Speechless...

John McCain was on The View today*. Here's a clip:



What is simply mind-boggling is the commitment on McCain's part to continuing to justify the absurd claim his campaign made in this ad. I posted a video of Obama responding to McCain's ad already, but here's a direct quote of what he said at the actual campaign event:

Let's just list this for a second. John McCain says he's about change, too. Except -- and so I guess his whole angle is, "Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. We're really gonna shake things up in Washington." That's not change. That's just calling some -- the same thing, something different. But you know, you can -- you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig. [emphasis added]

Hmm...I think I'd agree with Bill O'Reilly (you heard me right) when I say that the McCain camp has really crossed the line on this one. I don't blame them - they've been able to cow the media into thinking any criticism of Palin, or anything having to do with Palin, or anything not having to do with Palin, is motivated by sexism. And initially there were a lot of inappropriate comments made about her. But they went and got cocky, a little too bold, they played their hand a little too quickly and we're not buying it.

Here's the twist...they're still selling it. Hearing John McCain blatantly, unequivocally claim that the ads "are not lies" got me so fired up I had to step away for a minute. And don't even get my started on the second ad that claims Obama wanted schools to teach kindergardens about sex (when in fact the program was to warn small children about sexual predators - I mean, why would anyone want to do that?).

I used to think McCain was a stand up guy who had an honest disagreement on the issues with Obama. And the argument of the role of government is a good one that needs to be continually discussed because, frankly, I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all type of thing (more on that in another post). But the sudden willingness of the McCain campaign to distort incontrovertible facts in order to draw attention from issues that are actually worth discussing is, in my opinion, disgusting and disgraceful. And the claim that if Obama had done town-halls with him the tone of the campaign would be kinder - malarkey!

I'll admit that the Obama campaign's hands aren't clean either (they've been using McCain's claim of being "out of touch" from the CNN Service forum last night way out of context today), but nothing to such an extent as this. It's an absolute wonder that anyone would even buy this drivel.

Oh, and it's worth noting that McCain used the same phrase to refer to Hillary Clinton's health care proposals (watch here and here).

I think we've just witnessed the death of honor in the McCain campaign.


*For the record, I don't watch The View. I do regularly check The Page (thepage.time.com) for the latest in political news and they had a clip.