Lies on the Campaign Trail 2008: McCain/Palin set new low standards
Let's just forget about U.S. taxpayers got ripped of for $3.4 million when Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan went under affecting thousands of Americans, who he now wants to view him as a reformer! Talk about gall. by Dave Stancliff
(libertarian)
Monday, September 15, 2008
By Dave Stancliff Strategic lies day after day. The Republicans have found their voice in this corrosive campaign at last. It doesn't matter if the lies are exposed, because they just go on to new lies.
Sometimes they don't even bother, and continue to lie hoping it will resonate with desperate voters that don't bother seeking the truth about a candidate's claim.
The very image McCain is trying to project - that of a maverick - is a compound lie that is easily challenged, but if you do, his supporters want you to know that he was a POW and was tortured for years, as if that confers a mantle of sacred statesmanship upon him. Attacking him would be akin to attacking the flag - like taking on a symbol of freedom - if you listen to his supporters.
They feel he should just get a pass on his political past that involves getting a senate reprimand for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. Just because he wrote letters, introduced bills, and pushed a Keating associate for a job on a banking regulatory board, doesn't mean he's such a bad guy right?
Let's just forget about how U.S. taxpayers got ripped off for $3.4 billion when Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan went under affecting thousands of Americans, who he now wants to view him as a reformer! Talk about gall.
In the Feb.21st edition of The New York Times, McCain tried to paint himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, and a man of honor chastened by his brush with shame and humiliation. But his campaign whined that the article - which was examining his relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist, was untrue.
They even issued this statement: "John McCain has a 24-years history of serving our country (Congress) with honor and integrity. He never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and will not allow a smear campaign to distract him from the issues at stake."
Being part of a scandal that cost Americans $3.4 billion sounds like a violation of trust to me. He was reprimanded for his ethics and association with the crooked cronies that were part of the Keating scandal. So how can you say he never violated the public trust and he's never sided with special interests? You can't if your talking about reality.
So reality is reformed by the McCain supporters and they have taken on the strategy of preemptive berating of the news media for "bias" as a way to scare journalists away from taking note of how his strategic lying is actually changing the electoral landscape.
In an Sept.13th article in The New York Times, it was noted that McCains "straight talk" image has given way to lies to bring in votes. Time columnist, Bob Herbert, recently said, "I've got this scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but it might actually prevail!"
Palin is no different when it comes to lying to make her case. By now, everyone knows she lied about the so-called "bridge to nowhere," and earmarks (she got $27 million alone for her little hometown of Wasilla population 6,000). She claims transparency while working with the Alaska attorney general to cut down on public access to state politicians records. She's under investigation for abuse of power in her second year as Alaska's governor, and she is telling eager audiences that she's not part of the "good old boy" system and will fight alongside McCain to get rid of earmarks. Lies. Lies. And more lies.
This lie-in-the-face of proof campaign would be laughable, if people weren't being sucked in with the lies. Worse yet, there are those who don't care if Palin or McCain lie every time they open their mouths. They've made their decision to go with this brazen tactic of lie enough and after a while it will become the truth.
Some polls are showing that this tactic may be working right now as the gap closes between the two campaigns. Forget real issues. As long as they can get away with twisting the truth like taffy it'll be in Republican campaign manuals for future elections.
As It Stands, the hardest lies to swallow are those ones about being "open and transparent," when they fly in the face of reality.
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I have to agree. McCain pushes his time as POW 42 years ago over and over again but there's never a mention of his hearings on The Keating Affair 20 years ago or his wifes addiction to prescription pills during that same time (that she stole from a poor people's medical clinic.)
Obama's life has been dissected but McCain's bad area's are ignored as if those times never happened. Unless you happen to be someone who's been around the voting scene for a few years, you never would know of it.
