Caught in a lie!

[Salesmonkey]

Boy, did we ever dodge a bullet last election. This if from today's Yahoo! news coverage of a John McCain town hall health care meeting.

"
When McCain was trying to answer questions from reporters after the town hall, one audience member yelled at him that he gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from insurance companies every year.

In a voice of feigned surprise, McCain said "Really? I didn't know that."
"

Strictly speaking, this is true. McCain has to disclose all of his campaign contributors. Factually speaking, the insurance companies did not give him hundreds of thousands of dollars. What they actually gave him was over TWO MILLION dollars. But that's ok. "He didn't know that." So he is either trying to deceive the public or he is so absentminded that, oops, just misplaced two million dollars. Neither of these is appropriate behaviour for a President.


references:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/in...&cid=N00006424

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/...th_care_mccain

[Rapscallion]

I have no love for any particular politician, but most of the top politicians have teams of people working for them dealing with this sort of detail. It's quite possible he didn't even see the detail of this, since he'd be gladhanding the various representatives coming along - several amongst hundreds.

Rapscallion

[BlaqueKatt]

McCain has to disclose all of his campaign contributors. <snip> But that's ok. "He didn't know that." So he is either trying to deceive the public or he is so absentminded that, oops, just misplaced two million dollars. Neither of these is appropriate behaviour for a President.

Hmmm and I'm sure he personally opened every single contribution check mailed to his campaign-oh he didn't, oh you mean like every other politician he hired people to do that for him and they didn't give him a list of contributors-...well then....

but ya know when Al Gore knowingly accepted ILLEGAL campaign contributions through "straw donors" *no one said anything about that-at least McCain's contributions were LEGAL even if he himself was unsure where they came from.

*an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic American politics prior to and during the Clinton administration and also involved the fund-raising practices of the administration itself.



And 22 people were convicted on fraud charges over that one-nope nothing to see here move along.........But interestingly the Clinton Appointed Attorney General Janet Reno did not appoint an independent council-which was requested by the FBI director

In July 1998, the Justice Department's campaign finance task force head, Charles La Bella, sent a report to Janet Reno also recommending she seek an independent counsel to investigate alleged fund-raising abuses by Democratic party officials. The media reported that La Bella believed there was clearly an appearance of a conflict of interest by Reno. In his report to Reno he wrote: " [A] pattern [of events] suggests a level of knowledge within the White House—including the President's and First Lady's offices—concerning the injection of foreign funds into the reelection effort."[57] Additionally, La Bella stated: "If these allegations involved anyone other than the president, vice president, senior White House or DNC and Clinton-Gore '96 officials, an appropriate investigation would have commenced months ago without hesitation."

[guywithashovel]

In the interest of fairness, the vast majority of politicians at all points of the political spectrum do shady things.

[Flyndaran]

In the interest of fairness, the vast majority of politicians at all points of the political spectrum do shady things.

Replace "politician" with "most people", and you got yourself a great bit sad truism.

[Talon]

Forget about political acumen, anyone with a little skill in critical thinking should have been able to discern Mcain was a liar by his campaign bus, the so-called "Straight-Talk Express". A man who has to advertise his honesty usually isn't. That, or the people he is advertising to are such naive fools as to make toddlers look like statesmen/stateswomen.

Speaking of critical thinking, there's Mccain's statement that he always tells "100 percent absolute truth" to the Des Moines Register. Don't even need to look at the particular facts of his mis-run campaign to tell he's a liar, simply because there is no such thing as "absolute truth". Everything we "know" as truth is only true as far as we know, and then only in degrees. Someone claiming "absolute truth" would not only have you believe he is completely honest, but he never ever makes mistakes either. Let he who is without sin cast the first "yay" vote.

[Fashion Lad!]

Meh- they've all been caught in a lie. I'm sure you could look back at every politician and see where they have lied. Except maybe Ron Paul. He's amazing.

Obama says that he "extended healthcare for wounded troops that had been neglected" and cited Public Law 110-181 as proof of this.

The problem is: Obama didn't show up to vote. Only 9 senators voted the bill down or did not show up to vote.
Obama was one of the 9.
The bill passed the senate 91 to 3... without Obama's vote.

[Gravekeeper]

Ugh, kind of reminds me of the Bush / Kerry debates. Kerry made a point about Bush's private business holdings and Bush did the same thing. A sort of "Ahyuck! Gosh, that's news to me!" and made a stupid face.....and for some reason that was a valid counter point for the audience.

McCain sold his soul in the 2008 election anyhow. The more I watch him the more I wonder if he was ever really a respectable guy to begin with or if it was just a facade the entire time. Its actually kind of saddening, to be honest. =/