Bill Manzi.com

John McCain, seemingly getting a boost from all of the attacks on Barack Obama, is now taking some heat for the obvious distortions (lies) put out in two of those ads. McCain’s claims on Obama’s “support” for sex education in kindergarten has been thouroughly debunked, and his attacks on Obama for the lipstick on the pig comment have been contrasted with his own use of that very same phrase to describe the Hillary Clinton health plan. Was McCain calling Clinton a pig? From the New York Times:

Mr. Obama has also been accused of distortions, but this week Mr. McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire for a pair of headline-grabbing attacks. First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)

Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults).

The Straight Talk Express apparently has gotten a little bent.

Hey how about those Republicans! They sure are consistent. Lets watch this Comedy Central video and have Jules explain away the hilarious Republican inconsistencies highlighted by Jon Stewart. Great video. And I believe it was a Mr. B. Bunny who had it right when he said: “What a group of maroons”.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml

The Obama campaign, after a week of taking some heavy incoming, fires back, showing McCain as out of touch and certainly no agent of change. I wonder who picks up the McCain email.

Charlie Gibson interviews Sarah Palin. Governor Palin, in two separate statements, clearly falls under the spell of the neo-cons. She raised the possibility of war with Russia over the nation of Georgia, indicating that she would be willing to give a war guarantee to Ukraine and Georgia via Nato membership. In an area of the world in which the United States has no overriding national interests she says war with Russia is possible.

When asked about a potential Israeli first strike to wipe out an Iranian nuclear capability she repeated three times that “We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself”. Whether such a first strike served American interests in the region apparently would be irrelevant.

And notably she seemed to have little idea of what the “Bush Doctrine” was, and gave an answer that I think most would agree on, that faced with an imminent attack on America a President would have the right (and duty) to strike first. She dodged the question of preemptive strikes where no such imminent threat existed.

The Governor seemed to give tacit approval to the United States using cross border attacks into Pakistan without the permission of the Pakistani government. When Barack Obama indicated some months ago that he as President would authorize such raids McCain called his position “naive”. I guess now that President Bush has directly authorized such raids and the U.S. military has engaged in such tactics that position is no longer “naive”.

The McCain campaign continues in the attack mode, launching wave after wave of attacks. Want to talk education? No lets talk about sex education. Want to talk about economic policy? Lets talk about pigs wearing lipstick. The onslaught continued with female Republican Reps decrying the sexism of the Obama campaign over the lipstick remark as well as scolding him for not selecting Hillary or Governor Sebelius as his running mate. Ironic, because had he done so these same reps would be leading the charge to discredit them.

McCain’s complaint about opposition research has to be the single biggest piece of hypocrisy put out yet by his campaign. How about McCain’s full support for the army of Republican researchers sent to Little Rock to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton and their attempts to destroy her. The Republicans wrote the book on opposition research, and now they complain?

An ad dealing with education by the Obama campaign, highlighting some differences between the candidates. Effective? Whether you like this ad or not Obama must go to the strength he has, and not allow this election to be fought out on terms favorable to Republicans. Education is one area where the public puts more faith in Democrats than Republicans. That is exactly the type of discussion Obama should be doing more of. And that type of discussion can arrest some of the gains McCain has made lately with some key demographic groups. Bring the fight to McCain and Palin, and bring it in areas where the country realizes (and trusts) Democrats more than Republicans.

Obama hits back on the change theme, pointing to the lobbyists working for the McCain campaign, as well as his solid record of support for George Bush. And Governor Palin will be dinged here as well, with the charge that she was “for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it”. Both campaigns see “change” as an important issue, and both want to hold that high ground. We see McCain making real progress on the issue. Can Obama turn it around?