Recently Senator McCain was asked by Time Magazine to define what honor means in politics; he bridled as if being thrown a curveball, and then snapped, “I wrote about it in five books. Read my books.” It was a telling moment, coming right around the time that his campaign manager Rick Davis announced that the campaign would be “not about issues” but about “character.” And also coming right about the time that so many previous admirers of John McCain were starting to notice that he had lost all pretense of character or honor, and that the “McCain-scales-falling-from-my-eyes essay” became an art form unto itself. Click on these pungent gems, which absolve me from too much writing:
Andrew Sullivan, “McCain’s Integrity”
Josh Marshall, “Unfit For High Office”
Joe Klein, “Apology Not Accepted”
Richard Cohen, “The Ugly New McCain”
And I should mention here – this may surprise some of you – that I had been something of a McCainiac in the past, having briefly switched parties in order to vote for him over Bush in the 2000 Republican primary, and having talked a few dozen friends into writing letters to him in 2004 trying to get him to run with John Kerry. So I claim pride of place among the disillusioned. I’d noticed his slow slide into corruption for a few years now, but the breaking point for many others was the following from last week, the most disgusting political ad I’ve ever seen:
Note the sensual, “leering” photo they use of Barack, looking downward as though at a child, note the Barney-esque soundtrack, note the voiceover saying “Barack Obama: wrong for your family.” They are turning Obama into a child molester, are they not? Finally, note the tagline “I’m John McCain and I approved this message.”
Oh, you’re curious what the truth is to this ad if any. Well, per The Times, “The truth is that as an Illinois legislator, Mr. Obama favored a sensible bill supported by many mainline organizations — including the Illinois Parent Teacher Association, the Illinois State Medical Society and the Illinois Public Health Association — to provide an ‘age and developmentally appropriate’ sex education curriculum for older students. At most, kindergarteners were to be taught the dangers of sexual predators. And parents of children of all ages had the right to withdraw their children from the classes.” So the McCain/Rove alchemy converts a bill to PROTECT children (from “bad touching”) into a scheme to CORRUPT children.
Maybe it was for the best that this ad was overshadowed by the phony “lipstick on a pig” controversy that happened the same day. But that is another case in point: The McCain we THOUGHT we knew in the past would have stood right up and said “Of course my opponent was not calling Governor Palin a pig,” and stopped the nonsense then and there. Just as Barack certainly would have done if the situation were somehow reversed. But the new McCain, Rove-driven, steps back and lets the slime happen. In fact, here, surrounded by the irreverent women of The View, he defends both these lies (in a blow to his defenders who would like to blame them on “his campaign”)
In that same clip he repeats the actually hilarious lie that Governor Palin never requested any earmarks for her state (I’m sure you all know by now that, per capita, she requested and received ten times more earmarks per capita for Alaskans then the rest of us Americans; while Wasilla mayor, twenty times more. Which, who cares really, except for the bizarrely comical fact that this team is running as anti-earmark reformers.)
As I segued into the topic of the lies McCain repeatedly tells during the campaign, I had hesitated because the sheer volume of the list seemed so daunting; fortunately I find today that there is a whole new website dedicated to keepng track of them: as of this morning they have 57 (frequently repeated ones) http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Count_the_Lies. If you still take anything McCain says seriously, you owe it to yourself to visit the site. Just to start with, there are lies about McCain’s newfangled interest in regulation, lies about Obama raising your taxes, lies about what happened to McCain’s immigration bill, countless lies about Palin’s record and qualifications, on and on and on…
It really seems unprecedented, the way McCain and Palin will just repeat the same things even when they know they’ve been debunked by the (unusually alert) media. (Of course a bogus equivalency masquerading as “objectivity” frequently compels media figures to try and balance off their stories with the much-rarer Obama inaccuracy.) These two don’t seem to even try to be honest. Josh writes above,
All politicians stretch the truth, massage it into the best fit with their message. But, let’s face it, John McCain is running a campaign almost entirely based on straight up lies. Not just exaggerations or half truths but the sort of straight up, up-is-down mind-blowers we’ve become so accustomed to from the current occupants of the White House. And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn’t willing to degrade himself that far.) As TPM Reader JM said below, at least Horton actually was released on a furlough. This is ugly stuff. And this is an ugly person. There’s clearly no level of sleaze this guy won’t stoop to to win this election.
And let’s be frank. He might win it. This is clearly a testing time for Obama supporters. But I want to return to a point I made a few years ago during the Social Security battle with President Bush. Winning and losing is never fully in one’s control — not in politics or in life. What is always within our control is how we fight and bear up under pressure. It’s easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let’s stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We’ve got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They’ve both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.
If Rick Davis proves correct, and the election does turn out to be about “character” rather than “issues,” well, I’m starting to think that shouldn’t be a bad thing for Obama. This John McCain is not the same man who stood up to the VC 40 years ago and to George W Bush 8 years ago; he is now a hollowed-out tool of Karl Rove (who slandered him so savagely in 2000), and with the Alaska governor he has found his perfect partner in deception and sleaze.
“that I had been something of a McCainiac in the past, having briefly switched parties in order to vote for him over Bush in the 2000 Republican primary”
Vern, wasn’t 2000 the year of the notorious “open” primary in california?
I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person.
(Andrew Sullivan)
And let’s be frank. He might win it.
(Josh Marshall)
his mostly honorable campaign for the Republican presidential nomination
(Joe Klein)
What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story — that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.
(Richard Cohen)
Boy o Boy Vern, using their own words, even a village idiot (me) can show that they are McCain supporters. Go A-Team.
Too clever by half, Cook, too clever by half. You know those excerpts are about the McCain of the past.
Zenger, I don’t remember all the details but I did vote for McCain in that primary. Sure didn’t trust that young W, though he turned out a thousand times worse than any of us could have imagined, huh?
If it’s about character, McCrash’s war record should be opened. He was a reverse ace- he crashed 5 American planes! Never shot one down- he was an attack pilot, not a fighter… What about his starting the Forrestal fire? This guy was a bad pilot and a bad officer and his record is going unexamined because his dad and his gramps were 4 star admirals. Case closed and records disappeared? Sounds of Mickey softly weeping!
Well Vern, I voted for McCain, too in 2000. In those days he seemed a lot less senile and a lot less nutty, and I bought into the whole “character” thing, especially after the SC smear orchestrated by Rove and Bush.
You’re right about Bush. Even in 2000 it was apparent to me that the man was hollow as a rotten log. I have a liberal acquaintances who informed me that he’s been the worst president since Harding; to which I replied: Harding never started any wars. Come to think of it, neither did Millard Fillmore or Andrew Johnson our other earlier Chimps-in-Chief. Well, I guess we have a new champ.