Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague Jonathan Alter on the emergence of a "smear gap" between John McCain and Barack Obama.
This is hardly the nastiest campaign in recent memory. But it's not
shaping up as the "civil" contest that both candidates promised either.
Instead, we're seeing the emergence of a "smear gap". John McCain
making stuff up about Barack Obama, and Obama trying to figure out how
hard he should hit back.
As usual, news organizations
are deeply afraid to say that one side is more negative than the other.
Doing so sounds "unfair." It's much easier, and less controversial, to
say that "both candidates" are being negative. That would be
"balanced", but also untrue...
Obama has negative ads
airing in more than a dozen states below the radar of the national
media. One ad, in Ohio, links McCain to the 8,200 lost jobs at DHL, the
German-owned overnight delivery service. That goes too far. McCain's
support for a merger involving DHL hardly makes him culpable for the
job loss. But overall, and to his credit, Obama has not engaged in
anywhere near the number of falsehoods as McCain.
For
about a month, McCain's campaign has been resorting to charges that are
patently false. When Obama traveled abroad in July, to positive
reviews, McCain decided he had to make attack ads that went far beyond
the norm. In the past, plainly deceptive ads were the province of the
Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee or
independent committees free to fling mud that didn't bear the
fingerprints of candidates. But not this time. These smears come
directly from the candidate.
First, a McCain ad charged
that Obama was responsible for higher gas prices, which was not just
false but absurd. Next, an ad said Obama had cancelled his trip to
visit wounded soldiers in Germany because he couldn't bring the press
along. I was in Germany at the time, and as every reporter knew, the
visit to the military hospital was never going to be open, not even to
a press pool. It appeared on no press schedules. Obama had cancelled
the visit when it was clear that the Pentagon viewed it as political.
The charge was simply untrue.
The now famous Britney
Spears and Paris Hilton ad, accusing Obama of being a celebrity, wasn't
false, just dopey. But it detracted attention from a string of false
McCain spots on taxes. One ad said that Obama would raise taxes on
electricity. Nope, not in Obama's plan. Another said 23 million
small-business owners would pay higher taxes under Obama. Factcheck.org
found that the "vast majority" of small-business owners would pay the
same in taxes as they do now, and "many" would pay less. An ad saying
Obama had voted for a bill raising taxes, for families making more than
$42,000 a year, was found to be "false." And McCain's consistent claim
that Obama would "raise taxes on the middle class"--a major theme of
his campaign--is "simply false," according to this neutral policy
center. In truth, under Obama's plan, families earning less than
$150,000 a year would get a tax cut, and only those making more than
$250,000 would see their taxes rise. Maybe by the time the Democratic
Congress got done with it, Obama's tax program would look different.
It's reasonable to speculate that Democrats will raise taxes. But the
McCain ads weren't talking about that, they were talking about Obama's
plan, which is easily accessed on his Web site. McCain's description of
his opponent's plan was and is untrue. This isn't opinion, it's fact.
READ THE REST HERE.
