Obama Campaign: McCain "Would Rather Lose His Integrity Than Lose An Election"

This is More Like It:

Today on "The View," John McCain defended his campaign's latest ad campaign, which has been debunked repeatedly as both false and sleazy. In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it's clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.

And when they bring up the "John McCain was a POW so blah blah blah", DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT! It doesn't matter if you were honorable in 1968, it matters what you do NOW.

Andrew Sullivan on McCain's Integrity

Andrew Sullivan joins the growing list of decent people who are thoroughly disgusted by John McCain and no longer willing to put up with his "man of honor" charade:

"For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil.

...

Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it."

The Referendum

This election was, is and will continue to be a referendum on the intelligence and integrity of the American people.

Obama is betting on the intelligence and integrity of the American public. He is betting that we care more about education and health care and responsible stewardship of the economy than we do about lipstick and pigs.

John McCain is betting AGAINST the intelligence and integrity of the American public. He is a void when it comes to policy and leadership and honesty, so he must use Rove-style politics to try to trick people or get them to vote out of naked fear.

Which will Americans choose? Either way, they get what they deserve.

Republican Strategist: "Facts Don't Really Matter"

I've said for some time that this election has become a referendum on the intelligence and integrity of the American people. Are they smart enough to see through the blatant lies being peddled by McCain and Palin? Are they moral enough to even care?

What's shocking to me so far this year is not that the Republicans are lying and smearing -- they always do that. It's that they are so unapologetic about it. From today's Washington Post:

From the moment Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declared that she had opposed the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," critics, the news media and nonpartisan fact checkers have called it a fabrication or, at best, a half-truth. But yesterday in Lebanon, Ohio, and again in Lancaster, Pa., she crossed that bridge again.

...

Palin's position on the bridge that would have linked Ketchikan to Gravina Island is one example of a candidate staying on message even when that message has been publicly discredited. Palin has continued to say she opposed a project she once campaigned for -- then killed later, only after support for it had collapsed in Congress.

...

Palin and John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, have been more aggressive in recent days in repeating what their opponents say are outright lies. Almost every day, for instance, McCain says rival Barack Obama would raise everyone's taxes, even though the Democrat's tax plan exempts families that earn less than $250,000.

...

John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates.

"The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter." (Emphasis mine.)

And people wonder why I say Republicans are aiming for the "stupid vote"? Obviously not all Republican voters are stupid, but when you run this sort of a campaign you are clearly saying that you are more interested in propaganda than honesty and really discussing issues.

Do Americans really want another four years of this stuff? I really hope not.

I think Obama has to make a choice. Either he decides to go negative himself and attack straight at McCain's whole reputation, or he makes this a referendum on intelligence and integrity, just as I have been saying. His earlier comments about McCain thinking people are stupid, and the hard hit back yesterday regarding McCain's honor (or lack thereof) suggest the latter approach, which would definitely be more consistent with who Obama is. But he must do one or the other, in addition to continuing to press the issues.

Prediction: Look for McCain's first attack ad accusing Obama of lying about something -- whether or not he really did -- as early as today.