In the face of Tammy Duckworth's non-campaign to take over Henry Hyde's IL-06 seat in Congress, it seems to be left to the news media to point out the lies and distortions being relentlessly vomitted forth every day by Peter Roskam's campaign of falsehood. Fat and swollen with the cash of corruption funnelled into his coffers, the Roskam campaign sends a steady stream of glossy full-color mailers full of lies and innuendo into the mailboxes of local voters. The only voice we hear in rebuttal is that of Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
who has previously pointed out some of Roskam's other lapses in the field of honesty and truth.
Today's Zorn column addresses a Roskam mailer that implies Duckworth favors "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, as well as opposing efforts to police the national borders.
Slipperier still is this passage from a Roskam campaign news release on immigration earlier this month: Duckworth "has repeatedly expressed her support for Ted Kennedy's amnesty bill, legislation that CNN has called `the Senate's illegal alien amnesty bill.'"
"Ted Kennedy's amnesty bill" refers to Senate Bill 1033. The sponsor of that bill is Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has contributed $2,500 to the Roskam campaign.
Duckworth, a member of the National Guard, opposes the deployment of Guard troops on the border, which Roskam supports. TV commercials for Roskam claim that Duckworth wants "illegals [to] get Social Security benefits" when, in fact, the legislation Duckworth supports calls for immigrants to join the Social Security system only after they have attained legal status.
This is not to say that Duckworth or McCain necessarily has a better plan than Roskam or the House Republicans. Our massive population of illegal immigrants poses a complicated problem, and people of goodwill differ on the solution.
It's to say that for people of goodwill to make progress on the border issue, they first have to respect the boundary between truth and lies.
Roskam's distortions of the truth are rendered even more despicable as appeals to the prejudices of local voters. In DuPage County, the "race" issue tends to be focused on Hispanics.
Most of his other mailings use scare tactics, seeking to capitalize on voter resentment of recent property tax increases by portraying Duckworth as intending to raise taxes. Here, too, is nothing but innuendo and distortion.
But it seems to be left to Zorn to use the word "lie". Certainly I am hearing no rebuttal to Roskam's scurrilous charges from the Duckworth campaign, only the sound of silence.