McCain-Palin campaign - bunch of "lies" about Obama
Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.
First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)
Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults).
Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.
Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer — over the strenuous objections of some longtime hands who helped him build his “Straight Talk” image — to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters.
Some who have criticized Mr. McCain have accused him of blatant untruths and of failing to correct himself when errors were pointed out.
On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”
“Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply, “and have you seen some of the ads that are running against me?”
Sensing an opening in the mounting criticism of Mr. McCain, the Obama campaign released a withering statement after Mr. McCain’s appearance on “The View.”
“In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it’s clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election,” Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said in a statement.
At an event in Dover, N.H., a voter asked Mr. Obama when he would start “fighting back.” Mr. Obama, who began his own confrontational advertising campaign Friday, said, “Our ads have been pretty tough, but I just have a different philosophy that I’m going to respond with the truth.”
“I’m not going to start making up lies about John McCain,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Sipple, the Republican strategist, voiced concern that Mr. McCain’s approach could backfire. “Any campaign that is taking liberty with the truth and does it in a serial manner will end up paying for it in the end,” he said. “But it’s very unbecoming to a political figure like John McCain whose flag was planted long ago in ground that was about ‘straight talk’ and integrity.”
The campaign has also been selective in its portrayal of Mr. McCain’s running mate, Ms. Palin. The campaign’s efforts to portray her as the bane of federal earmark spending was complicated by evidence that she had sought a great deal of federal money both as governor of Alaska and as mayor of Wasilla.
Ms. Palin has often told audiences about pulling the plug on the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, an expensive federal project to build a bridge to a sparsely populated Alaskan island that became a symbol of wasteful federal spending. “I told Congress, ‘Thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska,” she said this week in Virginia.
But her position was more like “please” before it became “no thanks.” Ms. Palin supported the bridge project while running for governor, and abandoned it after it became a national scandal and Congress said the state could keep the money for other projects. As a mayor and governor, she hired lobbyists to request millions in federal spending for Alaska. In an ABC News interview on Friday with Charles Gibson, Ms. Palin largely stuck to her version of the events.
Disputed characterizations are not uncommon on the trail. At a campaign stop this week in Missouri, Mr. McCain said that Mr. Obama’s plan would “force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.”
Jonathan B. Oberlander, who teaches health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that Mr. Obama’s plan would not force families into a government-run system. “I would say this is an inaccurate and false characterization of the Obama plan,” he said. “I don’t use those words lightly.”
Here are some of the "lies" and "half-truths" by McCain - Palin Campaign:
* In a 30-second TV ad called "Original Mavericks" showing on national cable and battleground states, the McCain campaign asserts that GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."
Fact: She was for the bridge in 2006 until she was against it. Congress pulled funding for it two years before Palin adjusted her position. The nonpartisan Politifact.org said: "We rate Palin’s position a Full Flop."
* In a 30-second online ad called "Lipstick," the McCain campaign took Sen. Barack Obama’s use of the phrase "lipstick on a pig" out of context as a sexist smear on Palin. Obama was using the phrase to describe how McCain’s foreign, economic and health care policies are similar to President Bush’s.
Fact: McCain used the exact same phrase to describe Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan on the campaign trail last fall. He should know better; his former press secretary Torie Clark wrote a book called "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era By Someone Who Knows the Game."
* In a 30-second TV ad running in battleground states called "Education," McCain’s campaign asserts that Obama’s main education accomplishment was "Legislation to teach ’comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners."
Fact: As a state senator, Obama supported a bill - which never was passed out of the Illinois Legislature - which included teaching "age-appropriate sex education" - for younger children that could include topics like what is inappropriate touching. Parents could opt out of the unit if they were uncomfortable with their kids hearing this material.
* When appearing on ABC’s "The View" Friday, McCain said Palin never sought congressional money for projects as governor of Alaska. A 30-second advertisement released Friday talks about how Palin has cut earmark requests.
Fact: Palin’s office asked for $256 million in earmarks last year and $197 million this year. As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 7,000), the town sought $11.9 million in earmarks from 1999-2003, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan Washington D.C. budget watchdog group.
* Palin told ABC’s Charlie Gibson Thursday that she had never met a foreign head of state. Said Palin: "I think if you go back in history and you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer."
Fact: Every vice presidential candidate still alive to ask reported that they had met at least one head of state. That’s in the last 32 years, according to ABC news research.
* In a 30-second TV ad playing in battleground states called "Fact Check," the McCain campaign cites the nonpartisan political advertising watchdog Factcheck.org as saying Obama’s attacks on Palin were "completely false" and "misleading."
Fact: Factcheck.org didn’t say that. Says who? Factcheck.org: "We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin," the Web site said.
* On the stump and in interviews, McCain touts Palin’s "executive experience" as governor for 21 months of a state with fewer people than San Francisco and as mayor of a city with fewer people than the Cow Palace can hold.
Fact: In an October 2007 debate against, among others, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, McCain said, "I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time."
* In her ABC interview Friday, Palin says that "I’m attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now." When Gibson said that sounded like she has changed her position on the causes of climate change, Palin challenges Gibson to show her "where I’ve said there’s absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change."
Fact: In an August 2008 interview with NewsMax, Palin said: "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made."
* Palin claims Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy."
Fact: Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that’s a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S. Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska’s production accounted for only 2.4 percent.
* The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new TV ad that distorts quotes from the Obama campaign. It takes words out of context to make it sound as though the Democratic ticket is belittling Palin.
- The ad says "they said she was doing ’what she was told.’ "
Fact: But the Obama adviser who’s being quoted didn’t accuse Palin of meekly following orders. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama’s legislative record and added, "maybe that’s what she was told."
- The ad says "they lashed out at Sarah Palin; dismissed her as ’good looking,’ "
Fact: But "they" didn’t lash out at all. Obama – who is the one pictured – didn’t say anything like that. The only one the McCain campaign quotes is Obama’s running mate, Biden, and he actually offered the remark as a compliment. Biden said the "obvious" difference between Palin and himself is "she’s good looking."
- The ad says Obama was "disrespectful" when he accused Palin of "lying" about her record.
- The ad says Obama was "disrespectful" when he accused Palin of "lying" about her record.
Fact: But the truth is Palin’s claim to have "said no" to the "bridge to nowhere" is indeed a dubious one, as we and many have pointed out.
- * Sarah Palin’s much-awaited speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night may have shown she could play the role of attack dog, but it also showed her to be short on facts when it came to touting her own record and going after Obama’s.
- - Palin may have said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure.
- - Palin’s accusation that Obama hasn’t authored “a single major law or even a reform” in the U.S. Senate or the Illinois Senate is simply not a fair assessment. Obama has helped push through major ethics reforms in both bodies.
- - Huckabee told conventioneers and TV viewers that Palin got more votes when she ran for mayor of Wasilla than Biden did running for president. Not even close. The tally: Biden, 79,754, despite withdrawing from the race after the Iowa caucuses. Palin, 909 in her 1999 race, 651 in 1996.
* McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat … between you and your doctor."
Fact: The plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
* McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies.
Fact: The bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
* McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much."
Fact: But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
* McCain promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy
Fact: His actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
* He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs,"
Fact: But as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
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