McCain's Continuing Assault on the Truth

Radley Balko | September 15, 2008

Steve Chapman's column this morning nails the John McCain campaign's assault on truth and voter intelligence (an already easy target) of late.

In that vein, Mickey Kaus reported Friday that McCain's campaign is now running a Spanish-language ad attacking Barack Obama for failing to support McCain's comprehensive immigration bill.  It's yet another McCain ad chock-full of egregious distortions.  What the ad doesn't mention:

• Obama (like McCain) voted twice to end Senate filibusters on that bill.

• Both filibusters were led by the Republicans, not Obama or the Democrats.

• McCain himself said in the primaries that if the same bill were to come up for a vote in the Senate today, he would no longer vote for it.

In fact, it's pretty difficult to discern anything truthful about the ad at all.

Comments

Goose, Gander, Sauce|9.15.08 @ 9:19AM|#

The Lying King

|9.15.08 @ 9:26AM|#

It certainly is a good thing that Obama isn't distorting McCain's record at all in televised advertisements. He's above that.

BDB|9.15.08 @ 9:31AM|#

There's a difference between Clintonian double-speak/truth stretching (that's standard politician behavior) on one hand and making shit up on the other.

|9.15.08 @ 9:32AM|#

This is exactly why I'm writing in for Santa Clause.

The Dude|9.15.08 @ 9:57AM|#

Obviously they are criticizing McCain because they are sexist!

|9.15.08 @ 10:01AM|#

But McCain is a POW POW POW POW!

|9.15.08 @ 10:05AM|#

McCain is a craps player.

Obama is a poker player.

Negative advertising in the bet.

McCain throws big amounts of money in willy-nilly, hoping that the gods will make the dice come up the right way and give him that big win.

Obama folds his bad hands, then goes all in when his opponent places a big bet while he (Obama) is holding a strong hand.

McCain has bet big on a series of dishonest ads, at a time that the press and public are getting wise to his dishonesty and sleaze - which is to say, when Obama is holding a big hand.

It can get frustrating to watch a smart poker lose hand after hand after hand by just "giving up." Right up until he cleans up.

|9.15.08 @ 11:02AM|#

I'm inclined to think that it is McCain's supposed turn against the immigration bill which is where he is dissembling. Not this ad.

McCain's always been pro-immigration, and just about everyone recognizes that any anti-immigration statements he's made lately are purely pandering to the right wing.

By contrast, the Democrats, particularly Illinois Democrats where organized labor is strong, have a vested interest in keeping immigrant labor out of the country.

Also, as far as congressional politics is concerned, McCain may not be far off the mark. A couple of votes against a filibuster aren't a substitute for doing serious leg-work on behalf of a bill. How much effort did Obama actually put into getting immigration reform passed? Not much as far as I can tell.

Everyone knows that voting records are largely for show and there's a lot more to someone's congressional record that a literal list of yeas and nays. You can't chalk someone up as a supporter of every line item just because they vote for the budget, and you can't put someone down as a supporter of immigration reform just because of a a couple of filibuster votes. Who knows, maybe Obama wanted the bill to come to the floor so it could be voted down.

BDB|9.15.08 @ 11:15AM|#

Theresea, 80% of the Republican Presidential debates were about who wants to build the biggest wall on the border and who would be the quickest to install land mines and machine gun nests.

Ok, so that's hyperbole, but only slightly.

I never heard that from the Democratic debates.

Rhywun|9.15.08 @ 11:29AM|#

Democrats ... have a vested interest in keeping immigrant labor out of the country

Yeah, that's all I hear from the Democrats running NYC... ranting about all these damn immigrants.

|9.15.08 @ 1:32PM|#

There's real substantive problems with Obama, but McCain ignores them in favor of half-truths and inconsequentials. Sad.

jasno|9.15.08 @ 1:47PM|#

Hey Reason, how about a nice big breakdown of where each candidate stands on issues important to libertarians? I hear a lot about the problems of Obama, but *most*(but definitely not all) seem to be issues important to a social conservative.

So break it down along taxes, human rights, government intrusion, military growth, school choice, freedom of speech, real ID, etc. etc. etc...

|9.15.08 @ 4:09PM|#

Theresa,

Have you ever bothered to look at the issues page on the AFL-CIO's web site, to see if your assumption about their stance on immigration reform is correct?

How about SEIU? UNITE-HERE?

Because, while I can understand how your political philosophy can lead you to assume that they must be opposed to immigration, the truth is precisely the opposite. They marched in those immigrant-rights rallies, you know.

|9.15.08 @ 4:47PM|#

In fact, it's pretty difficult to discern anything truthful about the ad at all.

Hey, he IS John McCain, and he DID approve this message. So that's two right there.

Damn liberal media.

DannyK|9.15.08 @ 10:12PM|#

It seems to me that Dems could do a great negative ad campaign, just re-running that ad in Southern and border states with English subtitles, and maybe the frame, "Here's what McCain says when you're not around."