In response to
Josh's earlier request, here are some examples today of the news media failing to accurately report the McCain campaign's mass-lying strategy:
1.
Darrell West on CNN:
2008 Campaign attack ads hit an all-time low 9/15/2008:
Like most other "neutral" pundits, West can cite specific smears used against Thomas Jefferson's and Grover Cleveland, but not against Al Gore or John Kerry... Note his preference for the word "erroneously" to describe McCain's attacks and "falsely" for Democratic groups [emphasis mine]:
John McCain broadcast an ad taking Barack Obama's words out of context and suggesting Democrats were trying to compare
GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to a pig. The McCain campaign
ran another spot erroneously claiming Obama favored comprehensive sex
education for kindergarteners.
Democrats have not been above reproach either. After McCain secured
the GOP nomination this spring, outside groups falsely claimed the
Republican supported a 1,000-year war in Iraq and therefore was not
worthy of the presidency.
These misleading appeals suggest
voters must remain vigilant about candidate, party, and group claims.
Generally, the most misleading commercials have come from independent
groups uncoordinated with the candidates.
2. AFP (No Byline) McCain, Palin Defiant in Lies Storm 9/15/2008:
Seems like AFP wants to do the right thing here, despite some of the ol' moral equivalence:
Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin stand accused Monday of
trying to "lie" their way into the White House with discredited claims
and advertising -- and it's not just outgunned Democrats crying foul.
Non-partisan
fact-check operations, newspapers and opinion columnists are also
charging McCain, once a darling of the press, of cloaking the election
in sleaze and unfairly smearing Democrat Barack Obama.
With the
United States locked in two foreign wars, punished by its thirst for
Middle Eastern oil and with the economy plummeting, the race was
consumed for two days last week by McCain camp claims Obama called
Palin a "pig."
US election campaigns and hardball advertising
always push the limits of truth and often amount to outright distortion
-- the Obama camp has not hesitated to blur McCain's record too.
Blurring, lying, what-ever. And here's the ultimate statement from a dysfunctional, soulless press corps:
Whatever its morality, the final judgement on McCain's strategy will be dictated by whether it works.
Ugh.
3. Glora Borger, CNN Candidates of 'change' stick to politics as usual 9/15/2008
A veritable banquet of shallow insight and journalistic relativism [emphasis added]:
[Palin] was a purely political choice. It had nothing to do with governing or
with who would be best able to step up to the job of the presidency
should that need arise. It was about finding a woman to appeal to those
disaffected Clinton supporters and finding a true social conservative
to appeal to the GOP base that has been so unenthusiastic about McCain.
Not that Obama's choice of Biden wasn't political, too: Biden is a
Catholic with appeal to those working-class voters in battleground
states who still can't connect with Obama. [they can't? --Ed. ]And, by the way, he brings
foreign policy credibility, too.
Biden's extensive foreign policy work is a substantive qualification for VP, and the #1 reason Obama picked him. Gloria spun it bass-ackwards: Biden's working-class Catholic roots are his "by the way" attribute. More:
Then Obama responds [to McCain lies], with an ad mocking McCain as an out-of-touch,
computer-illiterate candidate who can't possibly understand your
problems.
OK, we get it: He's old.
Here's the problem for both of these campaigns: This bickering won't
sustain the rest of the campaign. You can't argue about change by
saying you were there first. You can't claim that experience -- no
matter how much -- is enough to lead. You can't make a blatant play for
special-interest groups (and that includes women) and wind up with a
united country, even if you win.
Borger should feel ashamed to collect a paycheck for such relativistic garbage. As John Stewart said about corporate media campaign coverage, "they never tell you who's right, just who's winning."
