On truthfulness in the campaign

From the New York Times article on McCain and the truthfulness of his campaign.

Mr. Obama’s hands have not always been clean in this regard. He was called out earlier for saying, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain supported a “hundred-year war” in Iraq after Mr. McCain said in January that he would be fine with a hypothetical 100-year American presence in Iraq, as long as Americans were not being injured or killed there.

More recently, Mr. Obama has been criticized for advertisements that have distorted Mr. McCain’s record on schools financing and incorrectly accused him of not supporting loan guarantees for the auto industry — a hot topic in Michigan. He has also taken Mr. McCain’s repeated comments that American economy is “fundamentally sound” out of context, leaving out the fact that Mr. McCain almost always adds at the same time that he understands that times are tough and “people are hurting.”

And not being truthful is a problem for either side. Should we demand that candidates raise the standard of truthfulness, not lower it?

Why a Fellow POW won't vote for McCain

Limbaugh and Hannity on the Palin choice

Rush Limbaugh said that McCain's choice of Sarah Palin shows him to be a true maverick. That is just before he made the ludicrously sexist comment "We got the babe on our ticket." (So much for shattering any glass ceilings.) Sean Hannity interviews Karl Rove as the "architect" of the Palin selection. Both can't be right. Rove is the Republican party establisment, tied to George W. Bush. Doing what Rove wants is precisely not to be a maverick in today's Republican party. It is kowtowing to the "architect" of the dirty anti-McCain attacks that derailed his own bid for the Presidency in 2000.

If Palin was Rove's choice, then this shows that McCain is under the thumb of the Bush-Cheney wing of the party. His maverick status is forfeited.

Nor would the ascendancy of Palin to the Vice-Presidency shatter any glass ceilings. Palin didn't get the votes necessary to be nominated, the way Hillary Clinton nearly did. She got hand-picked by the Republican establishment. The Vice-President has as much of a job as the president permits him or her to have. John Garner, FDR's VP, said that job was worth a cup of warm spit. Only he didn't say spit, he said something else.

Comparing Palin's qualifications to Obama's is also absurd, at least at this point. Obama has executed a primary campaign, taken on formidable opponents within his own party, won the support of the Clintons for his general election campaign, and developed policy positions on the issues facing the President. He has also selected a running-mate. So we've seen him in action making presidential-type decisions.

In the coming weeks we shall see if Palin is capable of developing policy positions on the major issues of our time. Obama has chosen Biden, someone who is not only capable of assuming the presidency should Obama's heart stop beating, but someone capable of posing tough questions concerning the President's policies. Someone who will not be a rubber-stamp and a yes-man. The ability to choose people is the best sign of qualification for the presidency.

Palin may prove me wrong. She may prove that she is able to think seriously and independently about national issues. But I think the chances of the are about the chances of my mastering the nuances of string theory in the next week or so.

Now I've seen everything

Here's something I expected to see about the time hell freezes over. A Republican commercial extolling one of the Clintons because she "told the truth." Politics makes strange bedfellows!