supposed "reforms" were nothing more than power grabs for a Self-Promoter in Lipstick.
McCain -Palin Lies
It sickens me that McCain and Palin continue to hammer home so many lies about Obama, who has shown himself to be an honorable, honest, intelligent and strong leader. Especially lying about Obama's tax cuts to the middle class which are greater by 3 to 1 than McCain's tax cyts for working familes. Even the wealthy don't get any tax increases under Obama until they make over $605,000! Why aren't any of you journalists hitting McCain back hard about his specific and most damaging lies over and over again since McCain is counting on drowning out the truth by his constant repetition of lies, even when disproven. You have to disprove MCCain and Palin's liesover and over again, just to keep even with their constant attack of dishonor and deceit. What I still can't understand is why the American public believes any of the lies even the first time- they are so egregiously untrue and indecent and unfounded in any fact or honor.
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