The Ashford Zone Blog

John McCain, one month ago…

"You know," said McCain, "there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is — people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong…"

MSNBC headline, moments ago:

BREAKING NEWS: Dow Jones plunges 504 points as market reacts to Lehman demise

SNL:

Here’s the link in case video above doesn’t work….

A nice NYT article about McCain’s new "strategy" of lying through his teeth.

Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer — over the strenuous objections of some longtime hands who helped him build his "Straight Talk" image — to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters.

"I think the McCain folks realize if they can get this thing down in the mud, drag Obama into the mud, that’s where they have the best advantage to win," said Matthew Dowd, who worked with many top McCain campaign advisers when he was President Bush’s chief strategist in the 2004 campaign, but who has since had a falling out with the White House. "If they stay up at 10,000 feet, they don’t."

***

[Don] Sipple, the Republican strategist, voiced concern that Mr. McCain’s approach could backfire. "Any campaign that is taking liberty with the truth and does it in a serial manner will end up paying for it in the end," he said. "But it’s very unbecoming to a political figure like John McCain whose flag was planted long ago in ground that was about ‘straight talk’ and integrity."

The media blowback for this McCain’s strategy is relatively strong.  The question is: will people listen?  The McCain camp is betting not (and they’ll probably play the "media is against us" card).  The problem is, it might work.

Important editorial, not only because it’s on the money, but because it’s in the crucial swing state of Florida:

This nation is facing real challenges on the economy, health care, jobs and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are significant differences between how Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain would address them. But McCain’s recent campaign ads suggest the most vital issues are whether Obama wanted to teach sex education to kindergarten children and whether he derided the Republican’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, by talking about lipstick on a pig.

McCain’s straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him.

The sex education ad says that Obama supported "comprehensive sex education" for kindergarten children. Graphics then appear with a voice-over saying: "Learning about sex before learning to read?"

The facts: Obama, while a state lawmaker in Illinois, supported a measure to provide older students with age and developmentally appropriate sex education. Younger children, such as those kindergarten-age, would be taught "age-appropriate" things such as how to protect themselves from sexual predators. The legislation was widely backed by the state PTA and the Illinois Public Health Association. Parents could choose to opt out of any instruction for their children.

But in McCain’s campaign playbook, this responsible legislation becomes fodder for a grotesque distortion as a way to instill fear in voters.

As to the lipstick-on-a-pig controversy, McCain’s campaign has purposely twisted the way Obama used that expression in a recent speech in Virginia. A McCain campaign ad claims that Obama was directing an insult to Palin who, during the Republican National Convention, characterized hockey moms like herself as pit bulls with lipstick.

The truth: Obama used the phrase, which he had used before, to attack McCain’s claim that he’ll reform Washington while retaining the policies of President Bush. After using the lipstick-on-a-pig phrase, Obama said, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still going to stink after eight years."

McCain’s faux chivalrous outrage over Obama’s purported insult is beneath him. He has been a serious public servant willing to say unpopular truths when he thought it best for the country, but he’s more than willing in this election to put his name on campaign lies. The leader who says he would rather lose an election than lose a war now risks losing his reputation in an attempt to win the White House.

So when McCain-Palin say "He will raise your taxes", they’re only talking about people making $227,000 and over.  For most Americans, Obama will make your taxes lower than McCain will.

The Washington Post reports:

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

Uh, Sarah?

The September 11 Commission said there was no link.

The bipartisan Senate report said there was no link.

The CIA said there was no link.

The Pentagon said there was no link.

Even Bush finally admitted that there was no link

Sarah bluffs her way through a foreign policy question on "the Bush doctrine".  She doesn’t know what it means, even after he gives her a hint.

I’m not sure what makes her a unique politician.  She’s slick! the way she bluffs through that.

Of course, there’s a reason she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  This is Sarah in December 2006:

"I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq."

** UPDATE **  In a piece too long and perfect to truncate, James Fallows explains why Palin’s non-recognition of the Bush Doctrine matters.

She also took the position (somewhat craftily) of A-okaying an unnnnounced strike against terrorists in Pakistan.  Unfortunately, that’s not the same position as McCain — it’s Obama’s position, and McCain has been attacking Obama about that.

Ooops.

Publius sums it up nicely:

You could almost hear her mental gears grinding, trying to retrieve the talking points and forcing them into her answers. Nothing came from her — or if it did, she certainly fooled me. Reagan and Clinton — governors both — would never have appeared that ignorant, largely because they weren’t. They were engaged with the issues of their day and wrestled with them intellectually. Today’s interview reflected an unprepared, uninformed person cast into the spotlight far before her time.

Steve Benen gets it right:

When these manufactured campaign controversies come up, there’s a fascinating dynamic in which the various actors play their roles. When it comes to the "lipstick" stupidity, for example, McCain’s job is to push the story, Obama’s job is to dismiss it, and the media’s job is pretend it’s worth talking about. All three know exactly how mind-numbingly foolish this is.

Seriously, we can’t be electing a president this way.  This is ridiculous.

Who do I blame?  The media, mostly.  They’re the gatekeepers of what we talk about (and not talk about).

And I worry about the millions of Americans who actually think this is relevant.  Makes me want to move to another country.