John McCain and the Lying Game

We expect that politics will be about spin and posturing and that political campaigns will be more punctuated spin and posturing, but with a sense of decorum and unstated rules. What John McCain has done during the 2008 presidential campaign betrays any sense of decorum and breaks every rule. His campaign is dirty.

What makes his campaign tactics even more egregious is his carefully-crafted reputation as a man of honor and duty, a son and grandson of Navy admirals. It seems like his age and realization that this is his last shot at the White House has brought out the worst in him, resorting to falsehoods, half-truths, and outright lies in his campaign ads and in his speeches. His Internet illiteracy is his downfall because anything the man says can be fact-checked in minutes and the facts are he is lying most of the time.

Although he still refers to the media as "liberal", the facts also show that he gets favorable coverage, but even the media is beginning to turn away from his provably false campaign ads. If the American people got instant fact-checking on every campaign ad, his approval rating would plummet instantly, except for that 12% or so who still make Bush's approval rating stay above zero.