My local paper, the St. Petersburg Times, has joined the growing chorus of traditional media outlets that are calling the McCain campaign on its lies. The paper's Politifact section, which gauges the accuracy of political ads, called McCain's recent Web ad about the phony outrage over the lipstick comment "hogwash," and gave that ad and McCain's ad on sex education its "Pants on Fire" truth-o-meter rating, meaning that both ads are complete lies. The Times blasts McCain for his smearing tactics, and calls his ads "absurd."
Regarding McCain's bunch-o-crap lipstick ad, the Times points out that if you look at the full text of Obama's remarks, which of course are not included in the ad, it's clear that Obama isn't talking about Sarah Palin but about McCain's argument that he represents change. The paper also points out the obvious that "putting lipstick on a pig" is a popular put-down, especially among politicians, and has found many instances of politiicans using it, including John McCain in talking about Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 2007.
The paper's blistering conclusion:
It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he's making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin. Her name never is used in the preceding sentence. In fact, it's hard to see how one could interpret Obama's lipstick-on-a-pig remark as referring directly to McCain, either.
We think it's very clear that Obama was saying McCain's effort to call himself the "candidate of change" is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama's point, but his remark wasn't the smear that McCain's people have tried to make it.
If anyone's doing any smearing, it's the McCain campaign and its outrageous attempt to distort the facts. Did Obama call Palin a pig? No, and saying so is Pants on Fire wrong.
As for McCain's bogus sex education attack ad, the Times points out all the facts about the sex education bill in the Illinois Senate to contradict all the lies in McCain's ad about the bill. The newspaper concludes that the ad is yet another big lie from McCain:
The bill specifically mentions that instructional material must be age appropriate. It specifically mentions teaching children how to "say no to unwanted sexual advances" and "nonconsensual physical sexual contact." The legislation was not sponsored by Obama and it didn't pass, so calling it one of his "accomplishments" is absurd. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!
Of course, the fact that I'm even writing this diary entry is probably exactly what Karl Rove wants. Instead of talking about the issues and about how McCain is devoid of any ideas on how to lead our country forward and change the direction of this country after eight years of Bush-Cheney misery, we're all talking about sex education and lipstick. What we should be talking about, of course, is that Obama is the only candidate who has solid ideas for improving our education system and the only candidate who will actually work to protect and advance women's rights. Sorry Karl and John, but your bullshit tactics won't work this time. Too many people are on to your cynical, hate-filled crap and the majority of this country will reject it in November.