The thing that has impressed me so much about Obama, over the past several months, is his control in responding to attacks. He chooses his words carefully. He doesn't name call. He tries to keep the campaign on message despite daily assaults--many of which are distortions--coming from the McCain camp.
Eight years ago, when McCain ran for president was the first time that I felt I could be content with the election of a Republican. I was supporting Gore, of course, but I felt that McCain was an honorable man and that the Republicans had a worthy opponent for the Democratic candidate. He was certainly the "maverick" he would have us believe he is now.
What has happened to this honorable man? Does he want to win this race so badly that he has thrown away all of the principles that I liked about him?
Apparently.
In spite of the daily parade of lies and distortions about Obama coming from Camp McCain, Obama has taken the high road and not lowered himself to McCain's level.
Yesterday the McCain camp released an ad accusing Obama of advicating teaching sex education to kindergarteners. Either McCain is totally stupid or he has been convinced by the likes of Rove et al. to distort the facts. Surely McCain knows that the bill in question was designed to protect young children from child molestation. Watch the video. The legislation allowed local school boards to teach "age-appropriate" sex education, not comprehensive lessons to kindergartners, and it gave schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators.
The McCain camp just outright lies. On McCain's web site, regarding that infamous "bridge to nowhere" it says:
FactCheck.org: Attacks On Governor Palin "Are Completely False, Or Misleading." "We've been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain's running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading."
When a look at FactChec.org actually says:
A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama's attacks on Palin "absolutely false" and "misleading." That's what we said, but it wasn't about Obama.
Our article criticized anonymous e-mail falsehoods and bogus claims about Palin posted around the Internet. We have no evidence that any of the claims we found to be false came from the Obama campaign.
The McCain-Palin ad also twists a quote from a Wall Street Journal columnist. He said the Obama camp had sent a team to Alaska to "dig into her record and background." The ad quotes the WSJ as saying the team was sent to "dig dirt."
Update, Sept. 10: Furthermore, the Obama campaign insists that no researchers have been sent to Alaska and that the Journal owes them a correction.We don't object to people reprinting our articles. In fact, our copyright policy encourages it. But we've also asked that "the editorial integrity of the article be preserved" and told those who use our items that "you should not edit the original in such a way as to alter the message."
So what's the deal with the "integrity" of the straight talk express?
Then this morning that stupid, stupid kertuffle over Obama using the expression "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." Any idiot with half a brain who watched the statement in context knew that he was discussing McCain's health care plan. But the immediate McCain team (can we tell that Karl Rove is now officially part of it?) response was to accuse him of a sexist attack against Sarah Palin and they demanded an apology.
On two news show tonight, I saw a film clip of four or five different speeches given by McCain where he used that exact same phrase, once in reference to Hillary Clinton! McCain's own daughter, on the Today Show admitted that it was a phrase her father used frequently.
What scares the shit out of me is that this is the stuff that is getting the headlines, and people who aren't addicted to the news, who don't read newspapers or blogs or magazines will catch a glimpse of a smear ad that is riddled with falsehoods and distortions and that is what they will remember when they go to the voting booth. And that is, of course, what the McCain camp is banking on.
It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to think that if you read the polls and how, since this attack on Obama has begun, McCain's numbers have started to rise, that the only way Obama can win this now is to get down and dirty and what a terrible end that will be to what has otherwise been a cleaner than normal (I don't say "clean" because I'm sure people will call me on that!) campaign Obama has run.
John McCain was once an honorable man but his blind ambition to be President and willingness to use repeatedly exposed lies shows he no longer retains any of that honor.
I had high hopes that Obama could change the face of campaigning in this country and make it about issues and not about stupid "gotcha" items that don't have one whit of importance in the scope of the problems we face today. But no. It appears that we Americans are so gullible and so stupid that the only way to win an election is to see who can sling the most mud and make the most mud stick.
That's how we got George Bush for a second term. I hope SOMEBODY will remember that.
I think I need to either throw up...or cry...now.
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