In a previous post, I asked anybody to point out any Obama campaign ads that were as thoroughly false or misleading as the recent round of McCain ads. Jeff Miller rose to the challenge, pointing out six (1 2 3 4 5 6) Obama ads, all of which could be misleading to one degree or another. One ad had a picture that did not match the text. Others accused McCain of having held positions he had held without mentioning that McCain abandoned those positions after securing the primary. Some suggested that McCain wanted to cut funds for things like education without mentioning that these were part of broader domestic funding cuts. Perhaps the worst of the lot stated that McCain “voted to cut education funding” and listed five votes. Only one of those was for an actual cut in education funding. The others were votes against increases in funding or votes for smaller increases.
To be clear, I do not approve of these negative and potentially misleading ads—but I’m realistic enough about my politics to know that this sort of thing is par for the course. I wish Obama wouldn’t do it—but he’s running for political office, not canonization. And in fairness to the political advertisers, putting all the relevant context in a 15 or 30 second spot is a little impractical. If McCain wants to tell his side of the story, he’s welcome to do so. In short, in politics, the truth tends to come in shades of gray. Objective truth is difficult to come by. One person might call a policy disastrous. The other might consider it a very good policy. One person’s refusal to extend a tax giveaway may be another’s tax raise. I understand that there is room for well-meaning people to disagree both on priorities and on how to interpret the facts.
But if political truth is blurry, lies are crystal clear. Stretching the facts is different than fabricating them. The recent McCain ads have been littered with statements and accusations that are wholly unsupported by facts. Quotes are taken so far out of context that they no longer retain even a shadow of their intended meaning. Both sides are guilty of skewing information for their benefit—but the McCain campaign is the only one just making stuff up.
