Check this out. Factcheck.org just said that McCain is not being honest about Factcheck.org itself. Isn’t this a riff that writes itself, perhaps for Letterman, a stump speech or an ad?
John McCain is so dishonest that he now is even lying about what the objective factcheckers are saying. It’s enough to make your head spin. Because his campaign has been caught out in lie after lie, John McCain put out an ad claiming that a neutral fact checking organization called Barack Obama dishonest. But that organization said McCain is the only one being dishonest. John McCain: George Bush's economic policies. Pinocchio's ethics.
I think there is a way out of the trap McCain is trying to set for Obama. McCain does not want the election to be about policy, so he is willing to lob charge after charge just to make Obama react and talk about process rather than policy.
Obama today very forcefully pointed out that these attacks are a diversion from what most people care about. Excellent. But I think that most people rightly care about both policy and basic minimal honesty. Politicians are all expected to fib a bit, but there is a line.
Honesty always has been McCain’s perceived strength, and it’s now high time to take away his greatest strength. Any sooner would have been too soon, because the media were not there yet. Now they are there (see Joe Klein for the past two weeks and even, gulp, Mark Halperin on CNN yesterday), and they are actually waiting for Barack to pull out that proverbial gun he said he’d bring to knife fight.
Now is the time. Any earlier and the assault on McC's honesty would have failed. Now it might resonate. CHAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!