{"id":3707,"date":"2008-09-12T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/mccain-campaigns-volley-of-untruths-is-disappointing\/"},"modified":"2008-09-12T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-12T21:20:00","slug":"mccain-campaigns-volley-of-untruths-is-disappointing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/mccain-campaigns-volley-of-untruths-is-disappointing\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain campaign’s volley of untruths is disappointing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve been disappointed in recent days to see the degree of falsehood being put forth as fact by the campaign of John McCain<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The media has done a good job of calling out the McCain campaign for what is understandably being called deception by many, but I felt I, as a journalist and an independent voter who\u2019s fed up with dishonesty in politics, had to add my voice to the chorus of people calling the statements exactly what they are: flip-flops and untruths.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A serious flop came in Sarah Palin\u2019s<\/a> interview with ABC News, which aired on Thursday. In it, she said she believes humans may play a role in climate change. That entirely contradicts previous statements, even though she said in the interview that it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cShow me where I have ever said that there\u2019s absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change. I have not said that,\u201d Palin said. You can watch the interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/a> did a good job of showing when and where Palin has said that climate change isn\u2019t caused by humans. She told the Internet news site Newsmax<\/a>, \u201cA changing environment will affect Alaska<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> more than any other state, because of our location. … I\u2019m not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

She also was quoted, according to The Associated Press, by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner<\/a> as saying this: \u201cI\u2019m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But such a flop, by itself, isn\u2019t any worse that Barack Obama\u2019s flop<\/a> on a Second Amendment issue that I wrote about earlier this week. It\u2019s the constant misrepresentation of the truth from the McCain campaign in recent days that\u2019s concerning. A few more examples:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 As reported by the Washington Post<\/a>, McCain said today on ABC\u2019s The View that Palin had never sought congressional earmarks as governor of Alaska<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The truth is that she requested $200 million this year alone and employed a Washington<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> lobbyist to help secure it.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 One of McCain\u2019s newest TV ads<\/a> accuses Obama of backing legislation that would teach \u201ccomprehensive sex education to kindergarteners.\u201d That\u2019s not true, reports McClatchy\u2019s Washington bureau<\/a>. As a state senator, Obama voted for legislation allowing school boards to teach \u201cage-appropriate\u201d sex education. As McClatchy reports, instead of mandating \u201ccomprehensive sex education\u201d in kindergarten, the bill \u201cgave schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u2022 Palin has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that she told Washington<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, \u201cThanks, but no thanks,\u201d to that infamous \u201cBridge to Nowhere.\u201d A second McCain TV ad<\/a> claims that Palin \u201cstopped the Bridge to Nowhere.\u201d But she didn\u2019t. As reported by The Associated Press<\/a>, Palin appeared to support the bridge during her gubernatorial campaign and didn\u2019t scrap plans to build the bridge until \u201cafter the project had become an embarrassment to the state (and) after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.\u201d When she scraped the project a year ago, she didn\u2019t tell Congress, \u201cThanks but no thanks.\u201d She said there was no point to trying to persuade Congress to fund the project.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

To be certain, Palin has been targeted by some on the left with lies, just as Obama has been inaccurately targeted by the right. But those have been largely underground attacks that neither side has proven emitted from the other campaign. The volley of untruths spewed in recent days has come directly from the mouths of McCain and Palin and their McCain-approved advertising.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Such tactics turn off voters. I expected more honorable conduct from a campaign built largely on McCain\u2019s honorable military and congressional record of service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been disappointed in recent days to see the degree of falsehood being put forth as fact by the campaign of John McCain. The media has done a good job of calling out the McCain campaign for what is understandably being called deception by many, but I felt I, as a journalist and an independent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}