Tapestry of Lies

The Wednesday-Thursday one-two punch of Palin and McCain at the Republican Convention has most of the punditocracy abuzz as we begin the final sixty days of the long election cycle. The ticket presents a bit of a quandary. First, are they more about the hard right views and hard hitting attacks of Palin, or about the more centrist views and more accommodating approach of McCain? Secondly, some ask whether a Republican can run against the record of own party as the agent of change for that party. Yet both these questions are off the mark. It is about neither.

It is, for the discerning, about the truth; a commodity held in such disregard by both aspirants it is clear that in the most important department, this team offers no change from "the Washington culture" (i.e., the Bush Administration) at all. For the fabric of their campaign is held together primarily by a tapestry of lies: knowing, intentional, self-serving lies of the kind that reveal the emptiness of Senator McCain's promises of a new dawn of bipartisan understanding and conciliation. It looks a lot more like win at all costs and the devil take the hindmost.

Consider the lies told just in the first week since Palin was named as running mate. In his stump speech McCain says Obama has written no legislation, has never worked across party lines and will raise everyone's taxes. These are lies and McCain knows it. Obama wrote sweeping ethics legislation that has been adopted. He worked with Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana on that and on passing a bill to fund securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Obama's tax plan would raise taxes on less than 5% of the people, not everyone. McCain could just tell the truth and argue against Obama's policies, but he does not. The lie, "Obama never has" will sell better, if believed. So he tells it.

Consider now the lies Palin is telling. She relates, and McCain repeats, her story of getting rid of the previous governor's designated state jet plane on e-bay for a profit. She says she was against the "Bridge to Nowhere" and returned the money. She claims to have been against "wasteful earmarks" and says she refused to associate with Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, currently under indictment. All in her first week, and all blatant lies.

The truth is she offered the plane on e-bay but couldn't sell it there and wound up dealing it to one of her campaign contributors, not for a profit but for $600,000 under cost. She supported the bridge and fought for its passage. When public outcry over it went national she took the $300 million dollars anyway and spent it. One of the things it went for was the access road that was to have led to the ill-fated bridge. She was not against earmarks, but instead hired a lobbyist who succeeded in bringing more earmarks to Alaska per capita than any other state. To complete the story, she appears on tape with Senator Stevens as a director of his 527 committee.

Other pearls soon to come out include her husband's membership in a treasonous organization (a group dedicated to the secession of Alaska from the Union) and a number of fundamentalist nut case assertions of Palin's, saying such things as the Iraq War is part of God's plan, God prefers her pipeline proposal, and that Israel has a lot of terrorism because Jews don't accept Jesus.

It is small wonder that Rick Davis, McCain's campaign chief, now says the campaign "should be about personality" and that the campaign has refused to allow reporters to interview the Governor. The campaign released a statement saying, "We will make her available to the press when it is in our interest."

It is disheartening to have to report that far from portending a new movement to "change Washington," the present Republican ticket bears all the hallmarks of the unethical and corrupt administration it seeks to replace. The way most of the media seems to be portraying it, Palin and McCain's convention performances have made them the current darlings and they are a breath of fresh air. Yet in spite of this, an ABC poll shows the people may not be buying it. Palin had a 50% favorable rating to 37% unfavorable, for a +13. Joe Biden's comparable numbers were 54% and 30%, a +24. When asked if the two veep candidates had "the right experience to assume the presidency" if necessary, respondents said "no" 50% to 42% for Palin but "yes" 66% to 21% Biden.