The "Old Gray Lady" McBush P.R. Agency Strikes Again!

The New York Times today called out Barack Obama for what it claimed were untruths in his campaign ads against John W. McBush (here).

I suppose this was inevitable; part of the media jujitsu going on here is that, if Obama doesn’t respond to the myriad lies of the McBush/Governor Hottie campaign, then he gets labeled as a “wimp.” If he attacks on his own, though, then he runs the risk of his attacks being overanalyzed without the proper context, which I will try to provide in a moment (and the fact that the lies from the McBush campaign are so outrageous when compared to the lies of the Obama campaign – which to me are nothing more than subtle misinterpretations – is utterly lost).

To begin…

A radio advertisement running in Wisconsin and other contested states misleadingly reports that Mr. McCain “has stood in the way of” federal financing for stem cell research; Mr. McCain did once oppose such federally supported research but broke with President Bush to consistently support it starting in 2001 (his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, does not support it).

I responded to this already here.

Continuing…

A commercial running here on Thursday morning highlighting Mr. McCain’s votes against incentives for alternative energy misleadingly asserts he supports tax breaks for “one source of energy: oil companies.” Mr. McCain’s proposed corporate tax break would cover all companies, including those developing new sources of power.

Really? Then how come McBush opposed tax breaks for the wind power industry (here)?

A new television advertisement playing in areas with high concentrations of elderly voters and emphasizing Mr. McCain’s support for President Bush’s failed plan for private Social Security accounts misleadingly implies Mr. McCain supported “cutting benefits in half” — an analysis of Mr. Bush’s plan that would have applied to upper-income Americans retiring in the year 2075.

This to me sounds like more actuarial numbers fudging dependent on stock market performance (I mean, privatization is a big part of what McBush has in mind, and can you predict how the market will perform over the next, say, 67 years? I can’t.), so it sounds to me like benefits could possibly be cut by half by a larger percentage than the Times supposes (I’m not saying it will pan out that way, but it could).

Also, Stephen Herrington of HuffPo tells us here that…

…Obama has a detailed plan for retirement security, over and above Social Security, enunciated on his website. McCain does not even mention Social Security on his website.

Obama proposes this to "fix" Social Security, paraphrasing from his website:

"Ask those making over $250,000 to contribute a bit more to Social Security. Those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2 to 4 percent more in total (combined employer and employee)."

Obama's plan appears to be consistent with the facts of what happened to the Social Security Surplus, recognizing that there were elements of society that have enjoyed a benefit from that surplus and asking them to give some back.

John McCain consistently proposes, as the AFLCIO website reports, diverting some percentage of the SSA income stream to private accounts, or "privatization" of Social Security. This does nothing whatsoever to solve the projected shortfalls in funding that will begin in about fifteen years. And the debate over the wisdom of placing tax collections in private investment is as old as the program itself. But that is a subject for another setting.

So essentially McCain's plan must be characterized as simply doing nothing, effectively cutting benefits to the people who paid for them already. And that characterization, that they have paid for them, may elicit some criticism from people who do not understand that the Greenspan plan (of, essentially, over collection of Social Security funds beginning in 1982, which Bill Clinton used to pay down our national debt) was an exception to the formula of Social Security. Before Greenspan, it was current workers supporting retired workers. Greenspan made it, by collecting more money than current obligations, a loan to the government by the Baby Boomers.

So basically, under McBush, there would be a cut in benefits en route to Social Security’s ultimate insolvency, hastened by his diversion of SSA funds into private accounts. This is actually worse than “cutting benefits in half” (and if McBush has a counter explanation to that, the very least he should bother to do it put it up on his website).

Also, the Times tells us…

A much criticized Spanish-language television advertisement wrongly links the views of Mr. McCain, who was a champion of the sweeping immigration overhaul pushed by Mr. Bush, to those of Rush Limbaugh, a harsh critic of the approach, and, frequently, of Mr. McCain.

The advertisement implies Mr. Limbaugh is one of Mr. McCain’s “Republican friends,” and quotes Mr. Limbaugh as calling Mexicans “stupid and unqualified.” Mr. Limbaugh has written that his quotes were taken out of context and that he was mocking the views of others.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard Flush whine that he was “taken out of context” or some variation of that whenever he’s been called out for saying something overtly racist or patently offensive for one reason or another (Donavan McNabb, Michael J. Fox and his Parkinson’s affliction, “Obama’s only chance of winning is that he’s black,” Obama “thugs” were responsible for hacking into the Email of “Governor Hottie,” etc.). If I did, I would truly be rich, my friends.

More than that, though, stating that Obama misrepresented McBush’s position on immigration by associating him with the OxyContin addict of the airwaves is truly silly. This post captures chapter and verse McBush’s conversion from a “maverick” who said that “amnesty has to be a component of immigration reform,” to the point where he voted against his own bill crafted with Ted Kennedy in favor of a “Report To Deport” provision (and as McBush “saw the light,” by the way, his moribund presidential campaign took off from a point where he had only a 15 percent popularity rating in his own state to his eventual winning of the nomination…and some yapping about funding the proposed “Woodstock Museum” by Hillary Clinton – which I still think was a good idea, for tourism purposes in the Empire State if for no other reason – didn’t hurt him either).

And when it comes to “déjà vu all over again” concerning McBush’s clumsy ploy yesterday of hijacking the meeting with Dubya and the Congressional reps over the market meltown, I give you this from the Democratic Party…

Republican Blasted McCain For Parachuting In at the Last Minute. Republican Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) called out McCain for being "out of line" by choosing to "parachute in" at the last minute to take credit for the current immigration bill in the Senate despite not sitting in on negotiations all year. McCain exploded under the pressure of his failed balancing act by accusing Cornyn of "making a 'chickens-t' argument" and shouting to Cornyn, "[Expletive] you!" [Washingtonpost.com, 5/18/07; Roll Call, 5/21/07]

That’s some straight talk we can believe in.

So there you have it, and in conclusion, Times reporter Jim Rutenberg tells us that Tommy Vietor of the Obama campaign states that the Obama ad claim that McBush supports tax breaks only for oil companies is “technically true.”

Actually, I believe the more appropriate ending for this story would have been, “I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.”

Update: So why bother to watch the debate after all, I ask myself, since it's already a foregone conclusion (h/t The Daily Kos).