From Maverick to Mendacity

I like Senator John McCain.  In fact it could be safe to say that I have great respect and admiration for Senator John McCain.  How could you not say such a man is deserving of our honor and gratitude.  Senator John McCain is the man who spent five years in a prisoner of war camp cell where he endured tremendous amounts of torture.  He was shot down on one of his brave missions for his country trying to stop the spread of communism in a region of the world that desperately needed -- and still needs some stable form of government.  Senator John McCain is the man who after being harshly rebuked for what he himself calls the lowest moment in his career and judgment during the Keating Five Scandal rallied back to help bring about some of the most sweeping campaign fund-raising laws since the Watergate scandal.  Senator John McCain is the man who when his party was demonizing poor Mexicans for trying at all costs-- even illegal ones -- to live the American Dream try and bring about comprehensive immigration reform, which stood on the stage of human decency not xenophobic ideals.  Senator John McCain is the man who during the heated battle for the 2000 Republican Nomination against George W. Bush called the tactics used against him immoral and said, "there is a special place in hell reserved for people" who would try and call his Indonesia adopted daughter an illegitimate black child.  Senator John McCain is the man who called right-wing religious zealots "agents of intolerance."  Senator John McCain is the man who honestly admitted that he was so desperate during that political fight eight years ago that he was a coward and could not rightfully and dutifully say that the Confederate Flag which flies in South Carolina that he did not stand by his principles and publicly say it should come down.  Senator John McCain is the man who called his vote against the Martin L. King Holiday foolish and a mistake.

Senator John McCain is a hard man not to love.

What is disappointing is Senator John McCain is not running for President.  The McCain running for the White House is like a victim of the pea-pods in the "Body Snatchers."  Presidential Candidate John McCain has all but discarded the principles that made him such a solid brand all in himself to grab onto the white hot reins of sleazy politics that many around him believe is necessary to win the right to sit in the Oval Office-- some of them the very people he despised eight years ago.

It is not just the fact that Presidential Candidate McCain has used the politics of distraction to keep the public away from the issues -- that is what happens in politics and anyone who doesn't think that mischaracterizations of your rivals votes, positions and policies doesn't or shouldn't occur is less than a casual observer.  What is disturbing is Presidential Candidate John McCain doesn't seem to have a moral compass.  President Candidate John McCain doesn't seem to have an ethical line he refuses to cross along the campaign trail.

It would be unfair to say that Senator Barack Obama hasn't done his share of skewed political fighting and has made some false claims himself to be sure -- but Senator Obama has kept his attacks squarely fixed on policy differences -- not personal character differences.  Presidential Candidate John McCain has built his entire candidacy on the fact that Senator Obama is not character worthy to be President-- not American enough--not mainstream enough-- not fill-in-the-blank enough.

Not only is that such a vile attack that it is beneath the honor code the old Navy pilot once adhered to -- it is against the very core principle that should attract someone to vote for a president.  If the American public had paid close attention to the 1968 campaign of Richard Nixon, they would have seen the groundwork of Watergate clearly laid out for all of us to see.

In Joe McGinniss account of Nixon's successful 1968 campaign, "The Selling of the President" he outlines the falsehoods Nixon's aides created with the tool of images and television.  In the book a senior aide, William Gavin, explained the crux of the mendacity this way:

"...reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him... he can receive the impression without having to think about it in a linear, structured way... and for most people this is the most difficult work of all. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable.  Get the voters to like the guy, and the battle's two thirds won."

In other words how you campaign is an indication of how you will govern.

That simple rule is the key to Presidential Candidate John McCain's victory strategy -- the American people liked him.  He was two-thirds there -- but the  mendacity of the other third -- getting the American people to not like your opponent has now enveloped his entire meaning to run.  In other words he is not running for something he is running against something --something he has falsely created through smears and that is a losing strategy.

This past week has been even more disheartening because the mendacity being utilized is not only lowly but dangerous.  Over the course of the last few days the McCain campaign has resorted to virtually calling Senator Obama a terrorists who will turn the White House into a Mosque.  One supporter even suggested Obama would get someone to paint the White House black.

They use an association with a self-described radical of the 1960s who tried to bomb government buildings to protest the Vietnam War as their primary case.  Governor Sarah Palin described it as "palling around with terrorists."

The fact that connecting the philosophy of Obama to  the actions of William Ayers when Obama was 8 years old living abroad is a trumped up charge worthy of laugh-ability doesn't seem to matter to McCain.

Yet, what is more disturbing is the incitement these outrageous statements have churned and the loud silence from the campaign itself.  When making their attacks people in the crowd screamed: "terrorists" and "kill him" and even verbally assaulted a camera man simply because he was black.  Even if you give McCain and Palin and their on-site aides credit for not hearing these dangerous criticisms when they were widely reported not a word, not a murmur out of the campaign condemning the attacks.

So not only does the level of mendacity not seem to matter, the fact that the campaign's level of deceit creates such historically dangerous rhetoric doesn't seem to reach a level of the campaign even caring.  The only relief we may have is that the Secret Service does care and is investigating the incidents as possible threats.

I would like to think that this is just another South Carolina Confederate flag flap; another Martin L. King holiday misstep; a temporary set aside of principled stances Senator John McCain ever made from his disapproval of torture to pushing up to agents of intolerance at Bob Jones University; a brief Hail Mary like the suspension of his campaign at the height of the Wall Street crisis. 

I pray that one day Senator McCain will wake up and say to himself that this is wrong, I made a mistake, I became an ogre trying to grab the precious golden ring, that he will stand tall and apologize to those who once believed in his maverick brand and admired his willingness to compromise policy but not his principles.

Mendacity has costs -- and for Presidential Candidate John McCain  he may have lost his last chance at the White House -- But perhaps he hasn't lost the map to where he left Senator John McCain.

Kapitol Hill publishes a new commentary every week. Feel free to leave a comment and remember to return next week to read the next installment.