Timothy Karpinski
Here.
The McCain campaign calls out Obama for lying, citing Factcheck.org. Turns out, they were lying about what Factcheck.org said. That is to say, the McCain campaign was lying when they accused someone else of lying (From Factcheck.org via Dispatches From the Culture War).
Oh, but there's more. Politico has a fascinating article (via Ezra Klein) about the McCain camp's new strategy. They as much as admit that they're lying:
“Every day not talking about the economy, the war and how to fix a broken system is a victory for McCain,” said John Weaver, a former top strategist to the nominee who left the campaign last year. “They’re going to ride it as long as they can and as long as the mainstream media puts up every ridiculous charge.”
The negative and often exaggerated or misleading claims being made about Obama and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, especially those playing on Palin’s gender, are just too irresistible for the process-consumed online and cable news media that now drives the campaign conversation, Weaver said.
It seems the McCain camp has figured out that the media isn't used to building narratives against saintly Republicans (as opposed to Al Gore, who is a LIAR!). So the McCain camp says something really, stupidly outrageous, and then the media covers it like a "he said, she said" thing, instead of building a narrative around McCain's lies.
What a culture we live in! Surface, surface, surface. Reading that Politico article was almost like reading a piece of exparimental fiction. It's like an author writing, not a story with old-fashioned plot, but a story about how she, the author, writes about how the characters make claims about what the plot is, instead of just writing the plot.
The media is writing the story. And, instead of writing it about the issues, they're writing it about how and what the characters are claiming about their stance--and their opponents' stance--on the issues. Art imitates life and all that.
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