Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

How do you know Bush is lying? His lips are moving. An old joke (sorry), and in the case of GW Bush, not so funny. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to matter to a large chunk of the American people whether he lies all the time or not, nor is the press willing to use the L-word.

That’s important to know. Get to be president and anything you say is just fine. Why wait. Start now. It must take some special talent to be able to lie so easily.

And so we have fact-check websites and watchdog groups. They pounce on and catalog the lies. Good thing, too, because otherwise we might not know.

McCain is practicing up. He said, and I’m sure many people believe, that he won’t participate in the debate Friday night and has suspended his campaign, as he said, until the economic crisis is resolved.

"Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Sen. Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me." [yahoonews.com, 9/25/2008]

Except that he did no such thing, as several news sources report:

McCain said on Wednesday he was "suspending" his campaign to return to Washington for the negotiations. But he gave a speech in New York on Thursday, continued airing ads and sent his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and surrogates out on the campaign trail. [Reuters, Stage is set but will U.S. debate go on?, 9/26/2008]

Elsewhere, there were other signs that the presidential campaign was very much in swing.

Trailed by camera crews and reporters, Palin visited the former World Trade Center site in Manhattan to tour a museum built as a tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

McCain's campaign website still allowed supporters to volunteer or contribute. His national headquarters in Arlington, Va., as well as local, state and regional field offices remained open. And on Capitol Hill, McCain was joined by his senior campaign team, including strategist Steve Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis, aide Mark Salter and policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin. [LA Times, Obama and McCain fail to spur financial bailout deal, 9/26/2008]

A funny one:

On Morning Joe, Nicolle Wallace, senior adviser to Sen. John McCain's campaign, stated that "our campaign is suspended" pending agreement on legislation to address the country's current financial situation, and later accused Sen. Barack Obama of having "done exactly zero" to produce bipartisan legislation. Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did not ask Wallace to reconcile her appearance and her attack on Obama with her claim that McCain's campaign is "suspended." [mediamatters.org,9/25/2008]

If Obama hopes to be president, can he do it without learning this special skill?

Permalink posted by Larry @ 9/25/2008 10:29:00 PM