Recently, the McCain campaign has been accused of delivering an inconsistent message to potential voters. But I wholly disagree with that accusation. If anything, there has been a very consistent message being put forth by the McCain camp: preemptively blame Obama for things that were McCain's fault or simply accuse Obama of doing the very things that McCain himself is guilty of.^ This is a strategy taken straight from Chapter 1 of the Karl Rove playbook.
Some examples of lies and truth-stretchings from the McCain-Palin campaign over the last few weeks that stood out to me as the most glaringly obvious misdirections:
*
Accusation: Barack Obama is
"more of the same"
Truth: Clearly it is McCain whose policy plans most closely mirror those of GWB, which is further exemplified by
McCain voting with Bush 95% of the time in 2007
*
Accusation: Barack Obama is
nothing but a celebrity and a fad
Truth:
McCain is the true Washington celebrity
*
Accusation: Barack Obama is a
friend of Big Oil
Truth: McCain's economic proposal
would cut taxes for five largest U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year
*
Accusation: Barack Obama has
"waged the dirtiest campaign in history", according to Cindy McCain
Truth: McCain's
recent campaign commercials have been 100% negative...and with the introduction of Ayers into the dialog, it's only going to get worse
*
Accusation: Barack Obama
exhibits poor judgment and associates with scaaaaarrrrry people.
Truth: Remind me again who
spoke out against the Iraq War before we invaded and new exactly what would happen if we destabilized that country? Yep, that was Barack Obama--how's that for good judgment? And who was it that
voted to authorize the dumbest war in the history of these United States? Oh, right, John McCain. And whose
husband was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates secession from the union? Oh, right, Sarah Palin's.
*
Accusation: Barack Obama is
cozy with ACORN and is trying to fraudulently steal the election
Truth: McCain
was the head of a 2006 ACORN rally
And the coup de grâce, which worked oh so well for Hillary:
* Accusation: Barack Obama's rhetoric is just words
Truth: Well, this one is a bit objective, so I'll leave it up to you to decide after 8 years of an Obama presidency. Do words matter?
This consistent pattern has become so predictable and absurd, the next thing we know, McCain will probably claim that Obama is 72 years old, has been acting erratically, and was a POW in North Vietnam.
^no, I don't believe in making a statement sound more awkward by placing the preposition earlier in the sentence.
cross-posted at Awaiting Your Rapture