Cutting the legs out from under McCain’s Landstuhl smear
From the “credit where credit is due” file, I argued the other day that news outlets were repeating the McCain campaign’s demonstrably false smear about Barack Obama and wounded U.S. troops in Germany, but neglecting to point out reality. As far as the public was concerned, McCain was making an attack; Obama said the attack is false. Who’s right? It’s apparently the media’s job to pass along press releases, not report the news.
But I’m pleased to note that some outlets have been responsible about this. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell told viewers this week that the McCain campaign attack “literally is not true.” The NYT ran a decent story yesterday, and the WaPo has a very good front-page item today.
For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.
The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said. They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival’s patriotism.
The essence of McCain’s allegation is that Obama planned to take a media entourage, including television cameras, to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany during his week-long foreign trip, and that he canceled the visit when he learned he could not do so…. In fact, there is no evidence that he planned to take anyone to the American hospital other than a military adviser, whose status as a campaign staff member sparked last-minute concern among Pentagon officials that the visit would be an improper political event. […]
A reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding Obama’s decision not to visit Landstuhl, based on firsthand reporting from the trip, shows that his campaign never contemplated taking the media with him.
Confronted with reality, and the growing realization that they’d been caught blatantly lying to the media and the public, McCain campaign aides apologized yesterday for deliberately manufacturing a fictional smear.
No, no, I’m just kidding. Confronted with reality, the McCain campaign continued to lie yesterday as if they hadn’t been caught orchestrating a massive scam.
Despite serious and repeated queries about the charge over several days, McCain and his allies continued yesterday to question Obama’s patriotism by focusing attention on the canceled hospital visit.
McCain’s campaign released a statement from retired Sgt. Maj. Craig Layton, who worked as a commander at the hospital, who said: “If Senator Obama isn’t comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief.”
McCain’s advisers said they do not intend to back down from the charge, believing it an effective way to create a “narrative” about what they say is Obama’s indifference toward the military.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said again yesterday that the Republican’s version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the visit because he was not allowed to take reporters and cameras into the hospital.
“It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons,” he said. “We’re not making a leap here.”
Asked repeatedly for the “reports,” Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital.
They’re lying, we know they’re lying, they know they’re lying, and they know that we know they’re lying. And yet, they lie anyway. Why? Because they “believe it an effective way to create a ‘narrative.'”
For John McCain and his team of Karl Rove acolytes, it doesn’t matter if a smear is true, it matters if they can lead some people to think the smear might be true. Don’t bother them with details; they have a character to destroy.
And perhaps most importantly, the honor-challenged Republican campaign has successfully executed a carefully-tailored plan. McCain’s gang ran the disgusting commercial “roughly a dozen” times, and then waited for the media to pick it up and put it on the air for free, characterizing it as “tough” and “hard-hitting.” Millions of people ended up seeing and/or hearing the lie, without the McCain campaign having to invest scarce resources. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because the Swiftboat liars did the exact same thing four years ago.)
Political candidates of strong moral character do not do what John McCain is doing.
RSA
says:No, no, I’m just kidding.
Ah, Steve, you should do stand-up. You had me going for a microsecond. 🙂
Jesse
says:Maybe it’s because the coffee hasn’t kicked in, but I did a double take after reading that McCain’s aides had apologized. I should be familiar enough with your writing style to know that you throw in a joke every now and then.
I guess it’s time for me to get a second cup…
citizen_pain
says:You know who allows these dirty rotten scoundrels to continue this type of campaign? The idiots that keep voting for their candidates. They have found a winning formula that appeals to the lowest common denominators, it works, and they’ll use to ’till kingdom come.
Until the AMERICAN ELECTORATE repudiates these tactics by electing the targets of this type of campaigning, we’ll see more of the same.
THE MSM isn’t going to change, Washington isn’t going to change. WE have to make the changes at the voting booth.
I have to admit though, I am really nervous about this election.
NHCt
says:It’s time our side take the gloves off and fight back. Where’s the tough Obama response that outright calls McCain a liar? I get the feeling the Obama campaign believes the media will come to its defense. Even in this case, the debunking is taking place long after millions of Americans have been exposed to the b.s. The correction is never as powerful as the original attack.
Lew Scannon
says:Republicans can’t run on real issues, such as the economy, health care, the war on Iraq, because the majority of Americans oppose their position on them. that’s why they need to create non-issues such as this one, to get people to vote against their own interests.
Michael Wells
says:For those who question the efficacy of these lies and smears, read the comments to the WaPo article.
Diogenes
says:And still, it is the freaking Daily Show that has the best reporting. Last night they had a bit on with John Olliver pointing out that McCain’s ad claiming that Obama didn’t visit the troops actually had soldiers in the background. Why is it that someone who is intentionally telling jokes is a more reliable source than the jokers that claim to be doing straight journalism? It’s like Poe’s law has been expanded to include the media.
montanapat
says:is there no legal recourse for the Obama campaign? i always wondered why kerry didn’t sue the swiftboaters 4 years ago to stop the ads and inflict financial damage. as long as there are no real consequences for their actions they will continue to lie.
Stevio
says:The NY Times did an editorial today that hammers McAce’s team’s bull shit. Now America needs to hear it on ABC,NBC,CBS, MSNBC, and fox. (Oops. did I use lower case there?) Calling the Rovarian tactics for what they are:LIES, probably won’t stop McAce’s lemmings from continuing to launch them, however, it will send a message that they won’t get a free swift boat ride for the attempt. We’ll see. The NY Times editorial was a good start. Let’s see if the LA Times and McClatchy and the MSM go along or just let it fester like those brown spots on McAce’s face.
William
says:I don’t worry so much, McCain will f#ck up big time, you’ll see. The real problem for McCain is that after the election, they’ll blame him for the massive Repugnican losses in the Congress. This guy will not come away clean from this or any other dirty little trick, at least that’s the way I see it. Have some optimism folks, we haven’t even seen him smacked down in a debate yet (except for the earlier primary debates – what a joke those were!) and I do believe there will be pwnage.
Tom Cleaver
says:All McCain has got is finger-pointing and lying. Let’s remember that since Republicans all come from the lower half of the intelligence continuum.
It would be so much easier for the Republicans if they could say what they really want to say:
“Obama’s a nnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii………..!!!!”
Evergreen
says:# Citizen Paine says:
citizen_pain
says:I agree Evergreen, the LIV’s are the ones that actually believe a lot of this garbage. But if that is the case, then the LIV’s outnumber us reality based voters by a margin large enough to keep the LIV candidates in power.
Now, what does that say about our country? Most Americans are just plain stupid?
Always hopeful
says:LIVs are those who are too busy working 2 jobs, wrangling with mortgage companies over losing their homes, dealing with teenagers’ drama, getting kids ready to go to school and cleaning house after the kids have gone to bed, so weekends are free for family time. Most people just can’t and don’t care to make INFORMED decisions. They just go with their guts and the blurbs that they manage to catch on the news on the days that they can actually sit down long enough to watch it. Republicans count on this. They’re the ones running the company store, so they know what most people are doing most of the time.
citizen_pain
says:“LIVs are those who are too busy working 2 jobs, wrangling with mortgage companies over losing their homes, dealing with teenagers’ drama, getting kids ready to go to school and cleaning house after the kids have gone to bed, so weekends are free for family time”
Well, sounds to me like they need to take the time to get informed. Maybe if they had, they wouldn’t have voted for Republicans 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections, and they wouldn’t have had to work two jobs to make ends meet, wrangle with mortgage companies, etc. etc.
sparrow
says:I expect that a montage of the clips from the Post, Time, and Mitchell calling out McCain on this lie will soon hit YouTube. Hope it goes viral and is passed along from email In box to email In box to help draw increased attention to the low road McCain has taken.
Nanuq
says:The problem Democrats have — and have had for the last two generations — is that we believe so strongly that we’re both right and morally superior that we don’t use strong methods to get our messages across. As I read, I kept waiting for a real rebuttal, a hard-hitting fact I could use to address fence-sitters and convince them that the McSame campaign is lying to smear Obama. I was disappointed. Is it morally reprehensible to have to disprove such lies? Yes. Do we need to do it anyway? Yes. A mere denial from the Obama campaign that the Landstuhl visit was ever planned as a media event is not enough. Statements from the media organizations (Brian Williams? Katie Couric — oops, no, she was too busy sucking up to McSame) on the tour that they had no Landstuhl event on their schedules for the day would help tremendously. One of those inspiring statements on soldier sacrifice and the right to post-action superb care from the candidate himself would be great, too.
Gregory
says:Political candidates of strong moral character do not do what John McCain is doing.
Also don’t forget that McSame “created a narrative” that he would run an honorable campaign, so that he gets a free pass when he starts to employ the usual disgusting Rove smear tactics.
The bright spot is that he’s this desperate in July.
Derek
says:McCain is a serial liar. He can not be trusted.
beep52
says:It would be so much easier for the Republicans if they could say what they really want to say… — Tom Cleaver
If their frustration continues to build, I can see that happening before this campaign is over. You know, one of those private sessions where the recorders are supposed to be turned off.
TRNC
says:“It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons,”…
Of course it is. The McCain campaign wrote those press reports.
Joey
says:“…Political candidates of strong moral character do not do what John McCain is doing.”
But what the public doesn’t know won’t affect them. Unless the complicit media does it’s job how is the public to know the deceit of the McCain campaign. This is what they rely on…considerably less people seeing the truth as saw the lie.
At this point only completely ignorant or compromised voters could possibly support McCain. By compromised I mean those who would believe Bush is running for a third term and would vote for Bush again…..”McCain not Bush?…oh, ok”
toowearyforoutrage
says:McCain’s campaign released a statement from retired Sgt. Maj. Craig Layton, who worked as a commander at the hospital, who said: “If Senator Obama isn’t comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief.”
Entourage.
They SO wanted to say “posse”
It’s embarrassing to say, but I can’t see how Tom Cleaver @ 11 has it wrong. It’s THAT simple. My country’s politics have stooped to Jesse Helms Jim Crow fearmongering of the black man. I smell Rove.