Both major-party candidates got huge bumps from the conventions. But—heh—due to Phonyland's perverse dynamics, Obama's biggest rise came this week, after the GOP's convention, while McCain got a bigger increase after the Democrat's convention.
But there's plenty of phoniness to go around. Obama widened his slim lead slightly this week:
Query String | Hit Count | Change Since 2008-09-01 |
---|---|---|
"Barack Obama" phony | 920,000 | +107,000 |
"John McCain" phony | 872,000 | +83,000 |
"Bob Barr" phony | 13,400 | +200 |
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Mickey Kaus points to a prime bit of phony rhetoric
in McCain's acceptance speech:
McCain would like everyone to think his campaign imploded last summer because of his courageous support for the surge in Iraq:
Good points, all: McCain's Iraq position wasn't particularly brave during primary season; Ron Paul had the pro-defeat vote all to himself at that time, and see what it got him: lots of hype, not too many votes.
This bit of history was repeated by the McCain campaign in at least one WaPo group interview I attended--suggesting it's an accepted talking point. It's also bogus. McCain's campaign imploded last summer because of his support for "comprehensive" immigration reform, including legalization of existing illegals (semi-amnesty).I fought for the right strategy and more troops in Iraq, when it wasn't a popular thing to do. And when the pundits said my campaign was finished, I said I'd rather lose an election than see my country lose a war.
--McCain's acceptance speech, 9/4/08But McCain did have an arguably courageous position on immigration, and—gulp!—he decided he'd rather flip-flop on it than lose the nomination. He'd "learned a message" [sic] and pledged to "secure the border first."
A few months back, Bryron York looked at this "flexibility" and wondered "which McCain is the real McCain?" Thanks for asking, Byron; the answer is: the phony one.
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And this may be the first time Pun Salad has linked to Daily Kos
but your blogger would be failing his phony duties if he didn't
link
the story of
stock feelgood photos of black people
used in the video introduction
to McCain's acceptance speech.
(Pun Salad speculates that the video also used stock feelgood photos of white people, but that's not a scandal to your average Kossite.)
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Sarah Palin's VP nomination gave rise to a
host of phony rumors. Remember all those Democrats
tut-tutting about the "politics of personal destruction"
and "Swiftboating"? Remember "fighting the smears"? (It seems like it
was only a few months ago… oh, wait, it was.)
If you bought that rhetoric, well, then, more fool you. It turns out that Democrats are positively entusiastic about trotting out slurs, innuendo, and lies about Caribou Barbie. Charles Martin is attempting to provide the definitive list of Sarah Palin rumors, so if you've gotten some scurrlious e-mail about Sarah's brats, tats, bikini pix, book-banning tricks, etc., check it out.
Captain Ed makes a good point:
Just spitballing here, but what stereotypes of naughty women have the media and the lunatics missed? So far, they’ve made her out to be a slut, a b***h, a beauty-queen airhead, and an unfit mother. She’s obviously not frigid, so that smear won’t work. How many other demeaning gender-based slurs can they throw her way?
I suspect you'll only need to turn on MSNBC or read the New York Times to find out. -
And also check out Dean
Barnett on tracing one of the smears. Andrew Sullivan seems to be
the foremost propagator in this particular case, but it's only
one example where he's eagerly and uncritically
passed along a sewer-spawned rumor
handed to him by people who would conveniently prefer to be anonymous.
He's dragging down The Atlantic's
journalistic standards to sub-tabloid levels. (More on Slimeball Sullivan
from Ace and Patterico.)