Ad Hawk: McCain's Fact-Free 'Fact Check'

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Here on the Internets, there are a lot of rumors, charges, slanders, accusations, calumnies and lies circulating about this intriguing woman named Sarah Palin, who sources tell Stumper has been asked to join John McCain's presidential ticket in the No. 2 slot. I mean, who knew?

Some of these claims have been substantiated. It's true that Palin raised the sales tax as mayor of Wasilla (mostly to pay for a new hockey rink). It's true that she sought and obtained earmarks (about $27 million between 2000 and 2003 as mayor and more than $200 million last year as governor). And it's true that she worked with Sen. Ted Stevens and was for the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it.

That said, much of the information cycling through our beloved series of tubes is patently false. Palin never belonged to the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (that would be her husband, Todd). She never supported Pat Buchanan for president. She never mandated the teaching of creationism in public schools (even if she didn't oppose it). She never banned any books from the Wasilla library (that list you received by e-mail--it's a hoax). She never slashed special-needs funding. She certainly never covered up her daughter Bristol's pregnancy by pretending the baby was hers. And those are among the milder smears.

Given all the lies, I can understand why the McCain campaign has just launched what they're calling the "Palin Truth Squad." It's kind of like when Barack Obama--who's also been besieged by false internet rumors--unveiled his "Fight the Smears" Web site earlier this summer. A campaign has the right to correct the record.

But here's what I don't understand: if the purpose of your truth squad is to spread the truth about Palin, why kick off your campaign with an ad that's full of falsehoods? 

Earlier this afternoon, Team McCain released "Fact Check" (video above). The title must be ironic. Over images of bloodthirsty wolves prowling a shadowy forest, a female announcer gravely intones that "The [Wall Street] Journal reports Obama 'air-dropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers' into Alaska to dig dirt on Governor Palin." Meanwhile, a banner over Obama's grim visage claims that "the attacks" on Palin have been called  "completely false" and "misleading" by the nonpartisan researchers at FactCheck.org. "As Obama drops in the polls, he'll try to destroy her," concludes the announcer. "Obama's 'politics of hope'? Empty words."

So what's the problem? Where to begin. First of all, there's no evidence that "Obama" sent anyone to Alaska to "dig dirt" on Palin. Originally aired by conservative writer John Fund in a Wall Street Journal opinion article--not a "report," as the ad alleges--the charge, which Fund attributes to unnamed "sources," has been denied by both the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. "I sent no lawyers, no investigators and exactly zero researchers to Alaska to research Sarah Palin," said DNC research director Mike Gehrke, while Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor characterized the claim as "fiction," "made up” and “absolutely, unequivocally false.” What's more, the McCain campaign misquoted Fund, who actually wrote that "Democrats" (not "Obama," as the ad claims) have dispatched a "mini-army" to Alaska "dig into [Palin's] record and background"--not to "dig dirt." As FactCheck.org said this afternoon, "Maybe the McCain-Palin campaign knows something we don't about what's in Palin's record and background."

Which brings us to the ad's most insidious conflation. By flashing those quotes about the "completely false" and "misleading" attacks on Palin over an image of Obama's face--as the announcer warns that "they've just begun," no less--McCain is suggesting that FactCheck.org attributed the attacks to Obama himself. But as the organization noted earlier today, "there is no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind any of the wild accusations that we critiqued." They continue: "there is no more basis for attributing these viral attacks to the Obama campaign than there is for blaming the McCain campaign for chain e-mail attacks falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, or a "racist," or that he is proposing to tax water. The anti-Palin messages, like the anti-Obama messages, have every appearance of being home-grown." Earlier this year, McCain spoke out against the Obama rumors; recently, Obama has denounced the Palin smears, as well. For Crystal City to suddenly imply that Obama is behind this stuff is completely disingenuous.  

It's clear what Team McCain is trying to achieve here. They want to portray Palin as the victim of a menacing Obama-media industrial complex that's "out to get her" just because she's a woman. They want to insulate their veep pick from any real opposition by equating valid journalistic inquiries and good hard politicking with the sort of anonymous smears that have spread online. They want to gin up sympathy for her among female swing voters who have faced improbable odds in their own lives. And they want Chris Matthews and Co. to deliver their message free of charge tonight on TV.

They'll probably succeed on all counts. But that doesn't mean that "truth" has anything to do with it.