John McCain's Dishonorable Campaign

As I pointed out back in August, John McCain once uttered the following words:

"Negative ads move numbers, they may, but do we have to go to the lowest common denominator? I don't think so."

The implication was that McCain, being a man of honor, would not stoop to negative attack ads. As with his often repeated pledge to run an "honorable campaign," McCain essentially lied to the American public. The blizzard of attack ads put forth in recent days shows a calculated strategy to distort facts, distract the public with falsehoods, and play to that lowest common denominator lurking inside of us all.

Examples of McCain's truly remarkable abandonment of honor aren't hard to find. In the past two days alone McCain has repeatedly lied about Obama's lipstick remark. He wildly distorted Obama's position on sex education. And he continues to lie about Sarah Palin's role in the "Bridge to Nowhere" matter. As Factcheck.org pointed out, he even lies when he's using Factcheck.org as a source to combat Internet lies. In essence, the campaign has devolved into: All lies, all the time.

While some argue that this is all just part of the game of getting elected, McCain assured us he was different. There are those who blame the corrupting influence of Karl Rove, but all that tells us is that McCain will do anything to win. McCain isn't just guilty of politics as usual, he's guilty running a dishonorable campaign.
The Washington Post:

John McCain is a serious man who promised to wage a serious campaign. Win or lose, will he be able to look back on this one with pride? Right now, it's hard to see how.

Joe Klein, Time:

Now he is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won'tabte it spread by linking to it... ...I just can't wait for the moment when John McCain--contrite and suddenly honorable again in victory or defeat--talks about how things got a little out of control in the passion of the moment. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

McClatchy Newspapers:

What happened: A new 30-second TV ad attacks Barack Obama's record on education, saying that Obama backed legislation to teach "'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners." The announcer then says, "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on Education. Wrong for your faily."

Why that's wrong: This is a deliberately misleading accusation. It came hours after the Obama campaign released a TV ad critical of McCain's votes on public education...

...Penalty: 15 yards for teh McCain campaign's deliberate low blow.

The Associated Press:

McCain's ad claims that Obama is spreading misleading information about Palin, yet it was unveiled one day after the GOP ticket itself released its own commercial that stretched the facts.

While discrediting McCain's sex-ed ad, James Carville still manages to cling to that long-lost vision of McCain as a guy with integrity:



But, at best, Carville's far-fetched spin simply means that McCain has willingly sold his brand to the Rove machine. We're not talking about a single ad, after all, but a whole slew of them that started early in the summer. Yes, negative ads are part in parcel with politics, but we should draw the line at those which knowingly lie. On this score, McCain has not lived up to the standards he set for himself. And with so many instances of deliberate low blows, trampled truth, and misinformation, you reach a point when you have to call a spade a spade.