In what the Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne is calling “a larger narrative of deception,” it appears the McCain-Palin camp has made an informed and conscientious decision to keep right on passing the American public half-truths, grandiose exaggerations, and claims approaching the realm of untruth, if not actually breaching the border between fact and fiction.

The Boston Globe, after obviously mourning the loss of Tom Brady, ratcheted it up a few notches and decimated Palin’s few claims to anything approaching foreign policy experience: “Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America.”

It’s never good to have a “second official revision” of the truth.

But don’t stop at the first paragraph. Oh no, there are still more gems yet to come: “It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called “the trip of a lifetime.” Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.” And, believe it or not, Palin is trying to pass off a personal vacation to Mexico as foreign policy experience: “‘We did not have 100 percent confirmation about the Mexico trip in the initial days we were being asked. It was a personal trip,’ [Palin spokeswoman Maria] Comella said.”

There’s more? Indeed, there’s more: “Palin’s campaign did not respond to requests for details about when she traveled to Mexico and where she went, nor did it provide details of her 2007 Canada trip or indicate whether it was for business or pleasure.”

Rest assured, America, Palin is “neighbors” with Russia. She’s learned a lot from that, I’m sure, almost as much as on her personal vacation to Mexico.

E.J. Dionne raises a huge point: “There is also a question here for the media. When Hillary Clinton claimed last March that she had to evade sniper fire during a landing in Bosnia in 1996, the media came down on her hard. It was a huge story. But at least Clinton actually visited Bosnia. Will the media focus the same attention on the false and exaggerated claims about Palin?”

I don’t understand why Sarah Palin is getting the velvet glove treatment by the American Media, I just hope it stops soon. Just weeks ago, Conservatives were asking Democrats to seriously consider whether they thought Obama was a Nice Guy and/or Someone Who Can Lead, and now they are fawning with the naivety of a thirteen-year-olds-in-love over Sarah Palin?

Obama may not have decades of foreign policy experience under his belt, but at least he didn’t choose Sarah Palin as his running mate, start trading lies for facts, or adopt Rove-ian smear tactics so early on in the campaign. Obama may not be as versed in world affairs as Bill Clinton, but at least he’s not a Pseudo-Maverick (you can’t be a Maverick when you vote with Bush 90+% of the time) who just took on a completely inexperienced, rather frightening VP candidate who is also trading lies for facts.

Disillusioned Republicans keep telling me they are voting for the “lesser of two evils.” I’m not so sure they are.

Posted on September 15th, 2008 by Lars Laing-Peterson
Filed under: Mason Learns, Opinion