From today's New York Times OpEd pages, the Editorial comes down hard and heavy on McSame's Bushit campaign tactics. (I scanned for a diary on this that might have already hit and didn't find one.)
It really is a heartening to see the WaPo and the Times develop a little journalistic backbone and stand up for the truth here - taking on the McSame and his campaign for singing their songs from the Karl Rove Bullshit Political Songbook after spending the late spring claiming he was going to take the high road in this campaign. More after the flip.
Here's the opening salvo:
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to "lose" in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers).
Following on today's Washington Post front page story, the Times editors don't pull many punches in calling out the candidate and the campaign on the lowly behavior we've seen through the month of July, topped off with the most recent out-and-out lie. The Times editors "calls 'em as they see 'em" here:
Mr. McCain repeatedly said Mr. Obama "would rather lose a war to win a political campaign" and that he "does not understand" what is at stake in Iraq. He also accused Mr. Obama of canceling a visit to wounded American troops in a German military hospital because news cameras were not allowed. That’s a false account of what occurred — and Mr. McCain ignored Mr. Obama’s unheralded visit to a combat hospital in Baghdad.
And then they finish off the piece with confirmation that they, too, believe this is not "John McCain" but "John McSame" who's running for the presidency from the GOP:
Many voters are wondering whether a McCain presidency would be an extension of Mr. Bush’s two disastrous terms. If the way Mr. McCain is running his campaign these days is an indication, Americans don’t have to wait until next January for the answer to that one.
So now we have at least two of the nation's major newspapers directly calling "bullshit" on McSame and his minions. Since the United States has largely given up reading newspapsers and become a nation of broadband media addicts addicted to the opiate of the TeeVee, we'll next have to see if anyone on the major networks is ready to start calling "bullshit" on this behavior as well. It's time for the tables to begin turning and the free-pass/love affair with McSame to come to an end with the media.