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Suppose we reached a time when people stopped reading newspapers, when people thought, "I don’t need the expense of a newspaper anymore when I can tune in to a television and see 22 minutes of network news minus commercials." Or suppose their news came from a 24-hour station where fact and opinion are often muddled. Suppose the nation’s youth got its news from Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Or imagine if people thought Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were journalists.
In such a time, people would still think Saddam Hussein had something to do with bombing the Twin Towers. In such a time, voters would not only elect George W. Bush once, they would re-elect him in the face of overwhelming evidence his administration had gotten us bogged down in a needless war and wrecked our economy. In such a time, a presidential candidate need only keep repeating outright lies for them to become established truths.
We are living in such a time.
In this incredibly deceptive election campaign, it took the women of "The View" to expose the lies of John McCain last week. If truth prevails, and at the moment that is a big if, we will have Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg to thank. In one magic moment, Walters looked McCain in the eye and asked him why his ads knowingly lie about Barack Obama — and McCain blinked. If he had been hooked up to a lie detector, the needle would have gone off the page. We can only hope "The View" gets a shot at Sarah Palin.
Alternet.org and Snopes.com have become required reading in truth-seeking. Snopes uncovers every false e-mail sent about Obama, e-mails that are nothing but thinly disguised racism. They keep coming and they are all lies, from the myths about Obama’s so-called allegiance to Muslims to how he will raise taxes. Check them out on Snopes.com and write back to your e-mailing friends, if they want an excuse to vote against Obama because he is black, that’s their own tragic problem, but stop circulating falsehoods. Refer them to Alternet.org, where you can see the top lies of the McCain-Palin campaign. Here’s a summary of the top untruths, as amended by me and given here as a public service:
Lie: McCain and Palin will reform Washington.
Truth: McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent in ’08. That is not change.
Lie: Palin made a profit by selling the state-owned jet on eBay.
Truth: She failed to sell it on eBay, had to go through a private broker and lost money.
Lie: McCain only switched his position on off-shore drilling because of the gas crunch.
Truth: Even if off-shore drilling took place right now, we wouldn’t see the benefits for 10 years.
Lie: Palin stopped funding for the Bridge to Nowhere.
Truth: She was for it until Congress killed the project, then took the lump sum and spent it on other pet projects in Alaska.
Lie: McCain’s ads claim Obama will raise taxes on the middle class.
Truth: In fact, Obama’s tax plan cuts taxes for the middle class.
Lie: McCain claims he has received every award from veterans’ organizations.
Truth: McCain has gotten poor grades from at least two major veterans’ groups and voted against the recent GI Bill all veterans’ groups supported.
Lie: Palin is qualified to become vice president because of her state’s proximity to Russia.
Truth: Palin has never been to Russia and would not be able to distinguish Putin from Rasputin.
Lie: McCain’s ad claims Obama is in favor of doing nothing to solve the energy crisis.
Truth: Obama has proposed $150 billion for research into clean-energy technologies.
Lie: McCain claims Obama wants kids to learn about sex before they can read.
Truth: Obama voted for legislation that, in effect, protects small children from sexual predators.
Lie: As governor, Palin was against earmarks.
Truth: Alaska gets much more from earmarks than Obama’s home state of Illinois. In fact as mayor, Palin hired a lobbyist whose specific job was to get earmark money for her state.
Lie: Obama is for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq for political gain.
Truth: Obama has consistently stood for a 16-month withdrawal timeline, which would depend on ground conditions. The Iraqi government and Bush administration now support a timeline, only McCain is opposed.
Imagine a time when no one pays attention to the truth, when we could contemplate putting the same political party that has given us eight horrible years of incompetence in power for four more years.
Now imagine you could hold them accountable for their lies.
