I posted this in response to some comments in a blog yesterday in hopes of hearing how Republicans feel about integrity from their side of the ticket. The person that wrote the blog deleted the blog so I don't know if anyone responded. Please read thru this with an open mind, I do when I read any blog...until I see that I am being lied to.
Find out about the facts, the mud being tossed around is making things cloudy.
Thank you,
gr8
Winning ugly: McCain abandons his principles
By RICHARD COHEN
WASHINGTON POST
Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 6:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 5:58 a.m.
Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.
The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used in the past. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.
"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."
Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.
"Actually, they are not lies," he said.
Actually, they are.
McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.
I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat and we will leap into a politician's lap.
Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord.
He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom.
This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.
McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person to whom he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.
At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government."
This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month only five civilians were killed by the American military, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire.
McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you.
I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.
But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.
Richard Cohen is a columnist for the Washington Post. E-mail him at {email address removed}.
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Blogs by WouldntItBeGr8To:
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| Republicans are starting to see they have been lied to. |
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Gman762
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Sep 18 @ 5:59PM
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Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president.
Looked at Hussein's resume lately?? Talk about unprepared. 
Nobody can name one single piece of significant legislation that this man has personally authored and followed through to passage in the US Senate...not one.
Of course, that is in his entire 143 days of total first-term service as a senator. How many working senate days has he actually had before he started running for President 
If we are going to talk of somebody being shockingly unprepared, we need to discuss the Empty Suit at the head of the Democratic Ticket. 
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MrPaul
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Sep 18 @ 6:00PM
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 Where have you been hiding  or did you just fall off the turnip truck  . Sad but true most politicians lie  lets be fair about this so does your fake Obama  that was recruited and paid by the democratic part to run.  Ever wonder why Hillary is so pissed   ....................The democratic party recruited Obama to run and has been paying him from day one  . Dirty politics as usual Shame on both parties
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SallyF
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Sep 18 @ 6:13PM
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Psst! Fellas! This is about McCain, not Obama. Haven't 'they' written your script yet for defending your own candidate on his own merits???
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Kentuck
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Sep 18 @ 6:41PM
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I am really amazed at the die hard Republicans. Especially here on MD. The truth is directly in their face and instead of accepting it. They go on a mad dog attack of the other party.
Lets face it All lawyers lie. In college they take a course on how to lie, How to lie and not grin and how to lie and steal without being caught. Ever heard of a lawyer sueing another lawyer because he last a case that he fumbled. NEVER.
So, lets lok at these die hard Republicans. They are willing to send their first born or grand children to war to satisfy the desire of their party.
They accept the fact that we are nearly in a depression due to their policies of not controlling the ecomony.
They will turn their head to the fact that this country is broke and in debt.
They will turn their head to the fact that this administration is only for the Wall Street Elite.
During the 60 and 70's a war was fought in Vietman. Many service men became POW's. One of the Camps was labeled Hanoi Hilton. There were a group of the POW's that became to be know as the MOTOR MOUTH 12. Theycollabrated with the enemy to keep from getting the holly shit kicked out of them. Most likely most of you would probably still be talking.
The question--how many if any POW's have indorced McCain. His jailer has.
He is not a hero. The ones tahat got their ass kicked are the true heros.
So, don't say that his man is a hero--he lied then and he has lied all his life.
so don't call Abama a fake--he has his beliefs on how he will run and guide the country. So far the idiot that you vote in 2 times has destroyed this country. Are you sure you will have a job tomorrow??
So, clean your own party up first
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lefthandedluckie
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Sep 18 @ 8:35PM
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McCain is no good! He has lied and turned into another George Bush! Just imagine does he really believe he will live the next 100 years while our people fight and die in a war of vengeance, oil and money? I don't think so. In fact the cancer he has will probably take him out in another year or 2!
If the truth was known he has it growing in his body as we speak! But, he wants that holy- rolling fruitcake to be president! And she has a dysfunctional family that the state needs to look into!
John McCain sold out to the North Vietnamese commies....checkout some of his radio broadcasts for Radio Hanoi, Radio Moscow and Radio Cuba while he was a prisoner
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missliss78
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Sep 18 @ 9:09PM
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I'm sorry gr8...I'm going off topic of your blog here....
Whether the article you have relayed here contains truths or not I know not...but I have to give Sally a big for her comment:
Psst! Fellas! This is about McCain, not Obama. Haven't 'they' written your script yet for defending your own candidate on his own merits??? Still yet, I do not understand the attacks on the other party as opposed to supporting one's own.
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WouldntItBeGr8To
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Sep 18 @ 11:58PM
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Still yet, I do not understand the attacks on the other party as opposed to supporting one's own .
Well, that is what "sells" and that seems to be where we are at these days.
Politicians hire the best advertising people to sell their candidate. They say something, a lie, and before anyone can catch them they are on to something else. Bush did that over and over.
They plant a seed, a bunch of seeds and go with the one that grows. The Dems do it too, but this election, the GOP is just way out of hand. Obama is this, that, name calling.
They like to fall back on the big three, the G's
God, Guns, Gays.
They continue to drop hints that the Dems will take away God, Guns and make everyone Gay.......
Give me a break, we will all never agree totally on things, we need to find common ground. But to spook someone into voting for a candidate or voting against a candidate with scare tactics??....This has to end.
I don't think Republicans are evil people, I just disagree with them on most political levels.
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Newsguy56
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Sep 19 @ 10:39AM
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Thank you for crediting the writer and the name of his newspaper in this article. I've seen many bloggers cut and paste published news stories and insert them in their blog as their own work.
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