Democrats Launch a New 'Lie Counter' Site

I wonder if they will be posting a special 'lie of the day' section -- perhaps like a 'quote of the day,' that we can post on our blogs and websites. Or maybe they can run polls where we can vote on the strangest, most outlandish, nastiest and stupidest lies... I can see some real possibilities here.

Personally I'd like to see a contest, where everyday Americans can challenge each other and try to out-lie the great Karl Rove. I'd like to match wits with our American Goebbels some time. He's starting to slip a bit; some of these lies are just too easily debunked by anyone with Google.

From the Washington Post:

The site, "Count the Lies," will go live Monday, targeting what the Democratic National Committee says are falsehoods coming from Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party.

The total so far, according to the Democrats: 51 since McCain wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination in February.

McCain has been criticized by independent groups and the media over a recent and significant uptick in the number of unsubstantiated claims in his ads.

Seizing on those reports, the new Democratic Web site sports a "Lie Counter," which the DNC says will increase every time McCain or his surrogates offer what it regards as an untruth.

Jon Stewart will have fun with this one.

Strong words from the New York Times

The New York Times is calling foul on the stream of lies coming out of the McCain camp, and severely questioning his choice of running mate Sarah Palin.

In Friday's editorial, strong words about Palin:

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.

If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert also stated that Sarah Palin isn't qualified to be Vice President:

While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.

How is it that this woman could have been selected to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard the bandwagon and go along for the giddy ride?

For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol.”

(This has been going on since 2000, when the media told us that Gore was 'stuffy and boring,' and 'too intellectual,' and that 'Bush was the kind of guy you could hang and drink a beer with - a regular guy." I find it surprising that Mr. Herbert is just now noticing this... but better late than never.)

NY Times Columnist Paul Krugman cried foul on McCain's sleazy (lying) campaign tactics in his Op-Ed, "Blizzard of Lies:"

Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?

These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

And the New York Times newsroom has apparently decided that the lies are now becoming a story in and of themselves:

First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)

Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults).

Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.

According to the story, even longtime McCain supporters are questioning the rapid slide from straight-talk into sleaze-express:

In an interview Friday on the NY1 cable news channel, a McCain supporter, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called “ridiculous” the implication that Mr. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was a reference to Ms. Palin, whom he also defended as coming under unfair attack.

And some in the media are even calling McCain out to his face; questioning his support of such obvious falsehoods and forcing him to compound the lies of his campaign by once again endorsing them in person:

On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”

“Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply, “and have you seen some of the ads that are running against me?”

Does McCain really believe the American people are this stupid? Perhaps the most frightening question of all: Are the American people this stupid?

Obama blasts McCain over 'Lipstickgate'

The cynical politics of sleaze

This is exactly the sort of sleaze I've been seeing on TV lately. I never - in a million years - thought that McCain would run this kind of campaign. I'm sure it is Rove... but then, I never would have believed that McCain would hire Rove.

I'm so disappointed in McCain. I also no longer trust him. Anyone who would toss their integrity just to get elected, would do anything.

Lincoln once said:

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

McCain may have withstood adversity, but it appears the power test is going very badly... very badly indeed.

Will the real John McCain please stand up?

Never mind. Its too late.

Dispatch from the Angry Middle:

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
- Abraham Lincoln

Tonight, while trying to watch a baseball game, I saw my first GOP attack ad.

There was no mention of a GOP platform... of what the McCain campaign actually stands for or intends to do for us if elected. It was simply a lowlife, nasty attack on Obama; endorsed by John McCain.

As someone who used to live in Arizona and who used to respect this man, I am horrified.

Senator McCain... how far you have fallen. And what a terrible shame.

I used to believe you really were a non-partisan maverick. When you attempted - with Senator Feingold - to reform election campaign finance, I thought you meant it. When you appeared on "Why We Fight" and referred to Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex, I lauded your willingness to speak the truth out in the open. You seemed so unlike your lock-stepping, meanspirited, hypocritical GOP counterparts.

Apparently I was wrong.

I had never intended to say anything negative about you during your election run; there was no reason to speak ill of you, even if I don't agree with your... you do have a platform, don't you? There was no reason to speak ill of you as long as you remained a candidate of substance.

But I cannot sit by and watch you smear Barack Obama in such a sleazy fashion, while offering nothing of substance yourself.

Have you become nothing more than a Rovebot now? Will you literally do, say or endorse anything to get elected? Didn't you once find this kind of dirty, gutter politics disgusting and undignified when Rove used these very same tactics against you?

And yet you are willing to hire Rove and to adopt his sleazy tactics for your own 2008 campaign. My... how cynical.

That ad was an embarrassment. Your party will never understand that; but I once believed that you did. That was the very statesmanship that made you such a maverick in the political world.

When you said - was it really only last night? - that you planned to heal partisan divides in this nation, I am recalling that one George W. Bush said the very same thing. Right before stuffing the government with Bushies and denying Constitutional rights to anyone who didn't agree with him, or share his warped ideology.

I wondered when you hired Rove to be your propagandist, if you had gone over to the dark side. Perhaps you've simply always been there, pretending to be something other than what you are.

You are either not what you once were... or you never were that 'maverick' at all. I can't decide which reality is true. But one thing is painfully obvious; you're not the John McCain that I thought you were.

Attack ads are a sign of weakness, not of strength. They are a sign that the attacker has nothing of value to offer... and so he must pull another man down in an attempt to lift himself up. You have obviously given up every realistic - and popular - stand on the issues we care about. You've lost the Independents, but you don't appear to care. I guess your only option now - you can't attack the man you once were - is to attack the candidate who now represents the straight talk platform you abandoned.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
- Abraham Lincoln

I am ashamed for you. Gloves off.