McCain lambasted for inaccuracies

Sen. John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Sen. Barack Obama's record and positions.

Obama also has been accused of distortions, but McCain is under fire for two headline-grabbing attacks. First, the McCain campaign twisted Obama's words to suggest he had compared GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin to a pig after Obama questioned McCain's claim to be a change agent by saying, "You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig." (McCain has used the same expression to describe Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's health plan.)

He then falsely claimed that Obama supported "comprehensive sex ed" for kindergartners. (Obama supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults.)

Those attacks followed weeks in which McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on that group more than McCain would, and misrepresented Obama's positions on energy and health care.

A McCain advertisement called "Fact Check" was itself found to be "less than honest" by FactCheck.org. The nonpartisan group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking Internet rumors about Palin and implied in the ad that the rumors had originated with Obama.

"The last month, for sure, I think the predominance of liberty taken with truth and the facts has been more McCain than Obama," said Don Sipple, a GOP advertising strategist.

Indeed, McCain increasingly has been called out by editorial boards, as well as independent analysts such as FactCheck.org. The group has cried foul on McCain's campaign more than twice as often as on Obama's since the conventions.

"We stand fully by everything that's in our ads," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, "and everything that we've been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything."

For a candidate who long has deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the 2000 Republican primaries, the turnaround has been startling.

"They just keep stirring the pot, and I think the McCain folks realize if they can get this thing down in the mud, drag Obama into the mud, that's where they have the best advantage to win," said Matthew Dowd, who worked with many top McCain advisers when he was President Bush's chief strategist in the 2004 campaign, but who has had a falling out with the White House.

Indeed, strategists in both parties have credited the offensive with putting Obama on the defensive.

Some have faulted McCain for not only the blatant nature of some of the untruths but also for failing to correct himself when errors are noted.

Even on "The View" on Friday, co-host Joy Behar grilled him about his new ads. "We know that those two ads are untrue," she said. "They are lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, 'I approve these messages.' Do you really approve them?"

"Actually they are not lies," McCain replied crisply, "and have you seen some of the ads that are running against me?"

Obama's hands have not always been clean, either. He was called out earlier for saying, incorrectly, that McCain supported a "hundred-year war" in Iraq after McCain said in January that he would be fine with a hypothetical 100-year U.S. presence in Iraq, as long as Americans were not being injured or killed there.

More recently, Obama has been criticized for ads that have incorrectly accused McCain of not supporting loan guarantees for the auto industry — a hot-button topic in Michigan. Obama also has taken McCain's repeated comments that the economy is "fundamentally sound" out of context, omitting the fact that McCain almost always says he understands times are tough and "people are hurting."

But sensing an opening, the Obama campaign released a withering statement after "The View" aired Friday.

"In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it's clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election," Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said in a statement.

In Dover, N.H., a voter asked Obama when he would start "fighting back." Obama, who began an aggressive ad campaign Friday, said he has a different philosophy. "I'm not going to start making up lies about John McCain," he said.

McCain's strategy reflects a calculation made by his advisers. The ads are devised to shift the debate to questions about Obama's character and qualifications, often with disputed claims. It is a bold tack for a candidate who calls his campaign bus the "Straight Talk Express," his chartered jet "Straight Talk Air."

Sipple, the Republican advertising strategist, voiced concern that McCain's approach could backfire. "Any campaign that is taking liberty with the truth and does it in a serial manner will end up paying for it in the end," he said.