Hello, He Lied

We see it in every campaign. A little distortion of the opponent's record, a little manipulation of the statistics and poll results, a little demonization of an innocuous stance or, more often these days, an innocuous off-the-cuff comment.

But the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, under the guidance of Karl Rove, cleared the way for an ever-expanding snow boulder to make its way down the slippery slope: the bald faced lie.

In the 2000 Republican primary race, it was the Bush campaign's intimation that John McCain had a child with a *GASP* non-white woman (BTW, heads up, Senator Obama – I hear they have actual documented evidence that you've done the same thing). Played very well in South Carolina, which, as a state, is today finally seeing its reputation catch up to that of the U.S., circa 1965.

In the 2000 election, it was the same campaign trying to make Al Gore look like a cheating husband who lied under oath to the U.S. Congress and now continued to lie every time he opened his mouth. Gore's now-legendary misstatement about the advent of the Internet notwithstanding, his real crime was having been Bill Clinton's veep. (Just as an aside, can anyone recall Bush's year 2000 promise to restore honor and dignity to the White House without wanting to laugh and vomit simultaneously?)

In 2004, the unapologetic-lie-as-political-art-form reached its pinnacle with what we now casually call “swiftboating.” A heroic war veteran, a volunteer, no less, finds himself on the defensive against a bunch of tough-talking cowards who hid behind family connections to prevent themselves from ever having to go into harm's way. Why? Because he spoke out against the war he fought and the unnecessary war we're still fighting while the same cowards told lie upon lie to keep the latter war going strong and to continue enriching their cronies.

And, with apologies to Bread, if you're wondering what this song is leading to, I give you the apparent strategy of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign: truncate one of the opponent's policy goals to make it flat out untrue, have everyone in the party hammer the idea into everyone's head until it becomes widely accepted as fact, and then use it to cut down the opponent and make him sound like the enemy of capitalism, economic growth and plain common sense.

It goes like this.

After the shellac job McCain endured from the Bush campaign in 2000, back when Ben Stein was praising Dubya to the heavens for being “a decent, honest man,” you'd think the senator would seek to rise above the strategy of the bald faced lie. But alas, he's a politician, and he's a Republican, and naturally he just can't help himself. But we can.

We can show him that we don't believe it just because the right-wing smear machine pummels us with it on television and radio 386,597 times a day. We can go to his oh-so-democratic town hall meetings and call him and his party on their favorite lie.

When called on, we can simply ask, over and over, “Senator McCain, Senator Obama has said he wants to eliminate the upper class tax cuts President Bush introduced, and his puppet congress approved, in 2001, and he wants highly profitable corporations and the wealthiest 2 percent of individuals to start paying a little more of their fair share. Why, then, do you and nearly every Republican politician who can get airtime insist and telling the bald faced lie that, if he's elected, Senator Obama will raise everyone's taxes?”

I borrowed the title of today's entry from producer Lynda Obst's book about surviving and thriving in the Hollywood studio system. I never read the book, but from the time I first heard the title, I thought it was spot-on perfect to describe not Hollywood, but Washington in the new millennium. (It also went a long way in describing a lot of people I worked with, and for, at the time, but that's grist for a different mill.)

I don't truly believe that, if Obama wins the November election and the Dems hang on to both houses of Congress, honor and dignity, or even a consistent nod to honesty and straightforwardness, will make their way to ol' number 1600. But if not a mad rush to the best of our better angels, how about at least a determined charge away from the opposite end of the spectrum?

At noon next January 20, we will have endured eight solid years of contempt, corruption, polarization and outright lies from those entrusted to be the leaders of The United States of America and all of its citizens. Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Lott, DeLay and especially Cheney have all demonstrated time and again how capable they were of pure, venal hatred for all Americans, but especially those who disagreed with their method of democracy via propaganda-flooded tyranny.

We're stuck with the current administration until then, but it's time for anyone who may be involved with either of the two potential incoming administrations to just stop it.

Stop the contempt for anyone who speaks a disagreeable truth. Stop the blatant corruption that comes from lobbyists, perhaps the world's most self-interested individuals short of dictators, being top advisors on how to con the most votes and then serve the entire populace in a way that primarily serves their own interests. Stop the cynical polarization of 300 million people who all have to face the same collective obstacles.

And, to Senator McCain and his supporters, stop trumpeting from the mountaintops that Barack Obama wants to raise everyone's taxes. You know it's not true, even if there are plenty of voters willing to believe it. I promise there will be no glory in winning this election using any of Karl Rove's tactics. I, for one, will promise only to hate you and all you stand for throughout every minute of your administration. I will never hesitate to let you know how much I hate you, and I will never cease to do so. And I have a feeling I'm not alone.

I don't want to hate the next president, whoever he turns out to be. I want to support as many of his decisions as I'm able, in good conscience, to do so. And if it becomes necessary to declare war on a foreign nation that truly threatens our national security, I want to feel that it's a necessary action and that I can support the war and its aims. I want to support ideas that will revive the economy, reinforce our security and, ultimately, reunite us as citizens of a country we can cherish and be proud of, no matter our different ideas and ideals.

But for this to happen, we have to get beyond the fog of the worst president and worst administration in our country's history, and the candidates have to abandon the tactics that put them in power.

In simplest terms, to all sides: Just stop the lies.