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Category Archives: Hypocrisy

Ever-Ready Fox News lies again, and again, and again

Thursday, July 3, 2008
  1. Gen. Wesley Clark says that McCain’s military record (which he praised) does not automatically make McCain the best candidate for president.
  2. The media, led by Fox News and the McCain campaign, goes wingnut claiming that Clark attacked McCain’s military service (even though he did not).
  3. The McCain campaign tries to blame Obama and attack his lack of patriotism, even though Clark was not speaking on behalf of Obama, and even though Obama publicly rejected what Clark had said. Obama, who frequently calls McCain a “genuine American hero”, is forced to defend his own patriotism.
  4. Fox News says (repeatedly) that if Obama is patriotic, then why did he not vote to condemn Moveon.org when they ran their “General Betray-us” ad against General David Petraeus. Watch them do it in this video:

The only problem is, Obama did vote to condemn the Moveon.org “General Betray-us” ad. But as you can see in the video, this doesn’t stop Fox News from repeating this false accusation.

Lesson: Fox doesn’t actually need a valid reason to attack Obama.

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Olbermann on McCain’s Double-Talk Express

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

In watching this extensive list of McCain’s flip-flops, I noticed that there are a few major ones that didn’t get mentioned. Should we watch for “McCain’s flip-flops, the mini-series” coming soon?

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McCain - what is he hiding about his military record?

Monday, June 30, 2008

On Sunday, Gen. Wesley Clark said that McCain’s military service, while honorable, did not necessarily prepare McCain to be a good president.

What is interesting to me is that the McCain himself went on the offensive immediately, trotting out a number of retired military men – including Bud Day, one of the original Swift Boat veterans – to condemn Clark’s comments. As you might recall, the Swift Boat veterans were a 527 group that attacked John Kerry’s military service in a number of TV ads, ads that at the time were denounced by John McCain as “dishonest and dishonorable”.

Why is this interesting?  Because Clark did not actually attack McCain’s military service, just the idea that his military service somehow means that one cannot question McCain’s military judgement. In fact, Clark praised McCain’s service. McCain also attacked Obama, denouncing “the kind of campaign Sen. Obama and his surrogates and supporters want to engage in,” even though Obama consistently praises McCain’s service, calling him “a genuine American hero.” (On the other hand, Bud Day directly and dishonestly attacked Kerry’s service four years ago.)

So, when someone completely overreacts to a mild criticism, it makes me think they are trying to hide something. You know, like when you make a mild comment about someone having a drink at a party and they freak out and accuse you of calling them a drunk.

So what could McCain be hiding about his service? Well, here are a few things we do know about it:

Those are the things that McCain has admitted to. The more interesting part is that (unlike John Kerry) John McCain has never released all his military records, preferring to keep them secret. Even the stuff we do know about McCain’s record should cause us to ask some serious questions. But McCain doesn’t want any of those questions answered, and will use known liars to attack anyone who dares to ask even the most innocuous question.

UPDATE: Wesley Clark is not backing down, and other military men are coming to his defense.

UPDATE 2: During a McCain campaign conference call (his second on the subject in as many days) McCain surrogate Orson Swindle said:

General Clark probably wouldn’t get that much praise from this group. I can’t speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.

So let me get this straight. The McCain campaign is claiming that it is unacceptable to attack someone’s military record, and to prove their point they attack Clark’s military record — except that Clark didn’t actually attack McCain’s record. Incidentally, Clark’s last command was as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.