Media pundits echo McCain misinformation. Is it deliberate?

John McCain and Karl Rove’s experience suggests lies are effective campaign tools. It’s no wonder they and the pundits say Obama lacks experience. They think telling the truth is the modern political equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills...

This week John McCain's campaign hit new lows with their attacks and distortions. McCain and his party attacked Senator Obama by, among other things, ridiculing the idea that keeping your car tires inflated is an effective way to insure fuel efficiency... Over the road truck drivers know this basic truth. In fact, everyone from AAA to NASCAR agreed with Obama. McCain has, of course, reversed his position. But not until the broadcast pundits had a good laugh repeating McCain's misinformation and influencing voters, while taking the GOP money for ads, of course.

Too often the theoretically objective "referees" in the commercial media are spending a lot of time repeating his false attacks and very little time holding him accountable. Of course, they're glad McCain's found a way to raise money so they can sell ads to his campaign, and so it's something of a conflict of interest for them -- do they tell the truth, or do they help keep it looking like a close contest to boost their ratings and ad revenues?

Here's more from McCain disinformation machine, echoed uncritically in the commercial media:

• Earlier this week, the McCain campaign put out an ad saying that Washington is broken. It's gotten a lot of press so far, but it didn't mention that John McCain spent the last 26 years in Washington --
  failing to fix this broken system. He portrays himself as a so-called "maverick" but doesn't want people to know that he has vo ted 95% of the time in support of George Bush's policies.


• Another ad uses scare tactics to claim Barack's tax policy will hurt middle class Americans. Press coverage of the ad repeated McCain's smears, but omitted the fact that Barack's economic plan will cut taxes for 95% of American families. Not to mention that McCain's upper class tax cut plan leaves out more than 100 million middle class families.

The commercial media may not be informing the public very well, but you don't have to sit back and wait for them to start telling the truth about John McCain. This is the era when Snopes and PolitiFact are checking the stories, and Google can steer you to sources other than the broadcast pundits with their vested interest in keeping you watching because they sell ads to the GOP.

John McCain and Karl Rove's experience suggests lies are effective campaign tools. It's no wonder they and the pundits say Obama lacks experience. They think his truth- and reality-based campaign is the modern political equivalent of Don Quixote tilting his lance at windmills.

Watch the video of Barack responding and join thousands of fellow supporters via BarackObama.com to counter the influence of John McCain's deceptive, old-school mud-slinging campaign.

The Obama campaign's new "Action Wire" and the long-standing "Obama Rapid Response" teams are among the grassroots tools for hope-mongers dedicated to pushing back against yellow journalism and other disinformation. They serve as clearinghouses for volunteers who fight smears, spread the truth, push back on misleading media, and take positive action.

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Is John McCain too experienced to win in 2008?

In politics, old hands use mud-slinging & smear-mongering knowing an apology later doesn't erase the first impression about taxes, or whatever... Is Senator McCain's low-information, "talking points, not details" campaign style evidence that he's been in DC too long - fighting the prior war?

By avoiding details there's only so much anybody can say about his plans with regard to taxes. He's avoiding talking about Social Security, for instance, because politicizing it with details is bad for campaigning. McCain's answers are from the classic Rove textbook that got George Bush elected - when asked a question, repeat the closest talking point you have. That way there are only a handful of things to quote you on, but nobody can say you didn't reply even if the reply seems as though you may have missed the question.

Senator McCain's not too old to serve; he proved he's not to old to amuse bikers in Sturgis by suggesting his wife enter a topless pageant, either. But is he too experienced to win a campaign in the era when pundits no longer dominate access to information?

Is "experience" actually McCain's achilles heel?

Obama's been so up front with his answers that it's shocked people. Pundits assert he's too nuanced, and there's no question that his opposition can grab sound-bites out of context and run with them. But this is the era of Snopes, and Google, whether McCain knows it or not. Facts may be hard to come by, but they're out there - and so if voters want the information, it's there to be found.

It's an election cycle full of irony - Many of the charges the McCain camp has leveled at Obama turn out to be indicative of areas they fear they'll be attacked. Have Snopes & Google given the U.S. voters facts to debunk spin?

So the 3 questions are:

• Is this the year that voters fight back against old-school political tactics?
• Is John McCain's campaign style evidence that he's been in DC too long?
• Is the infornation superhighway sufficiently integrated into the lives of U.S. voters that we finally face an election where facts matter more than spin and perception?

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What would a hope monger do?

Imagine a hope-monger came across the following in a search log:

"michelle obama" promiscuous

So obviously somebody is looking for dirt. All a hope monger has to do is describe the tactic in a blog entry, and include a few keywords, and suddenly there is both more awareness -- good press -- and just "more to sort through" for those who seek to attack the Obamas.

And the word promiscuous can have little or nothing to do with sexuality, obviously.

Promiscuous, for instance, is a song recorded by Nelly Furtado and Timbaland for Furtado's third album, Loose, in 2006.

It can also mean consisting of diverse, unrelated parts or individuals, even confused, as in: "Throngs promiscuous strew the level green" (Alexander Pope)

Sometimes there's the looser meaning, "not selective" of a single class or person, as in: "Clinton was criticized for his promiscuous solicitation of campaign money." which was obviously intended to echo the crisis near the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency while discussing an unrelated topic.

Now... folks are obviously "panning the stream" to find evidence of deviance, or perversity, or anything of a sexual nature to use to cast aspersions on Michelle Obama.

This is your chance to be a hope monger, and add to the degree of difficulty for the smear mongers and those who seek to use divide and conquer political tactics a la Karl Rove. The more these words appear, the more the power of the search engines is diluted, and the more time the folks taking that approach spend reading what amazing people Senator Barack and Michelle Obama are.