McCain Lies Again

In a recent ad, the McCain campaign has attacked Sen. Obama for cancelling a trip to an American army base in Germany. They say that the reason he cancelled the trip was because the Pentagon wouldn’t let him bring cameras. Unfortunately for the McCain campaign, this is a lie. The Pentagon itself has proven the falsehood of McCain’s statements by saying that the reason the trip wouldn’t work is that due to a technicality, campaign staff aren’t allowed on an army base.

The only source in the mainstream media to get this story right is MSNBC. Unfortunately, the McCain campaign has shown their lack of respect for the American people by using such scurrilous tactics. Senator McCain has said in the past that he wanted to run an honorable campaign, yet he has resorted to lying and fear mongering. The very campaign tactics that he supposedly deplored in 2004. When asked about the swiftboat ads, John McCain said “I deplore this kind of politics, think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable.” However, in 2008, John McCain has embraced those that kind of politics and has been dishonest and dishonorable.

Fox (state sponsored)News

Today on Hardball with Chris Matthews former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted what many had long known to be true. The White House sent and possibly still sends talking points directly to Fox News.  This of course is the final nail in the coffin of the myth that Fox is “fair and balanced. Many had already come to the conclusion that Fox’s claim of objectivity was a falsehood, but now all but the most close-minded will have to admit it as McClellan’s admission means that Fox commentators such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have, as liberals have alleged, effectively been nothing but propagandists for the Bush administration while clothing themselves in the moniker of journalist.

Keith Olbermann later reported that MSNBC tried to reach Fox and the White House for comment, but that the White House refused and that Fox didn’t return their call.

Obama Dares To Print Flyer In German

On The Next Right, Patrick Ruffini ranted about the fact that the Obama campaign printed a flyer advertising his speech in Berlin in German. Of course, Berlin is in Germany, where people speak German. Ruffini’s lingual complaint crescendos in an accusation that using a nation’s language to inform them of an event is a “lapse in judgment.” His lingual complaints of course also fail to mention the fact that McCain hasn’t been above using other languages in his campaign. He then complains about the fact that the flyer was paid for by Obama for America rather than his Senate office(thus in his mind making it a campaign event.)

Ruffini alledges that the event is an Obama campaign rally despite the fact that Obama said the word “president” only once and that was to say that “I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” and that he never said the phrase commander in chief.  Ruffini goes on to argue that it isn’t a “high-minded foreign policy speech” despite the fact that the focus of the speech was the fact that we need to work together in order to create a more hopeful world and defend freedom by doing things such as ending the Iraq war.

Obama Honors Holocaust Victims, GOP Says Obama Isn’t Against Genocide

The campaign attacks have suddenly gotten crazier than ever with the McCain campaign saying that Obama is tacitly pro-genocide. While in the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, Senator Obama lay a wreath to honor the dead and wrote a tribute honoring the museum and the victims of the holocaust in the guest book:

“Let our children come here, and know this history, so they can add their voices to proclaim ‘Never Again.” And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims but also as individuals who hoped and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.”

The McCain campaign quickly jumped to shamelessly accuse Obama of being in favor of genocide.Their means were to include two Obama quotes including the above from the guest book and the one below:

“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now – where millions have been punished by ethnic strife – which we haven’t done.”

McCain aide Michael Goldfarb was asked to clarify if they were really making such an unbelivable accusation. Goldfarb said:

“Today he says ‘never again.’ A year ago stopping genocide wasn’t good enough reason to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. Doesn’t that strike you as inconsistent?”

Of course, there’s no factual basis for this as Senator Obama favors leaving some residual troops to ensure that nothing like genocide would happen. It also completely distorts the point that Obama was making. He wasn’t saying that genocide was acceptable. He was pointing out that genocide isn’t limited to Iraq and yet no one is advocating the invasion of Darfur.

Iraq Supports American Withdrawal. McCain opposes.

Predictably, the Iraqi government doesn’t like the fact that there are foreign troops in their country. Today while in Iraq, Senator Obama sat down with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss the state of Iraq. After the meeting, al-Maliki’s spokesman said “We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq.” This discounts the idea that Der Spiegel mistranslated al-Maliki’s statement about an American withdrawal. Al-Maliki’s Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi echoed this statement and said that he would be happy if American troops left by December 31st, 2010. This is a fairly similar timeline to the one proposed by Obama earlier in the campaign cycle.

Despite this, McCain still opposes withdrawal despite a saying in April of 2004 that “It is obvious we would have to leave if they asked us to leave. This once again leaves Obama looking like he can see what has to be done with McCain looking like he’s behind the times.

Bush To Set “Time Horizon” For Withdrawal

President Bush has agreed to set a nebulous “time horizon” to(as he said) “cut and run.” Bush agreed to(as he once said) “raise the white flag of surrender” in the wake of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s statement that he wanted to see American troops leave Iraq. This is in sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s previous opposition to Democratic plans to begin to leave Iraq. In fact, the Bush administration still opposes the more specific plans proposed by the Democrats. They argue that the difference between the plans is that Democratic party’s plan is an arbitrary time table while the new Bush plan is a “time horizon” based on what’s happening on the ground.  This of course ignores the fact that the reason the Democratic party and Barack Obama support a careful timeline based on events on the ground is that the war has been failing.

The Bush administration’s justification for their pivit is that the Surge has worked. This of course is false because the objective of the Surge was to bring about political reconciliation. Instead the Kurds have walked out of the parliament and that Baath Party members are still not able to fully participate in the government. In other words, the Surge brought about security gains, but failed to meet its objective.

Bush’s Bushian Appeasement

A few months ago, President Bush said that anyone who was willing to meet with Iran was seeking “the false comfort of appeasement.” Well, now the Bush administration has sent its third highest ranking diplomat to Switzerland to have six-way talks with Iran. The talks are intended to get Iran to stop enriching nuclear materials. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino tried to spin away the fact that this shows hypocrisy on Bush’s part:

“We will be there to listen. We are not there to negotiate. And our long-standing principle, that Iran must halt its uranium enrichment before negotiations can take place, remains the same. It’s also been referred to as freeze-to-freeze _ if they were to freeze their enrichment, then we would not move forward with the consequences of not accepting the (incentives) package, which are more sanctions,”

Unfortunately for Mrs. Perino, hypocrisy is harder to spin away than that and most people seem to recognize that Bush now must view himself as equivalent a Nazi appeaser if he is to be intellectually consistent. Of course, his original statement that negotiation automatically equals appeasement is false but unless Bush admits that, he has to see himself as an appeaser.

This also supports the Obama candidacy as he has been calling for strong diplomacy with Iran and this is a first step along that path.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by jim.greenhill who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from jim.greenhill.

Sen. Joe Lieberman(R-CONN)

Okay, so he doesn’t actually have an R next to his name. However, today he has shown again why he should end the charade and show his true self with an R. In a speech in front of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement and full of McCain campaign talking points, Senator Lieberman depicted Senator Obama as a foolish politician with dangerous policies. My critiques will be italicized in red:

“I’ve been following Sen. Obama’s comments in this campaign and particularly in the last months since the primaries were over, And I wish he would just say that the surge has worked.It hasn’t. The surge was supposed to create political reconciliation and that hasn’t happened. He doesn’t have to give credit to John McCain or anyone else. He can give credit to General Petraeus and the troops who have carried it out. I wish he would acknowledge the surge is working, rather than changing his position on how and when we should exit Iraq He never changed his position on Iraq., without acknowledging that these are changes of positions that are understandably based on conditions on the ground. A president’s credibility is based on the courage of his or her convictions, his or her acceptance of reality, and consistency of views are critical elements of national leadership. A president who squanders those does so at our nation’s peril.Of course, President Bush has squandered them as the Iraq war has created more terrorists. Sen. Obama said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that is tough, smart and principled, this afternoon I want to ask my colleague who I respect and like a couple of direct questions: Was it tough when Sen. Obama voted to order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders or conditions on the ground?Recent polling has shown that the American people want us to leave Iraq, so it would simply be the President obeying the will of the people as he’s supposed to. Was it smart when Sen. Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve our security? Of course, that’s exactly what happened. … Was it tough and principled when Sen. Obama said he would be open to changing his plan on Iraq He never said this. He only said he would refine his position, which implies far smaller movements such as the speed of withdrawal or which troops will be drawn out first. after going there and talking to General Petraeus, which I think was the right position, only to change that position hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like MoveOn.org? I say respectfully the answer to all those questions is, no.”

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by dbking who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from dbking.

Tony Snow:June 1, 1955 – July 12, 2008

This is fairly late, but Tony Snow died over the weekend of cancer. He was 53. His family’s loss has been mourned by people of varying political ideologies. On the Right, the President released a statement expressing his sympathies:

“The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character, it was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day.”

On the Left, Elizabeth Edwards’ wrote an article about Snow’s death which draws on her personal experience with cancer. Some of what she says in the article is:

“Tony Snow has died. And lots of people who valued the same things Tony did—a family well-loved and work well-done—have died and will die of colon cancer, those who have preceded Tony and those who will follow him. Can’t we start with something easy on which we can agree? That no one should die of a disease we can find and stop? And when we agree—and agree to do something about it—then we can move on toward those fault lines, like Tony, not taking no for an answer.”

MSNBC host and Bush administration critic Keith Olbermann has also expressed his sympathies:

“Tony Snow was an optimistic, funny, and courageous man who could set aside his politics and inspire others to do the same. It might surprise many at all political points, but while we could not have disagreed more on policy, we were in frequent contact, even during his days as Press Secretary, even as I was criticizing his work and he was — in his own words — yelling at the screen as he watched. It was with great sadness that I heard of his death today, and with sincerity I extend my condolences and my staff’s to his family. In the best of us, there is a difference between the message and the messenger, and Tony Snow epitomized that.”

The end of Olbermann’s statement says it all. We should remember that a good person can be the messenger of a message that we disagree with completely and it seems like that was the case with Mr. Snow. He was a good man, though from my perspective, a misguided one.

Tasteless.

The cover of this week’s issue of the New Yorker depicts Barack Obama in Arabic(ie: Muslim to most people) garb performing a “terrorist fist jab” with Michelle Obama, who is dressed like a Black Panther. Behind them, the US flag and a picture of Osama Bin Laden hangs over the fireplace. The New Yorker’s defense of the cover is that it “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

His point is well seen, but nothing on the cover references the fear mongers. This lack of context means that the same people who have fallen for misinformation and scare tactics will think the New Yorker is verifying their point of view. I’m not saying the New Yorker shouldn’t be able to publish this. Nor am I saying that the New Yorker has to be positive towards Obama. I’m simply saying that the New Yorker should be above reinforcing the fears of the right. I do assume that regular readers of the New Yorker would get the point. However, this cover will be seen by many who would never read the New Yorker due to how incendiary it is.

A magazine with the reputation of the New Yorker should act more responsibly.

Edit at 11:40 AM, July 15, 2008: I’ve been thinking more about it and it seems to me that the problem is simply in the execution. If, as an example, they had put the scene in a thought bubble coming from a scared stereotypical white man the satire would be clearer and it would be far more difficult for it to be misinterpreted. Of course, even if was done badly, The New Yorker has a right to say it which is something we should be happy about.