Part of McCain’s respectful campaign has been the spreading of the complete lie about Obama dissing the troops at Landstuhl, which is in itself offensive, but added to the fact that it is McCain who routinely has voted against the best interests of the troops and the fact that it is a complete lie and it is almost too much to take. Fortunately, even the media won’t carry the water for McCain on this one. First, FactCheck:
A McCain TV spot falsely insinuates that Obama canceled his visit because “the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.”
Summary
A new McCain ad says Obama “made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.”
McCain’s facts are literally true, but his insinuation – that the visit was canceled because of the press ban or the desire for gym time – is false. In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier – without cameras or press – both in the U.S. and Iraq. And his gym workouts are a daily routine.
Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed also give this line of attack the middle finger:
It isn’t just these two, as a former director of medical operations blasts McCain:
“John McCain’s new ad is dishonest and shameful, and I say that as the former Chief of Medical Operations. Senators Hagel and Reed confirmed to Bob Schieffer yesterday that Senator Obama visited the Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad as a part of their CODEL, with no media present.
“In Germany, Senator Obama made the right decision to respect wounded troops, and the doctors and nurses doing crucial and time-sensitive work, by not making a visit that was characterized as a campaign event by the Pentagon. Senator Obama should be thanked for putting our military above politics. And, I would hope that John McCain would think in those same terms, the next time he is put in a similar situation.
“Senator Obama has voted for the troops when John McCain has not, most recently on the new GI Bill. I am happy that Senator Obama puts the welfare of our troops above politics.”
Even Andrea Greenspan, who was last seen making a “Leave John McCain alone” video for youtube, is calling this a lie:
In short, it is a lie, but as far as the Rovian hacks at the McCain campaign are concerned, this is still a win. Any smear is good, as long as it can dominate a news cycle and make its way into the blogs, the chain emails, and the public discourse. This is little more than the modern version of the old LBJ legend:
In his heyday, nobody was better at gettin’ down politically than Lone Star Lyndon. In 1948, after 11 years in the House of Representatives where he proved to be a formidable, power-hungry campaigner, LBJ hit fellow Democrat and popular former Texas governor Coke Stevenson with everything he had as they squared off for a run at the Senate.
Legend has it Johnson told one of his aides — “Go out there and tell ’em Coke was caught having sex with a farm animal.”
“But, Lyndon,” the aide protested, “you know that’s not true!”
“Of course it’s not true!” Johnson responded impatiently. “That’s not the point. Tell it anyway — and make him deny it…”
Ladies and gentleman, the modern GOP and John McCain’s respectful campaign.
Dreggas
John McCain, taking two face from the big screen to a political campaign near you.
gbear
Then again, NOBODY supports our troops like Dick Cheney.
This one can get filed under ‘assholes’ too.
Librarian
But, but, but….Richard Cohen says that McCain is a war hero! And because of that, he should get a pass on whatever shit he does to get elected, however repulsive, so to criticize him for anything is blasphemy! Literally blasphemy, because McCain is a god! That’s what Cohen says!
Heshe
Call him McStain.
chopper
mccain is running as the wise, experienced elder statesman in this contest as much as obama is running as the fresh outside-the-beltway face of change.
now, obama’s trip has cemented the view in a lot of voters’ minds that he’s going to be a capable president in terms of foreign policy. and his poll numbers have gone up as a result. and mccain is pissed, obviously, because that combined with his numerous gaffes on the subject have really weakened his standing in what is supposed to be his biggest political strength.
what’s left for him to run on? his gravitas, maybe. he’s old and wise in the ways of politics. well, mccain’s negative ads lashing out against obama, ads that are so false that even mrs. greenspan is calling them out, does his campaign no favors this early in the race. they just make him look like a petty, vindictive man. and especially when his petty, vindictive past starts coming to light then that’s one more leg of his platform that’s pulled out from under him.
gbear
I like Meh-Cain best…pretty much sums it all up.
DannyNoonan
I heard McCain likes to sing Frank Sinatra while dressed in a girdle, four-inch heals and lots of jewelry.
maxbaer (not the original)
What is a scoundrel to do when he can’t use patriotism asa refuge?
maxbaer (not the original)
So, Cheney is too much of a coward to even appear before a group of wounded vets without a SWAT team protecting him? How fuckin paranoid are these fucks?
Chris Johnson
I really dislike that smirking guy in the second video. It gets to where the people trying to peddle the bullshit are really horrible people and you want the reporters or Tweety or whoever to interrupt them, hit them on the nose with rolled up newspapers or something…
The Grand Panjandrum
Yes, yes, yes, John McCain is a war hero. Great. That doesn’t make him a rocket scientist, nor does it make him a good candidate to be commander in chief.
McCain, with all his “experience”, might be almost as unsuited temperamentally to be President as his buddy the former Cheerleader. My friends, John McCain, could no more steer this country out of the ditch Bush has driven us into than I could be chosen Miss America.
Chris Johnson
Oh bloody hell, how did this guy even happen? How is it that this psycho became Vice President?
One day it’s going to make a hair-curler of a story. Mr Shooty McFacersons is fucking psychotic. And seems to be aware of it or something. Does he keep pee in jars too?
Scott H
McCain is killing his campaign preaching to the choir – and that is good. His statements are stroking the bias of the already firmly anti-Obama base and doing nothing to persuade anyone else of anything except he is getting desperate to the point of pathos.
Grand Moff Texan
So, is McCain a lying sack of shit, or just senile? I mean, anyone doddering enough to think Iraq borders on Pakistan might actually believe that Obama canceled his appearance for lack of cameras, even though the press was never invited.
Dunno.
.
Zifnab
It’s not paranoia if everyone really does want to stick a knife in you.
Xenos
A suggestion for the Obama campaign:
(jaunty tune from Oldsmobile commercials)
This is NOT your father’s John McCain,
This is the third generation of Bush!
croatoan
I heard he likes to pass the time with a nice game of solitaire.
David Hunt
I realize that the question was rhetorical, but I think that it’s sometimes useful to give a serious answer. He got to be VP by being in charge of the group the GWB set to find him a good VP prospect and selecting himself! The twin facts that he thought that GWB would actually let him get away with that and that he was right speak volumes about what goes on in the Whitehouse.
Dreggas
I call him McShitstain.
gypsy howell
I love how everyone is trying to make excuses for McCain, as if the campaign is not a perfect reflection of his slimy, sleazy, shitbag self.
He never had any honor. That was a little fairy tale the media made up for him because he managed to live through being a POW. As if that alone makes you honorable. He’s managed to skate through the last 40 years with the ‘honorable straight-talkin’ hero’ mantle, despite all the voluminous evidence to the contrary.
I’m actually glad that his campaign is finally revealing the real John McCain – the selfish, crooked douchebag he’s always been.
Brachiator
The thing is, I’m not sure how successful this smear is outside of right wing blog echo chambers. During the past couple of weeks in particular, McCain’s campaign has been so pathetic and inept that even McCain supporters (except for professional goons like Limbaugh and a few others) can’t push the lies with any particular vigor.
Ricky
Despite the ad running only basically in DC, virtually all the media have covered it extensively and only NBC has called it for the lie it represents. McCain’s campaign is
playing the media for fools (like the troll feeders they are) and trying to test the envelope to see what they can get away with later. The Swiftboat nonsense should have been smacked down in 2004 but the press was complicit.
Time to scream it again:
American Broadcast Media: Incompetents Feedding Stool Softener to the Incontinent.
Ken
If we had more Democrats who campaigned like LBJ, we’d win more elections.
But no, we have to be nice. Above it all. If we say something mean about a Republican, we have to apologize five minutes later and make sure it’s on all the cable news channels and the front page of every paper, so everyone will know we didn’t really mean to hurt a Republican’s feelings.
Harry Reid said he didn’t consider Johnson a good role model as majority leader. I guess he doesn’t believe standing up to Republicans, keeping his caucus in line, and actually getting things done in the Senate are qualities to emulate.
LBJ’d kick that hopeless weenie in the nuts.
Delia
If McCain is starting to lose Mrs. Greenspan in the news wars, then things are not going his way.
lurker
Obama should be far more aggressive in defining McCain and in pushing back on this nonsense.
Antonius
Actually, the aide said, “Christ! We can’t call him a pigfucker!”
Porlock Hussein Junior
The LBJ story, which I’ve seen cited once or twice recently, finally drove me to search for the source of the original story. The real thing is not about a campaign tactic LBJ used, but one of his favorite jokes, concerning an unnamed candidate for sheriff in Texas.
If anyone has a source older than June, 1967, or one more reliable — well, ok, my source is Paul Krassner in The Realist, and specifically an article about a hoax he had perpetraed in the previous issue. But his material was factual when he felt like it. Here it is, right on the Internets:
ep.tc/realist/75/14.html
BTW if you don’t know the story about the parts that were left out of William Manchester’s book on the assassination of JFK, you should go to the previous issue first
ep.tc/realist/74/01.html
for the full effect. If so, don’t miss the Disneyland Memorial Orgy.
(And that folklore about J Edgar Hoover saying the FBI couldn’t intervene in a case of oral-genital sex unless it had interfered with interstate commerce? Yep, another Realist joke converted to folk history. This one, though, is obviously a spoof: Jedgar worrying about a legal basis for some action? There’s a laugh right there.)