Hats off to USAToday for calling it like it is.
In an editorial titled "McCain leads Obama in race to distort each other's records" { http://blogs.usatoday.com/... }, they note that
Presidential campaigns have never been genteel debates over policy disagreements, but what's really disappointing about this one is that candidates who promised that this would somehow be a better and more substantive discussion have given in to the same imperatives that turned other campaigns ugly, abandoning honest attacks for distortion and outright falsehoods.
A fair reading of all the fact-checking shows that both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have stepped over the line dozens of times and keep doing it.
That same fair reading suggests that while both nominees are guilty of sometimes outrageous falsehoods, McCain — who has prided himself on "straight talk" and took the high road when scurrilous attacks helped cost him the GOP presidential nomination in 2000 — has crossed the line more often and more egregiously.
Political Pinocchios
PolitiFact.com rates candidates' statements on a six-category scale from "true" to "pants on fire" falsehoods. Their analysis suggests that while both presidential candidates have stretched or ignored the truth, Republican John McCain has done that more often than Democrat Barack Obama:
Barely true: McCain 22 | Obama 14
False: McCain 23 | Obama 18
Pants on fire: McCain 6 | Obama 1
I am so happy to see this. I am tired of the press's false attempts to be "objective" by falsely saying that "both sides are doing it."
In fact, one side is really, really, really taking extreme liberties with the truth.
And we all know McCain's the one. It's good to see a widely-read publication like USAToday standing up for the truth.