While it is true that the John McCain camp has lied frequently during this campaign, the Obama side has outpaced the John Kerry and Al Gore's campaigns in this respect. I cannot remember these many lies in '04 or '00.

The newest falselhood comes from a new Obama ad that slams John McCain for attacks that include accusing Obama of "letting infants die".

But it was actually the group bornalivetruth.org that's making the charges. This group is not associated with the McCain campaign.

Moreover, at the end the ad gives us the usual "McCain-is running-on-a-platform-that..." argument that ignores that McCain DOES ALLOW exceptions for rape and incest when it comes to banning abortion.

Candidates do not necessarily support all points laid out by their parties' platforms.

Read more here.

Campaigns should all stop lying.

I was reading an article today criticizing the bad habit of some in the media of engaging in "pluralization", which consists in pretending that several people committed an act for which only one person was responsible.

My first reaction was to instinctively dig the archives in search of whatever the maestro of misinformation Josh Marshall had written about a recent incident in which one man irresponsibly yelled "killed him," in apparent reference to Barack Obama.

And my suspicions proved to be well-grounded. Marshall reported this incident as follows:

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

But let's see how a reporter who was there, Dana Milbank described the incident:

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Note how in Marshall's world, one member of the crowd becomes "members."

Even the lowly Huffington Post said:

The Secret Service is following up on media reports today that someone in the crowd at a McCain/Palin event suggested killing Barack Obama, according to Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley.

What Marshall wrote is not spin. It's a falsehood.

Some of you may be thinking that regardless of the number of people who yelled "kill him," this unbecoming behavior was deplorable; and you are right. But the point of this post is this: Josh Marshall's style is fiery and attractive, but when it comes to obtaining accurate information, he should not be your first source; Or your second; or your third.

Admittedly, it's much more fun and dramatic to pretend that a crowd, or several individuals, commited a vile act perpetrated by a lone nut.