December 2, 2008 8:22:21 PM CST
(Newser) – We all know John McCain wasn’t really offended by Barack Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment—the one he pretended to think was a reference to Sarah Palin. “The whole controversy is ginned up, a fraud, a lie,” writes Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post. So why isn’t anyone calling McCain on it? Lies ought to be self-defeating, but in American politics, they're not.
Many people “even respect a well-told lie as evidence of professionalism,” Kinsley writes; complain, and you’ll be seen as a whiner, a bad sport. The press meanwhile “bends over backwards to give liars the benefit of the doubt,” to avoid an appearance of bias. But lies can corrupt our system at least as much as money. Maybe McCain should "swear off corrupt lying the way he has sworn off corrupt money."
Source Washington Post
Nov 17, 08 4:45 PM CST Sarah Palin made such a splash in American politics this year that she deserves consideration for Time magazine Person of the Year, Kathryn Jean Lopez writes for the National Review. “They’ve probably long picked The One,” Lopez writes, referring to Barack Obama. But “like Obama, all you had to do was look at her to see that she offered something different on a national ticket.” More »
Nov 6, 08 1:22 PM CST With the election over, what's more fun than calling out all those whose predictions were off—way off. Der Spiegel lists some highlights:
Nov 4, 08 4:05 PM CST It's an inevitability of any election season: Some phrases will get bandied around so much that the hapless American, simply trying to do his civic duty by paying attention, will be crushed under the sheer weight of political verbiage. The Red Eye lists the worst offenders:
Nov 3, 08 5:18 PM CST Viral election videos offer campy calls for change, seamless special effects, and more than a few celebrity cameos. Laughs aside, “over the past decade they’ve also impacted politics—sometimes changing the course of elections and frequently providing a few laughs in an otherwise wonky world,” Jeffrey Ressner writes in picking Politico's top 10 of '08.
Nov 2, 08 2:57 PM CST After a long campaign season, John McCain and Barack Obama have had ample chance to define themselves in America’s eyes—yet 4% of the country, a recent poll says, remains undecided. The New York Times spoke to a few of these “gray-state” voters to see what was holding them back; they noted good and bad qualities in each candidate, but remained tough to pin down. More »
The routine acceptance of obvious lies now corrodes our politics as much as the money that was the subject of McCain’s famous act of Republican apostasy: McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. - Michael Kinsley
McCain says he’d rather lose the election than lose the war. But it seems he’d rather lose that honor he’s always going on about than lose the election. - Michael Kinsley
Barack Obama • John McCain • Sarah Palin • pig • lying • lipstick
