Obama Competes With McCain In Campaign Lies

[ParanoiA]

So, here's the latest. Obama puts up an ad and misrepresents McCain and Rush Limbaugh. Rush barely even tolerates McCain and has only recently started saying good things about him and it started with the Palin pick.

 

Rush and McCain are on opposite sides in the immigration issue and Rush was pro-NAFTA, which is where the main comments come from.

 

The Politico actually agrees with Rush on this and defends him, but oddly enough, I can't find the story on their page.

 

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/18/obama-ads-linking-mccain-to-rush-limbaugh-stir-controversy/

 

Limbaugh said the “stupid and unskilled” comment referred to commentary he gave about his support of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.

 

“If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people — I’m serious, let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work,” is the full Limbaugh quote.

 

Let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do it, as opposed to stupid and unskilled Americans. Sounds like Rush to me. As usual, if you don't listen carefully, you can get the wrong idea.

 

He added that the “shut up” quote was actually from Mexican legislation he read on air in 2006.

 

“I’m reciting Mexican immigration law: You’re a foreigner, shut your mouth or get out. The Obama campaign has taken ’shut your mouth or get out’ from this commentary and put it in an Obama ad and claiming I said that about Mexicans in this country, when I never have, plain and simple,” he said.

 

“Both of these things have been taken out of context on purpose,” he said.

 

What else is new?

[swansont]

We need truth-in-advertising to be applied to campaigns.

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/801

[bascule]

The association of McCain to Limbaugh is a below-the-belt move.

 

That said, John McCain is certainly a "Maverick, Reformed" on the immigration issue. He's again playing to the base, and no longer supports his own 2006 proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship for Mexican immigrants:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/30/GOPdebate.transcript/

 

HOOK: Senator McCain, let me just take the issue to you, because you obviously have been very involved in it. During this campaign, you, like your rivals, have been putting the first priority, heaviest emphasis on border security. But your original immigration proposal back in 2006 was much broader and included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were already here.

 

What I'm wondering is -- and you seem to be downplaying that part. At this point, if your original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor, would you vote for it?

 

MCCAIN: It won't. It won't. That's why we went through the debate...

 

HOOK: But if it did?

 

MCCAIN: No, I would not, because we know what the situation is today. The people want the border secured first. And so to say that that would come to the floor of the Senate -- it won't. We went through various amendments which prevented that ever -- that proposal.

[ParanoiA]

We need truth-in-advertising to be applied to campaigns.

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/801

Interesting article.

 

I just read recently that John Adams was called "His Rotundity" due to his short and fat size and it pissed him off so much he declared he would challenge the next person to a duel that called him that' date=' and that supposedly put an end to it.

 

So, maybe the threat of a duel would require honesty and respect from one another.

 

Or I guess we could be civilized about it and do it your way...

 

That said, John McCain is certainly a "Maverick, Reformed" on the immigration issue. He's again playing to the base, and no longer supports his own 2006 proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship for Mexican immigrants:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/...te.transcript/

 

Yeah I remember this. I can certainly understand if that bothers you, but I do remember when this first came up and McCain got beat to death by the republicans for his "amnesty" provisions. I don't know if this qualifies as a shallow flip-flop or not, but I remember a defeated McCain later replying that he "got the message".

Edited September 18, 2008 by ParanoiA

[iNow]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/obamas_fannie_mae_connection.html

An already nasty presidential election campaign is getting nastier. The meltdown on Wall Street has touched off frantic attempts by both the McCain and Obama camps to secure political advantage and indulge in guilt by association. Over the last 24 hours, both campaigns have issued video press releases (let's not call them ads until they actually air somewhere) attempting to show that the other side's "advisers" are somehow responsible for the crisis. The latest McCain attack is particularly dubious.

 

 

 

The Facts

... <more at

link

>

 

 

The Pinocchio Test

The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself--and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.

[ParanoiA]

This is awesome:

 

So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that the three items (including an editorial) all rely on the same single conversation, between Raines and a Washington Post reporter, Anita Huslin, who wrote a Style section profile of the discredited Fannie Mae boss that appeared on July 16. The profile reported that Raines, who retired from Fannie Mae four years ago, had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

 

Where's the three "items" in the Post? We know that those three items came from this profile on July 16, but we don't know how the Post used that same profile in those three items. I would sure like to see if the Post was consistent in downplaying the connection in those three items. Depending on how they sensationalized it or not, should go directly to responsibility.

 

If they flew off the handle, themselves, and printed inaccurate information, then I can hardly see how that's McCain's fault. It would sure be interesting to see those 3 articles.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

What I heard this afternoon insulted the hell out of me. Barack Obama, mister 2nd from the top recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money, pointing fingers at "politicians looking the other way". He's got a lot of damn nerve. What the hell was he doing? Oh yeah, running for president.

 

Send these jokers home people. This is ridiculous. We are doing exactly what the two party machine wants us to do - choose between the two hacks. Don't we deserve better than hacks?

Edited September 19, 2008 by ParanoiA

[Pangloss]

I can understand your frustration at that. To be fair, though, just because he received lobbying money from those two organizations doesn't mean he was looking the other way. That's one of the more insidious aspects of K Street, the fact that the money can't be directly tied to specific instances of influence and decisions.

[Pangloss]

The Times ran a comprehensive piece on Obama's latest attack ads on McCain today, basically summarizing some of the more recent transgressions by the Democratic candidate.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26ads.html?ref=us

 

Yet as Mr. McCain’s misleading advertisements became fodder on shows like “The View” and “Saturday Night Live,” Mr. Obama began his own run of advertisements on radio and television that have matched the dubious nature of Mr. McCain’s more questionable spots.

 

The article goes on to quote some examples, most of which we've already talked about to varying degrees here.

 

And on a somewhat unrelated note that just happens to be in the same article, here's some typical partisan reasoning for you:

 

“All’s fair in love, war and politics,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who was Vice President Al Gore’s press secretary in 2000. “Given the fact that the other side has come after him for quite some time, he has every right to fight back, and I think people understand that.”

 

Oh yeah, people understand that alright. And they show their understanding of that by flocking to the Democratic Party in droves, leaving all states blue and nobody ever voting Republican ever again. Riiiiight.

[iNow]

And on a somewhat unrelated note that just happens to be in the same article, here's some typical partisan reasoning for you:

 

Pangloss - For the love of Thor, man... The guy is a Democratic strategist, and it even says so in the quote you shared. Of freakin' course he's partisan, yet you act as if he's perpetrated some serious wrong for not being completely neutral and even handed in his comments.

[Pangloss]

Nah, I'm just pointing out the obvious. It's what I live for.