“McCain Lies His Ass Off”?
“McCain Lies His Ass Off”?
Florida, Simi Valley, and The Real World
By Megan Garber
Thu 31 Jan 2008 03:39 PM
At the very least, McCain was muddling the record. Which has been clear for some time: when the whole Iraq-timetable back-and-forth began last week (on Saturday, as far as I can tell, when the Senator trotted out the accusation against his chief rival at a campaign stop in Orlando), several media organizations went out of their way to clarify the untruth of the claim. “A Misleading Low Blow,” TIME’s Michael Scherer called it. “McCain Stretches Romney’s Words,” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder wrote. The National Review’s Mark Levin researched Romney’s initial statement and other statements he’d made about timetables, concluding that they “do not support McCain’s accusation.”
Even the quotes McCain’s own campaign circulated, the AP noted, “didn’t show Romney making that exact comment—nor did aides back up McCain’s earlier comment that suggested that Romney ‘wanted to set a date for withdrawal.’”
No wonder Romney seemed testy last night.
From the looks of things, McCain has been playing him—not to mention much of the political press................
The line between spinning and lying, it seems, is one that we in the media haven’t marked clearly enough for ourselves; some discussion and clarification may be in order. Because
whatever McCain did—whether he spun or he lied—he seems to have been spared from accountability. And he seems to know it. Real World politics strikes again.
more at:
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/mccain_lies_his_ass_off.php?page=2