Is McCain a liar like Bush?

I’ve been among the people who’ve been wondering what happened to John McCain: What made him break his promise to raise the tone of the campaign and to run on the issues? Why did he descend into the gutter? Is he really just like George Bush, running a campaign based on lies and deception, or is that he can’t control his own campaign? Neither alternative is very appealing.

In any case, McCain has again been called out for running ads using deliberate deception, this time attacking Barack Obama's tax policies. The new ads contain “multiple false and misleading claims about Obama's tax proposals,” the experts say. “False claims” is just a polite way of saying “lies”, and increasingly McCain and his campaign are using lies and distortions to try and fool people into voting for McCain.

Will it work? George Bush and Karl Rove were experts at using lies, distortions and smears, and won elections with their divisive gutter strategy. In 2004 and, to a lesser extent, 2000, a compliant media, and a Democratic candidate and campaign that were completely unwilling to challenge the Republicans on their campaign of deceit, helped the Republicans win.

This year, things are different: Barack Obama’s campaign has shown itself ready to fight the smears and lies. The mainstream newsmedia has also shown more interest in pointing out McCain’s deception. I’ll continue to do my small part by posting rebuttals to McCain’s lies, smears and distortions, and I encourage other bloggers to do the same.

This time, we can’t let the divisive politics of George Bush/Karl Rove and John McCain win.

Thanks again to blogging buddy Dawn for pointing me to the Factcheck.org story.