Opinion: As John McCain attacks, will he pay a price?
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John McCain has provocatively asserted that Barack Obama, in his policy toward Iraq, is willing to lose a war in order to win a presidential campaign.
Given the harsh edge to this critique and recent ads the McCain team has directed at Obama, the question comes to mind: Is the presumptive Republican nominee willing to lose his good reputation within media circles and among some fellow politicos in order to win the election?
As McCain and his campaign have escalated the attacks on Obama, various voices have disputed the propriety of the efforts.
For instance, McCain’s charge -- which he has steadfastly stood by -- that Obama is guided solely by political self-interest in his views on Iraq sparked a rebuke from Chuck Hagel, a fellow Vietnam veteran and a GOP Senate colleague.
Hagel, a McCain ally in the past who split with him over the war in Iraq, accompanied Obama on the latter’s high-profile stop in that country. During an appearance Sunday on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation,’ Hagel scolded McCain: ‘I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives, and when we start to get into ‘You’re less patriotic than me, I’m more patriotic.’ ... John’s better than that.’
A controversial ad the McCain forces unveiled over the weekend, which asserted that Obama cancelled a planned visit with wounded troops while he was in Germany during his recent overseas trip because the media could not accompany him, earned a scathing rebuke from the Washingon Post. The lead to the front-page piece said bluntly that McCain and his allies had pressed that case ‘despite no evidence that the charge is true.’
The even-more controversial ad for the Republican’s campaign that connected Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton spurred pointed remarks from several journalists and commentators.
On NBC’s ‘Today’ show, host Matt Lauer had a sharp retort ...
when McCain aide Nicolle Wallace maintained, with a straight face, that the spot ‘makes a very serious and sober point’ about the candidates’ differing energy policies. Said Lauer: ‘If that’s the importance of the ad, why bury the lead? Why is it that the first thing we see are these images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. ... I have nothing against either one of them, but they’re not known for their gravitas, and in some ways they’ve become the punchline of jokes. That’s demeaning.’
And David Gergen, who as a political advisor has served both Democratic and Republican presidents, had this to say about the McCain airwave offensive: ‘Yes, it does diminish John McCain. He’s a much better person than these attack ads have been. ... This is not the John McCain who Americans have come to love and to respect as an individual.’
-- Don Frederick