Things Obama should stop saying

What we've seen in the last week or so is a barrage of substantive falsehoods from the McCain campaign and John McCain himself. However, any attempt by Obama to call out John McCain for his dishonesty will be undermined if Obama commits the same sins of misrepresentation and out-and-out lying.

Fortunately, I think Obama has for the most part conducted an honest campaign. However, he has not been above misrepresenting McCain on certain key issues.

The most egregious misrepresentation of McCain's views that Obama has consistently peddled is that McCain wants the US to continue the war in Iraq for 100 years. From what Obama says, it sounds as if McCain would favor continuing the Iraq War indefinitely, even if it took 100 years. But what McCain was actually saying was that he envisioned a US troop presence in post-war Iraq for decades to come, on the model of military bases in Europe and Korea, and explicitly stated that such a presence was predicated on there being no US casualties:



Now, the idea that there should be permanent military bases in Iraq isn't exactly noncontroversial, and there are a lot of reasonable people who contend that such bases would incite violence against US troops. But that does not justify misconstruing McCain's support for permanent military bases in Iraq as support for permanent war in Iraq. (I should add that it seems that Obama stopped making this claim some time ago--however, he never admitted that it was spurious or gave any kind of apology for it).

Another misrepresentation--and one that you hear a lot of lately--is that John McCain believes that the line that divides "middle class" and "rich" is an income of $5 million. If such a viewpoint seems absurd it is because McCain intended it to be: when he said this, he was joking. He even followed his answer with the words "but seriously" and worried aloud, "that comment will probably be distorted". Judge for yourself:


It is obvious to me that McCain was shirking the question by giving a joke answer. Obama can certainly criticize McCain for refusing to answer the question seriously, but this doesn't entitle him to pretend that McCain's joke non-answer was a serious answer. And yet, that is what Obama continues to do, on the stump and in his campaign ads:


These are the only two instances I can think of where there can be no doubt that Obama is distorting his opponent's record. Maybe there are more--I'll post them if I find them or if someone points me to some.

Only by impartially scrutinizing both candidates' honesty can you begin to meaningfully argue that one is more honest than the other. Clearly, both candidates have succumbed to the temptation of misrepresenting their opponent's view and eviscerating the resulting straw man. However, I think it should be clear to any objective observer that the McCain campaign's level of dishonesty is orders of magnitude greater than that of the Obama campaign and very far beyond the pale.