“Even FOX News disputes it, and that doesn’t happen very often when it comes to accusations about me.”
Alessandra Stanley writes,
“Barack Obama looked like a prosecutor delivering a polished summation in a long civil case, Joe the Plumber v. George W. Bush.
John McCain was closer to a personal injury lawyer, staring into the camera to address “Joe the Plumber” as if he were standing by with an 800 number. (“If you or a loved one has been wronged in an accident …” or in this case, in an Obama tax bracket.)”
I was tense as hell during the conversation on negative campaigning. Highlights of that from the NY Times transcript:
SCHIEFFER: We’re going to move to another question and the topic is leadership in this campaign. Both of you pledged to take the high road in this campaign yet it has turned very nasty. Senator Obama, your campaign has used words like “erratic,” “out of touch,” “lie,” “angry,” “losing his bearings” to describe Senator McCain. Senator McCain, your commercials have included words like “disrespectful,” “dangerous,” “dishonorable,” “he lied.” Your running mate said he “palled around with terrorists.” Are each of you tonight willing to sit at this table and say to each other’s face what your campaigns and the people in your campaigns have said about each other?
MCCAIN: Well, this has been a tough campaign. It’s been a very tough campaign. And I know from my experience in many campaigns that, if Senator Obama had asked — responded to my urgent request to sit down, and do town hall meetings, and come before the American people, we could have done at least 10 of them by now.
…
OBAMA: The notion, though, that because we’re not doing town hall meetings that justifies some of the ads that have been going up, not just from your own campaign directly, John, but 527s and other organizations that make some pretty tough accusations, well, I don’t mind being attacked for the next three weeks.
…
I mean, look, if we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, unprompted by my campaign, without my campaign’s awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies that your running mate was holding, in which all the Republican reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like “terrorist” and “kill him,” and that your running mate didn’t mention, didn’t stop, didn’t say “Hold on a second, that’s kind of out of line.”
A full transcript and video of the debate is up at the above link. 19 days left ’til election day. Ah.
