American Sentinel

About the Author:  I am an ex-urbanite who escaped the city life and has lived for the past 27 years in a rural, mountainous area of Virginia that in colonial and early-American times was part of the "Backcountry." Politics: Democrat by tradition, but moderate-to-conservative views on most issues; I fit the description of "traditionalist." Please visit my Web site, Backcountry Notes, at http://www.backcountrynotes.com/ Read more from this author

From a McCain Democrat’s Journal, September 15, 2008

Here’s how to tell when the next big lie is coming from the Obama campaign:  when Barack Obama complains that McCain isn’t discussing the “issues,” a whopper will be out within 24 hours.  Today, it is the misrepresentation of a statement made by Karl Rove on Sunday.  Rove criticized BOTH campaigns for going too far, but here is how it has been slimed in today’s Obama campaign letter:

Even Karl Rove had to admit yesterday that the McCain campaign’s lies and negative attacks have gone “too far.”

John McCain is running the most negative and dishonest campaign in modern presidential history. He has demonstrated that he’d rather lose his integrity than lose this election.

It’s right out of the Bush-Rove playbook. Unfortunately, as Karl Rove knows better than anyone, these shameful tactics have worked in the past.

And here is what Karl Rove actually said:

ROVE: Yeah. Well, first of all, I do think that the lipstick remark was an inappropriate — and maybe it was unconscious, but it was a deliberate slap at Governor Palin.

The only time this word has intruded in recent months in the campaign was in her, you know, self-deprecating remark at the convention. So for him to use the lipstick remark less than two weeks after she used it struck me as too much of a coincidence not to have been a deliberate attack.

But look. Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far. We saw this this week, for example, in the Obama ad where he makes the point, a legitimate point, that John McCain came to the United States Congress in 1982 and that he has been a longtime Washington insider.

But they then say he doesn’t even know how to use a — you know, doesn’t send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can’t type. You know, it’s like saying he can’t do jumping jacks.

Well, there’s a reason why he can’t raise his arms above his head. There’s a reason why he doesn’t have the nimbleness in his fingers.

WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?

ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.

They don’t need to attack each other in this way. They have legitimate points to make about each other that are beyond, you know, the…

WALLACE: Real quick question — 30 seconds. Do they need to be 100 percent passing the truth? Just, in other words, when you were running Bush’s campaign, did you care whether some fact-check organization…

ROVE: No, and look, you can’t trust the fact-check organizations, with all due respect. They’re human beings. They’re individuals. They’ve got their own biases built in there.

But both campaigns ought to be careful about it. They ought to — there ought to be an adult who says, “Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and won’t we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?”

So Rove’s caution that both campaigns should be more careful is turned into a false story about Rove attacking McCain.  Barack Obama simply cannot stand to be behind in the “dishonesty” category.

RELATED LINKS:

Is Barack Obama A Pathological Liar?

Obama’s Lies: The “Shadowy Front Group” Video He Doesn’t Want You To See

Obama’s Lies: Another Attempt To Smear McCain

No, Barack Obama, I Won’t Help You Tell Those Lies

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.