John McCain should top-deck his POW card… and fast. Now that the “is Obama ready to lead?” theme is off the table on account of Palin, McCain’s latest campaign ads have shifted into the culture war themes, attempting to tie Obama to a bill that sought to teach sex education… to kindergartners. The problem? The allegations – which sound vaguely perverse and at least controversial – are completely false.
Actually, that may not be so much of a problem, at least for McCain. His campaign has shown a shocking ability to purvey lies openly and without shame, even admitting their falsity, while letting the American public believe what they will. As commenters here will no doubt soon remind me, I’ve imagined that this campaign would include the average amount of bending of the truth, and encouraged Obama to do the same. I never, however, sanctioned or suggested outright lying, which is the course that McCain has taken. For a candidate’s team to admit to deliberately lying to the public is shocking in the extreme.
McCain’s characterization of the bill in question – Illinois SB 99 (2003) – is doubly ingenuous, and distorts the truth beyond recognition. First and most importantly, Obama supported the bill because he understood it to include provisions that, if they affected young children, would only affect them by teaching them how to avoid pedophiles: that’s a goal we ought to all agree is, albeit not without controversy, at least worth pursuing. While McCain’s website acknowledges this purpose, his ad does not, allowing him to be honest to the few visitors to his site while significantly greater number of voters who will see only his ads. Shame.
Second, the completed bill never added any sex ed programs – it only defined & expanded extant sex ed programs – and it only reached “kindergarten” in the sense that it affected all extant sex ed programs in grades K-12. Read the bill yourself: it’s remarkable only for its moderation, emphasizing abstinence, requiring that instruction be age appropriate, and allowing parents to opt out.
Who here will defend this outright, knowing embrace of falsity?
Okay, now I’m actually out, I promise.
Does no-one like this post :-(
Posted by Ames | September 10, 2008, 5:40 pmYou ended by asking who “will defend this outright, knowing embrace of falsity?” Sounds like the answer is “nobody.” ;)
~ John
Posted by John | September 10, 2008, 6:00 pmYou may notice, most of the time I sit and wait for a commenter to post something I disagree with, then I pounce! Otherwise I just agree with you Ames ;)
I do really want to start yelling at McCain for all this. Like I feel like the Obama campaign should be attacking all out for the hypocrisy of McCain’s message in regards to Palin, their new change motto which is obviously ridiculous, and their continued distortions/lies about Obama.
I mean, I think Obama has mostly taken the high ground on this sort of thing(tell me if I’m wrong), so he should have the upper hand and scold McCain like a child. I just can’t believe McCain is relying so much on this sort of strategy and is allowed to sorta get by with it without getting his hands dirty.
Posted by Oneiroi | September 10, 2008, 6:21 pm