DNC - McCain Myth Buster: John McCain and the Truth

WASHINGTON, June 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released by the Democratic National Committee:

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080519/DNCLOGO )

John McCain has worked hard to portray himself as someone who is not your typical politician but rather a maverick who can admit when he's wrong. Yet last week we saw the lengths he and his campaign will go to cover up misstatements he made about the facts on the ground inIraq. After inaccurately stating that U.S. troops were "drawn down to pre-surge levels," McCain refused to admit his error and claimed what he said was "just facts." Likewise, his campaign went intoWashington spin-mode, organizing a last minute conference call where McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann said that McCain's mistake was an issue of "semantics" and that "[w]e are talking about a verb tense." But no one was buying it. One reporter wrote that "the attempt by the McCain media machine to spin the mistake as a simple matter of 'verb tenses' is an insult to our intelligence." [The Fact Checker, Washington Post, 5/30/08; http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/30/mccain-call-nitpicking/]

John McCain may claim he's a different kind of politician, but his efforts to cover up his mistakes instead of admitting he was wrong rings of the same kind of dishonesty and distortion of the truth we've come to expect from the Bush Administration.

McCain Says U.S. Troops At Pre-Surge Levels. "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels." [Wisconsin Town Hall, 5/29/08, http://youtube.com/watch?v=42ke9Q-qXg4]

Troops inIraq Not Expected to Return to Pre-Surge Level Until End of July. "The increased U.S. presence inIraq -- which topped out at about 170,000 troops -- is expected to go down to 140,000 by the end of July. U.S. officials plan to keep 15 combat brigades inIraq through the end of the year, though ongoing assessments could allow commanders to change those numbers." [Washington Post, 5/20/08]

After casting himself as a "Maverick" in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.

Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org.

This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

SOURCE Democratic National Committee

Copyright © 2008, PRNewswire
Copyright © 2008, NewsBlaze, Daily News

Tags: ,CPN,POL,FOR,DNC-McCain-Iraq

   _   _

           

Is your favorite bookmark site missing? Ask for it.