If McCain were Pinochio, His Nose Would Soon Reach Europe -- He Has Lost Integrity and He Approves the Messages of Calculated Lies!

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are one of the terrible travesties of presidential campaigns, and the Republicans have become masters of it. Doublespeak and stretching the facts to fit their cause is usual for them and they do it pretty much nonstop ever since the 2000 campaign when they belittled Al Gore and used misrepresentations and smears to defeat him in the electoral vote. (Never forget he was our popularly elected President that year).

But Senator John McCain has approved more blatant lies than ever, and, thankfully, he has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.

According to the New York Times, 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 adult predators).

Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.

A McCain advertisement called “Fact Check” was itself found to be “less than honest” by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group. The group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking various Internet rumors about Ms. Palin and implied in the advertisement that the rumors had originated with Mr. Obama.

In an interview Friday on the NY1 cable news channel, a McCain supporter, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called “ridiculous” the implication that Mr. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was a reference to Ms. Palin, whom he still also defended as coming under unfair attack.

“The last month, for sure,” said Don Sipple, a Republican advertising strategist, “I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama.”

Indeed, in recent days, Mr. McCain has been increasingly called out by news organizations, editorial boards and independent analysts like FactCheck.org. The group, which does not judge whether one candidate is more misleading than another, has cried foul on Mr. McCain more than twice as often since the start of the political conventions as it has on Mr. Obama.

A McCain spokesman, Brian Rogers, defended the campaign of lies, saying the campaign had evidence for all its claims. “We stand fully by everything that’s in our ads,” Mr. Rogers said, “and everything that we’ve been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything. And if you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that’s your call.” It is the old Republican way, used adroitly and disgustingly by the current administration -- IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE TRUE, JUST SAY IT ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL THINK IT IS TRUE!

If McCain were Pinochio his nose would soon reach Europe. OF course, I think that is a good characterization of what has occurred -- McCain is now becoming the great Pinochio of politicians.

Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer, to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters, and the truth does not matter to them in this despicable endeavor.

“On Friday on “The View,” generally friendly territory for politicians, one co-host, Joy Behar, criticized his new advertisements. “We know that those two ads are untrue,” Ms. Behar, a courageous American if there ever was one, said. “They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?”

"Actually they are not lies,” Mr. McCain said crisply. Which proves what a really good liar he is.