Make McCain Disavow His Dishonest Obama Ad

“What’s worse than John McCain’s dishonest ad? Finding out he had another, equally dishonest ad ready to air if Obama DID visit the hospital. He just wasn’t going to be honest with American voters no matter what happened, and now everybody knows it, even the press he calls his “base.” He’ll never live it down.” —Kagro X, Daily Kos

The traditional press is up in arms over John McCain’s latest dishonest ad attacking Barack Obama. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell called the ad “completely wrong, factually wrong!” The New York Times said it was “a false account of what occurred.” The Washington Post said the ad offered “no evidence” to support McCain’s claims.

McCain must disavow this ad and make sure it never airs again. We won’t let this race degenerate into ad distortions like the last election; we won’t be silent in the face of lies. That’s why we created this video entitled When McCain Attacks.

Help end McCain’s campaign of dishonesty. Sign our petition to compel McCain to disavow this ad and yank it from the air. Then send it to all your friends, family members, and colleagues. Tell them to spread it to everyone they know, and Digg it!

Hurry, because we’re already seeing McCain’s lies insidiously spread by other news outlets. Join us in declaring that we’ve had enough lies and dishonesty, we’re ready for a new kind of politics.

“Country I Love”

I’m Barack Obama. America is a country of strong families and strong values.

My life’s been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents.

We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up.

Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated.

It’s what guided me as I worked my way up — taking jobs and loans to make it through college. It’s what led me to pass up Wall Street jobs and go to Chicago instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed.

That’s why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected.

I approved this message because I’ll never forget those values, and if I have the honor of taking the oath of office as president, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.”

Open hearts and minds: The good people of West Virginia

How Bill Clinton Got His Groove Back says the headline to an Adam Nagourney piece of hagiography on the website of The New York Times (I don’t know if it ran in the paper, or is slated to run tomorrow). My question is this: Did the former president get his groove back, or is the Times news pages continue a pattern of trying to prop up the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign by overstating things?

I cannot really say when it started but, recently, the news pages has been turning itself into pretzel spinning any news development into something positive for HRC.

They’ve, meanwhile, done the opposite for Sen. Barack Obama, covering his campaign as a constant crisis.

Just when the paper’s editorial pages was beginning to recognize its error in backing HRC and beginning to take a more even-handed tack to the campaign, the news pages has gone in the opposite direction by becoming more subjective.

This primary battle will end one day. The Times, as it almost always does, will regain its bearings. I cannot wait for either day.

Thank God for the venerable Jim Forbes, Jr., who provides some much-needed historical and contemporary context in the midst of the most recent furor over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - including a denunciation Tuesday by Sen. Barack Obama.

Forbes’ writing today snaps into focus the truth that Rev. Wright espoused during his Monday speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.: that the Black experience in America has been, and in many ways continues to be, invisible in the context of dominant white privilege.

A prime example of that is the fact that the thrust of liberative theology - and the ways in which that has been appropriated within the Black religious tradition in America - is not understood within mainstream society. Placed within that context, Rev. Wright did not say anything particularly controversial.

Click to continue reading…

Maureen Dowd, at her best, often struggles for substance in her column. Wednesday’s piece was not one of her best.

I posted a piece about Barack Obama a couple of days ago. I got a couple of comments from Todd Drew of the Yankees for Justice blog (great blog) and one of his readers. Here’s what they said and my reply:

Todd Drew said…

There are a lot of liberals that think the Democratic Party is not liberal enough for them anymore. Comments like this from one of the Party’s up-and-coming leaders only strengthens that belief.

January 21, 2008 8:05 AM

JoeyBoy said…

Greetings, I came over from Yankees for Justice. I like your commentary.

I had not seen those Reagan comments before. I like Obama, but if he thinks ANYTHING Reagan did is going to play with people like me he is sorely mistaken.

January 21, 2008 12:27 PM

Michael O. Allen said…

Joeyboy

Thanks and welcome. I hope to have posted more but I caught a flu bug and have been bed-ridden.

On the post, I love politics and I really, really want to like Obama. Comments like the one about Reagan (which I think is tactical but I don’t understand the tactic) is what’s keeping me from coming fully on board. Like Todd said, he’s a real bright star of the Democratic Party. The question is, where does he want to take the party?

I hope it’s not in the direction that Reagan took the nation. Reagan did real and lasting damage.

Thanks again. Michael

Whatever Barack Obama was puffing on before he sat down last week with that editorial board in Reno, he certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest. I came across this essay. Interesting.