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Lying Corrupts Campaigns Just as Money Can

Maybe it's time for finance reformer to swear off fabrications

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 11, 2008 11:58 AM CDT

(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."

[Images (2)]

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Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. works the crowd during a rally, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008, in Lebanon, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

A pair of pot belly pigs are shown at the Animal Place pet sanctuary in Vacaville, Calif.. Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment was obviously not directed at Palin, Kinsley writes. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

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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

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Lying Corrupts Campaigns Just as Money Can