These are John McCain's words
John McCain said, "I voted with the President (Bush) over 90% of the time, higher than a lot of even my Republican Colleagues."
John McCain has said, "I didn't decide to run for President to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run campaign as if it was some grand act of patriotism.
I wanted to be President because it had become my ambition to become President.
I was 62 yold when I made the decision and I thought it was my one shot at the prize."
Again I say, McCain just wants the title, not the responsibilities.
BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
The Smear Gap
McCain's attacks on Obama go too far. He knows better.
Aug 18, 2008 | Updated: 5:21 p.m. ET Aug 18, 2008
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This is hardly the nastiest campaign in recent memory. But it's not shaping up as the "civil" contest that both candidates promised either. Instead, we're seeing the emergence of a "smear gap". John McCain making stuff up about Barack Obama, and Obama trying to figure out how hard he should hit back.
As usual, news organizations are deeply afraid to say that one side is more negative than the other. Doing so sounds "unfair." It's much easier, and less controversial, to say that "both candidates" are being negative. That would be "balanced", but also untrue.
One of the wonders of the Web is that it's now possible for neutral observers to determine the truth or falsity of various attacks, and to have that information instantly available to anyone. The best arbiter is factcheck.org, which is sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania (Disclosure: Newsweek.com has a partnership with factcheck.org). If you don't believe me about the smear gap, check their analyses of campaign ads.
Obama has negative ads airing in more than a dozen states below the radar of the national media. One ad, in Ohio, links McCain to the 8,200 lost jobs at DHL, the German-owned overnight delivery service. That goes too far. McCain's support for a merger involving DHL hardly makes him culpable for the job loss. But overall, and to his credit, Obama has not engaged in anywhere near the number of falsehoods as McCain.
For about a month, McCain's campaign has been resorting to charges that are patently false. When Obama traveled abroad in July, to positive reviews, McCain decided he had to make attack ads that went far beyond the norm. In the past, plainly deceptive ads were the province of the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee or independent committees free to fling mud that didn't bear the fingerprints of candidates. But not this time. These smears come directly from the candidate.
First, a McCain ad charged that Obama was responsible for higher gas prices, which was not just false but absurd. Next, an ad said Obama had cancelled his trip to visit wounded soldiers in Germany because he couldn't bring the press along. I was in Germany at the time, and as every reporter knew, the visit to the military hospital was never going to be open, not even to a press pool. It appeared on no press schedules. Obama had cancelled the visit when it was clear that the Pentagon viewed it as political. The charge was simply untrue.
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