One tough thing about being a Democrat (other than the overpowering smell of patchouli oil at our gatherings) is that our candidates are generally constrained in their advertising by a quaint allegiance to the truth. The Republicans? Not so much.
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Sarah Palin stopped the bridge to nowhere? That must’ve been sometime after she campaigned for governor promising to do the opposite of stopping it. Here’s her response to a newspaper’s 2006 question about whether she favored funding the project:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now–while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
And this:
While running for governor in 2006, though, Palin backed federal funding for the infamous bridge, which McCain helped make a symbol of pork barrel excess.
What about the claim that Sarah Palin “took on big oil”? Well, she didn’t. In fact, she’s a big admirer of big oil. She doesn’t think global warming is man-made and wants to let big oil drill anywhere and everywhere it wants. In ANWR, for example:
Like McCain, Palin believes that oil drilling is the only solution to our energy problems. “I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem,” she says. She supports more drilling in protected areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge, once attacking McCain for his “close-mindedness on ANWR.”
Taking on big oil would mean telling it that it doesn’t get to drill everywhere it wants whenever it wants regardless of the environmental consequences. Taking on big oil would mean taxing it so that part of its record profits could go to improving Alaska’s dead last school system. But she didn’t do that.
He “battled Republicans and reformed Washington”? Voting with the Republican president 90% of the time isn’t exactly battling Republicans. And Washington’s reformed? Then why does his website have an entire section dedicated to describing how he’s going to reform Washington?
The ad also claims that Palin “battled Republicans and reformed Alaska.” Under the Palin administration, Alaska is last or near last in virtually every measurable category. Technically, that is reform since the state seemed to be doing far better before she took office.
No doubt later today or tomorrow, factcheck.org or another watchdog will call McCain’s new ad “misleading” or even “false.” The McCain campaign won’t stop running it, of course. But for the record, the arbiters of fairness and honesty will have spoken and that will make Democrats feel morally superior. That’s us: the morally superior loyal opposition.
UPDATE:
First neutral observer to call this crapola what it is, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post:
the whopper here is that Palin opposed her state’s notorious Bridge to Nowhere. She endorsed the remote project while running for governor in 2006, claimed to be an opponent only after Congress killed its funding the next year and has used the $223 million provided for it for other state ventures. Far from being an opponent of earmarks, Palin hired lobbyists to try to capture more federal funding.
UPDATE TWO:
Michael Crowley of the New Republic (cited in the Obama response ad):
‘She Stopped the Bridge to Nowhere’
McCain’s new TV ad prominently features a naked lie. Even Fox’s Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on this yesterday afternoon.
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