John McCain and His Campaign of Lies, Damn Lies, and More Lies

Remember the old Saturday Night Live debates where Dan Ackroyd played Bob Dole, growling at George H.W. Bush, "Stop lying about my record, George Bush!"

John McCain should be growling at himself, "Stop lying about my record, John McBush!"

John McCain lies about his position on Social Security privatization, today:

"I am not for privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be."

That's not what he said in March:

"As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it – along the lines of what President Bush proposed." [Wall Street Journal, 3/3/2008]

And it's not what he said in November of 2004:

“Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.”

That's lie #1.

Here's lie #2. In the famous "green screen" speech on the day Obama clinched the nomination, John McCain said these lies:

You will hear from my opponent's campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I'm running for President Bush's third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it's so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it's very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country.

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I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues. We've disagreed over the conduct of the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees; over out of control government spending and budget gimmicks; over energy policy and climate change; over defense spending that favored defense contractors over the public good.

I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably.

But that's not what he said in June of 2005 on Meet the Press:

The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I have been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So, have we had some disagreements on some issues - particularly domestic issues? Yes, but I will argue my conservative record of voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I am particularly talking about the war on terror, war on Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues; I strongly disagree with any assertion that I have been more at odds with the President of the United States than I have been in agreement.

Watch John McCain 2005 versus John McCain 2008 on this video:



John McCain, stop lying about your record! (Grrrr.)