Say Anything Blog

Former Bush campaign guru Karl Rove said Sunday that both campaigns’ attacks have “gone one step too far,” adding that some McCain spots go “beyond the 100-percent-truth test.”

“Both campaigns ought to be careful about it. They ought to — there ought to be an adult who says, ‘Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and won’t we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?’” Rove told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

Rove, a Fox News contributor, has provided informal advice to the McCain campaign for months but singled out the GOP nominee today for recent attacks that he believes go beyond the pale.

McCain launched a TV spot last week distorting Obama’s state senate record in which he accused the Democrat of supporting sex education for kindergartners. For his part, Obama has previously distorted McCain remarks, including saying that the GOPer supports at 100-year war in Iraq.

“They don’t need to attack each other in this way. They have legitimate points to make about each other,” Rove said. “Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far.”

FULL ROVE-WALLACE EXCHANGE FROM FNS:

WALLACE: But in any case, do you have any problem with what McCain is doing by, for instance, saying — which a lot of people thought was kind of made up — that Obama was smearing Palin?
ROVE: Yeah. Well, first of all, I do think that the lipstick remark was an inappropriate — and maybe it was unconscious, but it was a deliberate slap at Governor Palin. The only time this word has intruded in recent months in the campaign was in her, you know, self-deprecating remark at the convention. So for him to use the lipstick remark less than two weeks after she used it struck me as too much of a coincidence not to have been a deliberate attack.

But look. Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far. We saw this this week, for example, in the Obama ad where he makes the point, a legitimate point, that John McCain came to the United States Congress in 1982 and that he has been a longtime Washington insider. But they then say he doesn’t even know how to use a — you know, doesn’t send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can’t type. You know, it’s like saying he can’t do jumping jacks. Well, there’s a reason why he can’t raise his arms above his head. There’s a reason why he doesn’t have the nimbleness in his fingers.
WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?
ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test.
They don’t need to attack each other in this way. They have legitimate points to make about each other that are beyond, you know, the…
WALLACE: Real quick question — 30 seconds. Do they need to be 100 percent passing the truth? Just, in other words, when you were running Bush’s campaign, did you care whether some fact-check organization…
ROVE: No, and look, you can’t trust the fact-check organizations, with all due respect. They’re human beings. They’re individuals. They’ve got their own biases built in there.
But both campaigns ought to be careful about it. They ought to — there ought to be an adult who says, “Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and won’t we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?” [FOXNews]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alan Greenspan says the country can’t afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

“Unless we cut spending, no,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked about McCain’s proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

“I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money,” Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I always have tied tax cuts to spending.”

PARIS — Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled “pagan” passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris.

Benedict was making his first visit as pontiff to the French capital, renowned for its luxury goods, fashion sense and cultural riches.

“Has not our modern world created its own idols?” Benedict said in his homily, and wondered aloud whether people have “imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity?”

“This is a question that all people, if they are honest with themselves, cannot help but ask,” the pontiff said.

The 260,000 or so people who gathered on the lawns of the Esplanade des Invalides displayed a joyful outpouring of faith for this traditionally Roman Catholic country, which has witnessed a sharp decline in churchgoing in recent years.

Benedict has continued with a campaign started by his predecessor, John Paul II, who worried that the affluent West was turning consumerism into a kind of religion and ignoring its Christian roots of spiritual values.

Paraphrasing from the New Testament, Benedict decried “insatiable greed” and said “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

“Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?” the pope asked. [AP]

The 20 most corrupt Members of Congress:

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) Rep.
John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Rep. Vito J. Fossella (R-NY)
Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-LA)
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-CA)
Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
Rep. Timothy F. Murphy (R-PA)
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Dishonorable mentions:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH)

[CREW]

By Paul Begala

If John McCain and Sarah Palin were to say the moon was made of green cheese, we can be certain that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would pounce on it, and point out it’s actually made of rock. And you just know the headline in the paper the next day would read: “CANDIDATES CLASH ON LUNAR LANDSCAPE.”

Why doesn’t somebody call Neil Armstrong? He’s been there. Or go to the Smithsonian and open the glass case that contains a piece of the moon. The moon is a rock. That’s a fact, Jack.

Facts are indeed stubborn things, but the McCain-Palin lies are more stubborn still.

In the face of demonstrable, provable, incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, McCain and Palin continue to assert that Gov. Palin opposed the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” They do so in their speeches and ads, and their supporters say so on television until their pants are on fire. McCain and Palin also claim the Alaska governor opposes earmarks—despite the fact that she’s gotten her state so much pork she’s at risk for trichinosis.

I was in the middle of a Neil Armstrong Moment when I was on CNN Tuesday morning. Rather than let McCain and Palin get away with their lie, anchor John Roberts played a videotape of Sarah Palin in a 2006 gubernatorial debate in which she endorsed the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island saying, “I’m not going to stand in the way of progress that our congressional delegation and the position of strength that they have right now.” Perhaps her supporters, noting Palin’s support for banning books, teaching creationism and doubting global warming will argue that for her, calling the bridge “progress” was her way of saying she was against it.) But the Anchorage Daily News forecloses that option, reporting, “In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town’s prosperity.”

After the videotape ran, I said the media was at fault for letting Palin and McCain get away with “flat out lies.” GOP strategist Alex Castellanos manfully tried to shine a cow patty, saying, “The amazing thing about Sarah Palin is when she became governor she actually stood up and said no.”

Increasingly frustrated, I pointed out that just was not true, and the “debate” continued.

Most of political debate is subjective: who’s more qualified, who’s more compassionate, whose experience is more relevant, who has better ideas on health care or energy or global warming or the economy? There is no Objective Truth on those matters, and debate—even when voices are sometimes raised—can help voters decide who they agree with. On those matters of subjective judgment it’s perfectly appropriate for the media to hold the coats of the candidates and let them fight it out.

But facts ought not be debatable. The media have an obligation to point out when a politician is lying about a matter of fact, but the right-wing attack machine has so cowed some of them you can almost hear them moo. Steve Schmidt, McCain’s top dog, is a brilliant and audacious strategist. His candidate has had the most favorable press coverage of any politician of the last century—fawning, adoring, sycophantic press coverage. And yet he is brutalizing the press, waterboarding them into pretending that whether Gov. Palin supported the “Bridge to Nowhere,” or hired an Abramoff-connected lobbyist to secure massive earmarks are somehow debatable.

The real debate is over whether the media will be vigilant watchdogs, sounding the alarm when McCain and Palin lie, or fall back to the role they’ve played for most of McCain’s career: lapdog.

By Cynthia Tucker

John McCain has an impressive personal story. Imprisoned by the North Vietnamese for 5 1/2 years, mostly in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” he showed great courage, resilience and reservoirs of strength. It is the central narrative of his life, a theme he returns to again and again.

In choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain picked another politician with an interesting personal narrative. Hers isn’t heroic — as his is — but it is still inspiring. A mother of five, she overcame long odds to oust the entrenched Republican governor in 2006. When she and her husband learned their fifth child would be born with Down syndrome, they didn’t terminate the pregnancy. That’s a decision I and many other Americans find admirable.

McCain hopes those compelling biographies will be enough to take him and his running mate over the line in November. Since personality matters as much as (sometimes more than) policies — George W. Bush was elected in 2000 because he was Mr. Congeniality — the Arizona senator has decided to give short shrift to issues and go all out on charming personal stories.

“This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates,” his campaign manager, Rick Davis, told The Washington Post last week.

So it’s no surprise McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday night was heavy on biography and short on policy prescriptions. The short film that introduced him offered a romantic, Hollywood-esque arc: A rambunctious young man trying to earn his place in a family of war heroes goes off to the Naval Academy and becomes a fighter pilot; he is chastened by the torture he endures at the hands of his enemies; the young hero not only survives but triumphs, winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. It’s quite a tale, with the added dimension of truth.

McCain seemed most comfortable when he was speaking of the ideals he embraced in those years — honor, service, courage. But he was oddly lifeless and unconvincing when he rattled off a laundry list of domestic issues, touching on “school choice,” health insurance and taxes. That’s clearly not where his heart is.

Even less persuasive was his attempt to snatch the mantle of change from his rival, Barack Obama. (How many times did he use the word “change”?) McCain is 72 years old; besides, he is a card-carrying member of the Republican Party, which has held power for the past eight years. It’s hard to run as an insurgent if you’ve been part of the establishment.

The aging war hero apparently believes that he is still the “maverick,” the daring, even swashbuckling, senator who bucks an entrenched Republican machine to serve the interests of the people above the party — a “Mr. Smith” played by John Wayne instead of Jimmy Stewart. But that McCain gave up the good fight after his crushing defeat at the hands of Bush forces in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Since then, the “maverick” has set about ingratiating himself to the same establishment he now vows to fight. He has adopted nearly every one of Bush’s failed policies.

Don’t be fooled by Palin. She’s just a fresh face to rev up the culture wars. She opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest; she urged an Alaska librarian to ban books; she believes “creationism” should be taught in public schools; she asked ministry students at her former church to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it “God’s will.” In choosing her, McCain caved in to the rigid Christianists who now form the core of the GOP.

Still, his gamble could well pay off. Even in a year when voters say they agree with Democrats on most issues, the polls still show the presidential contenders virtually tied. It’s a very close race.

No wonder. The John McCain on display as he closed his speech, speaking passionately of duty and sacrifice, is still a compelling figure. That McCain, who has not always been on display this season, is a man who wants to resist partisanship, a man who wants to clean up corruption, a man who would shrink from the vicious attacks his campaign has, in fact, run against Obama. If voters believe in that McCain and think that’s all the country needs, he wins.

But if the campaign is fought on the issues, McCain loses. That’s why he stays away from them.

A well-placed source at Us Weekly tells Huffington Post that since Wednesday, there have actually been a little more than 1,000 cancellations. However, there have also been a little more than 1,000 bonus subscriptions from supporters of the magazine, without any efforts on the part of the magazine to gain subscribers from the controversy.

“In the end, it’s a wash, but encouraging to see how involved the readership is in the election,” the source says.

The Palin story also drove Usmagazine.com’s third highest day of traffic in the site’s history.

Previously, MSNBC Scoop gossip columnist Courtney Hazlett reported that Us was losing between 5,000-10,000 subscribers after the controversial “Babies, Lies, and Scandal” cover:

A well-placed source at Us Weekly tells Huffington Post that since Wednesday, there have actually been a little more than 1,000 cancellations. However, there have also been a little more than 1,000 bonus subscriptions from supporters of the magazine, without any efforts on the part of the magazine to gain subscribers from the controversy.

“In the end, it’s a wash, but encouraging to see how involved the readership is in the election,” the source says.

The Palin story also drove Usmagazine.com’s third highest day of traffic in the site’s history.

Previously, MSNBC Scoop gossip columnist Courtney Hazlett reported that Us was losing between 5,000-10,000 subscribers after the controversial “Babies, Lies, and Scandal” cover:

[HuffingtonPost]

By Nico Pitney

Days before September 11, on the same morning that John McCain and Barack Obama released a joint statement pledging to avoid politics in light of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, McCain’s campaign accused Democrats of throwing away 12,000 American flags.

“The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there,” Fox News reported, “and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage” for a rally in Colorado Springs, Col.

But according to a senior official involved in organizing the Democratic convention, the McCain camp is simply lying about the flags.

“All of the flags at Invesco were picked up and put in bags and into storage, along with the unused flags and campaign signs. The flags were going to be donated, and the signs were going to be sent out to be used elsewhere,” the official said, speaking anonymously since he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Fox News’ Carl Cameron and Bonney Kapp reported that they had “been told” that “a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign.”

The Democratic convention official says that’s not true.

“It’s pretty reprehensible on their part,” he said. “Someone made an assumption, took the flags, and essentially lied about what was going to happen to them. I mean, c’mon, we were never ever going to throw out flags.”

Emails to three McCain spokespersons inquiring where the flags were found and how the McCain campaign obtained them were not returned.

UPDATE: DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney issues a statement: “American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago.”

UPDATE II: Another statement from the Democratic National Convention Committee: “Stories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false. We distributed more than 125,000 American made flags at the Convention - the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission. It’s disappointing that someone would take American flags without authorization and then falsely describe how they were being used. We have the utmost respect for the American flag, and it’s sad to see them being used for a cheap political stunt.”

The lying righties at it again.