from In These Times:
Views > September 4, 2008 > Web Only
A Post-Rational Society?By Robert Parry
The Republican Party, which has defined modern-day negative politics, was back at it again this week, bashing Barack Obama and the news media in an ugly display that rivaled the old days of Nixon-Agnew – or George W. Bush’s last convention where GOP operatives passed out “Purple Heart Band-Aids” to mock John Kerry’s war wounds.
After a slow start because of Hurricane Gustav, the convention in St. Paul, Minn., has turned into an anti-Obama hate-fest with a nearly all-white gathering laughing at and mocking the nation’s first African-American presidential nominee of a major party.
However, beyond the pulsating contempt visible on the faces of the GOP delegates, many of the nasty attacks on Obama – as well as the effusive praise for the Republican ticket – were blatantly false, as if testing the depths of American gullibility and bigotry.
In speech after speech, Republicans didn’t so much as tell the Big Lie as they deployed Wholesale Lies.
The Associated Press, which mostly had been recycling the Republican spin about the supposedly “maverick” ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, was so struck by the litany of distortions that it produced a special fact-checking article describing how Republicans had “stretched the truth.”
For instance, Palin said about Obama, “it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.”
However, as the AP noted, Obama “worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year.” ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3889/a_post_rational_society/
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