Much discussion on the boards and pages today about John McCain's, um, lenience with the truth at Rick Warren's little hoedown on Saturday night, how the senator appropriated a Solzenitzen story, how he claimed to have voted on every important energy bill, how his "cone of silence" was more of a phone-laden limousine, etc.
These discussions sent me to the Google with a simple search parameter: "McCain, lies." In .13 seconds, the search engine was able to supply 6.9 million matches.
Funny thing, lots of those matching blogs, news reports, columns, etc. aren't from left-wing nutsos like DailyKos or the New York Times. Just as many come from conservative, even reactionary sources, from The New Republic to Red State to Rush Limbaugh.
John McCain's lying, apparently, is the one area of common agreement for people on all parts of the political spectrum.
I'm not going to waste your time detailing the seemingly endless lies that stream from the mouth of the senator from Arizona. If you're interested, the Google link above will keep you busy for days, if not weeks.
(Note: Daily Kos diarist StuHunter tried taking the tiniest sip from that firehose in July--and nearly drowned. Minutes before I posted this Jerome a Paris tried to catalog the senator's lies on a single subject. He is currently recovering on the rec list.)
McCain has lied about taxes, tariffs, troops, money, media, marriage, Keating, Katrina, Karl Rove, Sunnis, Shias, Georgians and probably the other Georgians. His lies stretch from Abramoff, Baghdad and Charlie Black down to the last letter of the alphabet. (Since Tanzania is one of two countries in the world where McCain enjoys net positive approval ratings, I have to assume he is lying about Zanzibar.)
This unanimity of opinion on the veracity of Sen. McCain raises a question: why isn't he known as "John McCain the Liar?"
After two statements made about Al Gore by others--"model for Love Story," "invented the Internet"--statements which were, in essence, true, Gore became tagged by the press as "The Liar." This label stayed with the vice-president throughout the campaign of 2000, probably costing him the election to an opponent most charitably labeled "The Idiot Child."
Digest that a second. Two essentially true statements made Al Gore "The Liar." Yet McCain, called a liar nearly 7 million times, still somehow retains the title of "Straight Talker." How can this be?
Whether it is saying, "I never said that" about quotes captured on tape, "I supported every investigation" about Nay votes recorded in the Congressional Record, even opposing campaign finance and immigration laws that are named after him, McCain is, to put it most charitably, inconstant.
At what point does it become acceptable to call McCain "The Liar?" When are we allowed to quit figuring new epicycles for the Mavricentric Universe and simply say, "And yet, it lies?" When do we grasp Occam's Razor and cut the crap here?
John McCain is a serial liar. Whether or not he is conscious of his habitual, almost ceaseless lying, whether this is a medical concern or a moral failing is of little matter. The hard core, bottom-line, incontrovertible reality is that John McCain is John McCain The Liar.
He is Joe Isuzu, Baron von Munchausen and Jayson Blair. He is among the world's foremost prevaricators. It is safest to assume that whatever comes out of his mouth is, by accident or design, flat out untrue.
So when, I ask again, do we get to stop dancing around the subject and just call him what he is? Neither the senator nor I am getting any younger and I personally don't have any more time to waste on euphemisms.
John McCain, The Liar. Set it in stone.