I'm about to post a YouTube video produced be the people at The Real McCain, but I want to provide a short disclaimer about my own take on the video first. I think that everything in the video is true, but the presentation is very dangerous. The truth is there. It's well documented in lengthy expositions about who John McCain is, what he's done, what he's likely to do in the future, and the flip-flops he's had over the years on key issues important to the American people. That's not an issue to me. The disclaimer here is necessary because I believe that we rely on short, edited clips of media appearances to make the case far too often in 2008, and it does a disservice to the truth.
Truth is a highly subjective thing in many cases. Never more so than when we attempt to portray truth via fast impression, video/audio bites that appear to make the case, but don't do much more than scratch the surface of the truth at best. That is what you'll find in this YouTube clip. "Truthiness" vs. truth. I post it because I hope the truthiness presented in the clip will prompt people to investigate the reality of the so-called truth more carefully on their own. More truthiness is found at McCainPedia, produced by the DNC and only accessible for editing by the DNC. This is a tool which should prove quite useful at engaging the truth about John McCain far more accurately than the truthiness we get in the mainstream traditional media. No one gets at real truth in this day and age. Truth lies in deeper, lengthier investigation. Please do that on your own, if possible. In the meantime, here's a bit of truthiness that should counter the other truthiness you get via TV and newspapers.
3 comments:
very clinton-esk. goes back to my general disgust with politics.
Obama does seem to be the most 'honest' overall- but my distrust makes me think its just because he hasn't been around long enough to get caught.
good video.
You might be right about Obama, but we'll have to wait and see. At this point, looking at the choices, here's what we have:
Hillary Clinton:
Clearly a less than honest person with serious issues about power and entitlement. Listening to her move the goalposts on the campaign has been Hill-arious. Her people, 13 of them, vote to punish FL and MI for moving up their primaries with the lone dissenting voice an Obama supporter, and now the disenfranchisement of voters in those states is compared to the Civil Rights movement? Where was the outrage when HER supporters voted overwhelmingly for punishment? Now those who oppose full "as is" seating are sexists. Ugh.
John McCain:
Former "maverick" for taking a stand against the Bush administration, his voting record has gone from the 45th most conservative in the Senate in 2001 to the 8th in 2007/08, siding with Bush on virtually everything. The clip shows how he's tried to defend his flipping on everything that made him a "maverick" to the supreme enabler of the Bush administration. He sold out everything he claimed to stand for in order to be elected president. He used to speak out against the lunatic religious fringe and now hangs out with them. He used to decry lobbyist power and now he has 45 of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington working for his campaign, including Phil Gramm who is responsible in large measure for the sub-prime mortgage disaster. Oh yeah, he's McCain's economic adviser and a top candidate for Secretary of the Treasury. Ugh.
Barack Obama:
He's a relative Washington outsider with experience working as a grassroots organizer. His campaign has been revolutionary in its approach to on the ground organization and on-line fun raising. There will be books written about this campaign in the same way there have been books written about the Kennedy-Nixon debates. He has some unseemly ties to Tony Rezko, the disreputable fundraiser. He has some loose associations with left-leaning radicals like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. He is believed by the Right Wing conspiracy nuts to be a raging Marxist, while many on the Left Wing conspiracy side suspect that he's far more conservative than he lets on.
The problems that Obama has are far less troubling at this point. Both Clinton and McCain have serious problems with outright incompetency and truthfulness. Obama's problems mainly come from a lack of long term experience in government and a few unsavory associates. If the unsavory associates are the biggest thing we have to worry about, hell, I'd sign up for that right away. The other options in this race have unsavory associates going back far deeper and longer than Obama, with far more political clout. The fact that he's included so many 100,000s of new people, old and young, in the political process and he's done it with small money donations and ground teams made up of regular folks makes me feel very good about how he plans to lead America. Warts and all.
as usual Mike I think your assessment is spot on.
the longer this race goes on the more frustrating I find it. by the time we get to the general election I'll be about fed up with this stuff.
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