McCain lies finally get ink...

I'm tempted to say it's about time.

A few times in the last few weeks I felt like me and FactCheck.org (the scrupulously nonpartisan truth-in-politics organization) were the only folks on top of the fact that a substantial number of GOP candidate John McCain's utterances and campaign claims were... well... what's the nice word for lies?

But it's clear the sheep-like tides of the media have finally shifted to revelations that the sometimes ludicrous fibs told by McCain and team have been, in deed, just that.

Here's a particularly in depth thought piece on McCain's fall from limelight grace from Joe Klein writing in Time Magazine:

McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent—and witting—disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics.

But wait... Klein is only getting warmed up:

Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting "lipstick on a pig" was another clearly misleading attack — an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the "élite media" for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life — actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press — was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions.

Klein's observation that the new tactics began during what was seen by the world press as Obama's triumphal but brief mini-world tour that featured stops in Iraq and Europe -- that flowed in part from McCain's insistence that Obama couldn't be considered a serious candidate until he'd visited Iraq (again). At about that time, the McCain campaign's direction was taken over by key lieutenants from the old 'Rove Machine' that had (by many accounts) secretly orchestrated an especially nasty rumor and lie campaign against McCain himself in the 2000 primary.

This new strategy emerged during the first week of Obama's overseas trip in late July. McCain had been intending to contrast his alleged foreign policy expertise and toughness with Obama's inexperience and alleged weakness. McCain wanted to "win" the Iraq war and face down the Iranians. But those issues became moot when the Iraqis said they favored Obama's withdrawal plan and the Bush Administration started talking to the Iranians. At that point, McCain committed his original sin — out of pique, I believe — questioning Obama's patriotism, saying the Democrat would rather lose a war than lose an election. Ever since, McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and demeaning ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been widely documented and exposed. The strategy is an obvious attempt to camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on most issues — especially economic matters — with an exceedingly unpopular President.