The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN are now getting serious about picking up on the story of John McCain's robo-slime campaign, all weighing in with pieces that endeavor to demonstrate the true breadth and scope of McCain's under-the-radar smear effort.
The Times piece is here. WaPo's is here. And you can watch CNN's report on the video below.
The Times piece hits directly hits on two key points: First, the calls are "misleading," as the paper puts it, perhaps too delicately. And second, the calls show McCain yet again jettisoning a formerly claimed principle as he faces the increasingly likely prospect of defeat. As the paper notes, McCain high-mindedly denounced such tactics when he was the target of them in 2000, and again during the GOP primary this year, when he described the robo-slime being directed at him as "scurrilous stuff."
<snip>
Thus, while Palin was sweetly claiming yesterday that she knows "Obama loves America," her and McCain's campaign were funding thousands upon thousands of calls telling battleground state voters that Obama put "Hollywood above America" during the crisis negotiations, that Obama and Dems merely "say" they want to keep you safe and "aren't who you think they are," and that Obama has "worked closely" with a "domestic terrorist" whose group "killed Americans."
There are two McCain campaigns operating simultaneously right now. There's the one that McCain and Palin are running in front of the cameras, and then there's the subterranean robo-slime campaign, which is bombarding thousands upon thousands of voters with multiple messages that McCain would never associate himself with in the glare of the klieg lights. That's the real story here.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/big_news_orgs_picking_up_on_ma.phpMcCain ought not thrash around in the quicksand like that. He's only hurting himself.
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