“Straight Talk” My […]
Filed under: 2008 elections — Michael van der Galien on January 27, 2008 @ 3:17 pm CET
Nice. As Hot Air explains, Mitt Romney didn’t say that he supported a date for withdrawal “and it’s patently clear he doesn’t want any timetables publicly announced. All he’s saying, I take it, is that Bush and Maliki should have some sense of achieving certain goals by certain dates; it doesn’t necessarily follow from that that we withdraw if those goals aren’t met, only that the strategy would have to change somehow to address the problem. If they are met and progress continues, then you can start talking — secretly — about drawing down.”
There are a lot of reactions at the Corner by people all blasting McCain for his lies. It’s not only that McCain is lying about Romney, he’s also lying about his own words:
Asked what penalty would be imposed if Iraq failed to meet his benchmarks, [McCain] said: “I think everybody knows the consequences. Haven’t met the benchmarks? Obviously, then, we’re not able to complete the mission. Then you have to examine your options.”
Too inconvenient for the straight talk express I take it.
Well, now that this story has been debunked, perhaps it’s time to once again point out that all the candidates play dirty and lie about or distort what the others said or did. McCain and Obama are both politicians, willing to get their hands dirty.
Will McCain’s lies pay off? We’ll see in a couple of days. The straight talk express isn’t so straight talking anymore now that he faces true opposition from Romney though. I didn’t like McCain as a candidate to begin with, this only confirms my suspicion that he’s a snake.
Even Time is blasting McCain for lying though. I don’t think this will help him in the long run.
Romney demanded an apology from McCain, which seemed to simply delight McCain, since he used it to escalate the war of words even higher. “I think the apology is owed to the young men and women serving this nation in uniform,” McCain said. Then his campaign started sending out a blizzard of emails, including comments from former CIA director James Woolsey knocking Romney’s support for the war.
To review: In the course of a few hours, McCain said that Romney once wanted to set a date to withdraw from Iraq, accused him of working on the same side as Hillary Clinton in the Iraq debate, and accused him of disrespecting American servicemen and women. Is any of this true? Not that much.
Romney: you’ve got more money than McCain does. Take him down.
1 Dan Pawson
January 27, 2008 @ 3:28 pm CETYeah, even as a strong McCain supporter, this seems pretty ridiculous to me. You don’t need to do this to win Florida…
2 Rudi666
January 27, 2008 @ 4:13 pm CETMcCain has played dirty politics and it seems to be working in Florida. The consensus of polls at Pollster has McCain leading in Florida by 3%. This weekend McCain received the endorsement of two heavyweights in Florida politics, not some irrelevant state.
From the Miami Herald:
In a major coup in the tight GOP race in Florida, John McCain received Gov. Charlie Crist’s endorsement.
From the Tampa right of center paper:
Big Endorsement May Jolt Tight Race The Cuban American junior Republican Senator endorses McCain.
While streaching the context of what Romney said, McCain has switched the focus from Floridas bad economy to Iraq. In a state with lots of older veterans this is significant.
3 Michael van der Galien
January 27, 2008 @ 4:14 pm CETFunny Rudi, if I remember correctly you’re always criticizing other people when they ‘distort’ something, yet when McCain does it all you do is say "he’s leading in the polls, it’s working!"
As an aside: 3% is well within the margin of error.
And it could work, who knows. We’ll see Tuesday. If it does, well, it once again will prove that negative ads and negative campaigning works.
4 Michael van der Galien
January 27, 2008 @ 4:15 pm CETI think he does. He can’t win in a different manner, especially not when the focus is on the economy.
5 Rudi666
January 27, 2008 @ 4:28 pm CETBoth sides are guilty distorting the others record. While the media focuses on Florida and Iraq, instead of the bad economy and Florida’s housing crisis, Romney can’t promise the moon and to stop the next hurricane to hit Florida, like he did in Michigan.
6 Alan Stewart Carl
January 27, 2008 @ 5:44 pm CETNumerous Romney-supporting, rightwing Republicans have spent the last week completely distorting McCain’s record and flat out lying about his conservative credentials. Romney has clearly benefited from this although he’s been smart enough not to personally make the attacks.
McCain, in turn, is now distorting Romney’s previous statements. Not cool but hardly surprising. McCain could either have spent the week defending himself and looking flumuxed or he could go on the offensive. He chose to attack. Criticisms of those attacks are certainly fair but let’s not pretend they are much different than what Romney’s supporters have been saying — they just came from McCain himself rather than surrogates.
7 Tap
January 27, 2008 @ 6:33 pm CETThat’s a pretty big leap there…to go from ‘well, some people who like Romney attack McCain, so it’s okay for McCain to do it to Romney’.
It’s entirely possible I’m missing it, but I’m not sure what flat out lying about McCain’s credentials you are talking about.
8 Michael van der Galien
January 27, 2008 @ 6:36 pm CETTap: they haven’t.
9 C Stanley
January 27, 2008 @ 7:48 pm CETAs usual, I suggest that everyone go to factcheck.org to see the distortions that have taken place on all sides. Unfortunately it seems when some people support a particular candidate, they then refuse to acknowledge when their candidate attacks by distorting his opponents’ records and they constantly see the opponents’ attacks as being false.
I’d prefer that all of the candidates be more honest, but would also prefer if the supporters of candidates would take the blinders off and be more honest too. I really haven’t seen any one candidate who was more or less guilty of this kind of attack on the GOP side in this cycle- it’s pretty much been tit for tat IMO. So if your preferred candidate is attacked, refute the attack if you feel it’s false. But have the integrity to also admit when your candidate does the same to the opponents.
10 Dan Pawson
January 27, 2008 @ 10:59 pm CETWell, the biggest thing I can remember about Romney lying about McCain is the ad that ran for weeks up here about McCain-Kennedy not kicking any illegal immigrants out of the country. Romney later constructively retracted that by saying in the debates, "except criminals," but that’s not the ad that ran up here. (Up here = Boston media market.)
After seeing McCain on his weekly appearance on Meet the Press today, I feel a little bit better, but not much. Romney’s asked, "would you support timetables for withdrawal," and he responds, "I support timetables, but not public ones, so that the enemy doesn’t know when we’re leaving." Technically, you can see how that has to be support for a timetable for withdrawal, but it’s certainly not a flat statement of support, and it’s not at all something I’d feel comfortable going on the attack with.
11 Tap
January 28, 2008 @ 12:44 am CETI didn’t see the ad, but…McCain Kennedy didn’t kick all the illegal immigrants out. I know McCain voted against the Cornyn Amendment that would have established a permanent bar for gang members, terrorists, and other criminals.
12 Dan Pawson
January 28, 2008 @ 1:33 am CETTap: there’s no question that McCain-Kennedy didn’t kick out all illegal immigrants, but that’s not what I (or Romney) meant by "criminals". (And of course a large number of people here unlawfully have committed no crime at all; overstaying a visa is a civil, not a criminal, offense, and most people deported are never actually convicted of the crime of illegal entry.) The question was just whether it would offer a path to legalization for people convicted of certain crimes here, and that’s a definite no.
As for the Cornyn amendment, many amendments were offered on both sides that proponents would have otherwise supported, but voted no on because of the (fatal) fragility of the compromise. Not sure what McCain’s position would be on that particular amendment outside of that particular legislative fight.
13 Alan Stewart Carl
January 28, 2008 @ 2:04 am CETIt’s a flat out lie to claim McCain isn’t a conservative. Use any metric you want to analyze his lifelong votes. A lot of people are lying when they claim McCain isn’t conservative.
And Sanatorum told a big ole lie when he said he can’t think of a thing he and McCain agree on. Really? Is that why Sanatorum asked McCain to campaign with him and used those appearances in ads?
That said, I’m not making excuses for McCain’s distortions here. I’m just saying he likely felt pushed into it and it’s a bit disingenuous for any Romney supporter to act as if their guy and his surrogates haven’t benefitted from distortions of McCain and his record.
14 Tap
January 28, 2008 @ 2:15 am CET"The question was just whether it would offer a path to legalization for people convicted of certain crimes here, and that’s a definite no."
I’m sorry, but that is absolute hogwash. It’s just not true.
15 Tap
January 28, 2008 @ 2:18 am CETThat was the purpose of the Cornyn amendment. To make the whole thing a bit more palatable to some opponents by actually excluding those convicted of certain crimes from the ‘path to citizenship.’ The bill as it existed did not include such a provision - and McCain refused to add it.
16 Jim
January 28, 2008 @ 5:09 am CETadmin: anti-mormon bigotry = ban