When Hurricane Katrina hit, and the images of people stranded on rooftops or without water in the Superdome started streaming in, it was galling, a sharp lump deep in the pit of the stomach, to see America completely incapable of holding together one of its premier cities in its time of need. It hurt.
I may be overstating things, but the same feeling of dread and disgust that filled me in those three days has returned, this time from the upcoming election. Sarah Palin is an outright liar and a thug who wields the power of her office to settle personal scores. Since she has come on board, the McCain campaign has spiraled even further down, turning out talking heads that are simple baffling in their insincerity and cynicism, and yesterday, releasing this horrid little gem. What does it mean when these tactics apparently work?
So lately I’ve been thinking about the long term effects of John McCain’s campaign tactics. Every single day McCain and Palin are lying to people either directly through stump speeches or indirectly through campaign ads. Not only are they telling lies. They are telling lies that have been exposed as lies.
I don’t believe a democracy can survive without an informed public. This is why the founding fathers explicitly wrote protections for the press into the constitution. But every single day McCain is undermining this very basic idea. From my point of view this ought to be a new branch in the tree of arguments for why John McCain should not be president. This election is about ISSUES, despite what John McCain’s campaign manager says. I just didn’t think that one of them would be whether or not we live in a world where the facts don’t matter just because they don’t conform to the media narrative for a presidential candidate.
Posted by Charles de Granville on 10 September 2008 @ 10pm