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 | Reform Lite: Obama goes soft on pork | |
| Obama: Time to rein in earmarks | |
| Omnibus signing statement | |
| Dems announce earmark reforms | |
| Gays in the military: Is it time? | |
| How Low Can Roland Go? | |
| Robert Gibbbzzzz.... | |
| DE Sen: Castle Leads Biden | |
| Poll: Delaware Loves Its Dems | |
| A Digital 9/11 |
| Obama's Remarks on Earmark Reform | |
| The Future of Russia Goes on Trial | |
| Agree with Obama or You're an 'Ideologue' | |
| Behind the Cell Curve | |
| Obama's Gamble |
| Both Parties Should Lose in this Election | |
| A Response to Marc Shaiman's Musical Against Prop 8 | |
| The GOP's Wilderness Years | |
| Pastor Rick Warren on "Hannity & Colmes" |
September 17, 2008
Obama Lobs the New 'L-Word': Liar
By Maggie Gallagher"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Any minute now I expect Sen. Barack Obama to break out in a chorus of this childhood classic.
Apparently the new kind of politics Obama practices is one that permits you to name-call your opponent like an aggrieved kindergartener.
"Lies and swift boat politics," proclaimed Obama at Granby High School in Norfolk, Va.
John McCain is "cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today," said Obama's official spokesperson Bill Burton, according to The Washington Times.
"In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it's clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election," Hari Sevugan, another spokesman for the Obama campaign, said in a statement. The New York Times quickly picked up the refrain with a front-page headline: "McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions."
Now Obama is releasing an ad called "Honor" that accuses McCain of running "truly vile, dishonest smears" and a "disgraceful, dishonorable campaign." The ad concludes: "It seems 'deception' is all he has left."
What seems truly unprecedented to me is this kind of direct, nasty, name-calling attack on an opponent's personal integrity.
Surely McCain must have done something extraordinary to deserve this kind of language?
The Obama campaign offers two premier examples of so-called "lies": (1) A McCain ad that says Obama supported "comprehensive" sex education for kindergarteners when, in fact, Obama supported only "age-appropriate" sex education for kindergarteners, and (2) the lipsticked pig controversy.
Are these guys serious?
"Thin-skinned" is the most polite way to describe the Obama campaign's response to hard-charging differences of opinion.
Meanwhile, of course, Obama routinely throws around whoppers of his own with impunity. Take, for example, the heart of Obama's health care plan -- a promise that, as his Web site puts it: "Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status."
I wouldn't call this a "lie" because I don't talk like that. But if it's not a lie, then Obama is truly an idiot, and I don't believe that Harvard Law School made that big a mistake about him. How can you offer an insurance plan that lets sick people buy into it at the same rates as healthy people whenever they want? People will only buy insurance when they get sick and the insurance system will collapse. Obama knows he can't possibly deliver what he's promising: all gain and no pain, health care for all that costs nothing more. Hillary Clinton called him on it in the primaries, but he's still pushing the same old snake-oil medicine.
Or consider the issue of marriage. Obama looked Rick Warren in the eye and claimed he supported defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But off-camera Obama promises to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act and opposes Proposition 8 in California that upholds the definition of marriage but leaves civil unions intact.
Why does Obama continue to pretend -- I won't say "lie" -- to the American public that he supports so-called "traditional marriage"? Because it's politically useful, that's why.
Obama is charging McCain with dishonorable lies because he cannot believe what is actually happening. Over the summer the American people have taken a good hard look at the two men who want to be commander in chief, and increasingly, they think McCain is the guy they trust to lead us in troubled times.
A friendly word of advice to Obama: Whining about the difference between "comprehensive" and "age-appropriate" sex education for 5-year-olds is no way to make us think again.
