John McCain and the Lying Game

[Roald B. Larsen]

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Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008
John McCain and the Lying Game
By Joe Klein

Politics has always been lousy with blather and chicanery. But there are
rules and traditions too. In the early weeks of the general-election
campaign, a consensus has grown in the political community - a consensus
that ranges from practitioners like Karl Rove to commentators like, well,
me - that John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of
political propriety. The situation has gotten so intense that we in the
media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells
something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like
mendacity and inaccuracy ... or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's
claims skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers,
even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are
calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain done to
deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his transgressions of
degree or of kind?

Almost every politician stretches the truth. We journalists try to point out
the exaggerations and criticize them, then let the voters decide. When
McCain says, for example, that Barack Obama favors a government-run
health-care system, he's not telling the truth - Obama wants a market-based
system subsidized by the government - but McCain's untruth illuminates a
general policy direction, which is sketchy but sort of within the bounds.
(Obama's plan would increase government regulation of the drug and insurance
industries.) Obama has done this sort of thing too. In July, he accused
McCain of supporting the foreign buyout of an American company that could
lead to the loss of about 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. McCain did support
the deal, but the job loss comes many years later and was not anticipated at
the time. That, however, is where the moral equivalency between these two
campaigns ends.

McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem
is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his
opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent-and
witting-disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama
say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to
offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly
said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political
practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore
drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This
persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in
presidential politics.

Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad
claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for
kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners
about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama
was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his
economic policies was putting "lipstick on a pig" was another clearly
misleading attack - an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's
lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose
her. McCain's assault on the "élite media" for spreading rumors about
Palin's personal life - actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the
tabloid press - was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real
problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win
honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony
diversions.

This new strategy emerged during the first week of Obama's overseas trip in
late July. McCain had been intending to contrast his alleged foreign policy
expertise and toughness with Obama's inexperience and alleged weakness.
McCain wanted to "win" the Iraq war and face down the Iranians. But those
issues became moot when the Iraqis said they favored Obama's withdrawal plan
and the Bush Administration started talking to the Iranians. At that point,
McCain committed his original sin - out of pique, I believe - questioning
Obama's patriotism, saying the Democrat would rather lose a war than lose an
election. Ever since, McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and
demeaning ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been
widely documented and exposed. The strategy is an obvious attempt to
camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the
insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on most
issues - especially economic matters - with an exceedingly unpopular
President.

The good news is that the vile times may be ending. The coming debates will
decide this race, and it isn't easy to tell lies when your opponent is
standing right next to you. The Wall Street collapse demands a more sober
campaign as well. But these dreadful weeks should not be forgotten. John
McCain has raised serious questions about whether he has the character to
lead the nation. He has defaced his beloved military code of honor. He has
run a dirty campaign.

(See photos of John McCain on the campaign trail here.)
(See photos of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail here.)

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842030,00.html