Charles Babington, who covers national politics for The Associated Press, cannot be classified as a Liberal.  He does call them the way he sees them. 

  

But imagine my surprise when I ran across this article by him published in The Arizona Republican newspaper.  What is the world coming to?

      

Analysis: McCain's claims skirt facts, test voters

 

By CHARLES BABINGTON – 1 day ago

  

WASHINGTON (AP) — The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.

  

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMtvzhUJmkDwVPsjJ0vhp-MDl1-gD934RHCG0   

  

Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.

   

Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.

  

[…]     

  

But McCain and his running mate Palin, the Alaska governor, were defiant this week in the face of similar reports. Day after day she said she had told Congress "no thanks" to the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, a rural Alaska project that was abandoned when critics challenged its costs and usefulness. For nearly a week, major news outlets had documented that Palin supported the bridge when running for governor in 2006, noting that she turned against it only after it became an object of ridicule in Alaska and a symbol of Congress's out-of-control earmarking.

  

The McCain-Palin campaign made at least three other aggressive claims this week that omitted key details or made dubious assumptions to criticize Obama. It equated lawmakers' requests for money for special projects with corruption, even though Palin has sought nearly $200 million in such "earmarks" this year.

   

It produced an Internet ad implying that Obama had called Palin a pig when he used a familiar phrase, which McCain also has used, about putting "lipstick on a pig" to try to make a bad situation look better. McCain supporters said Obama was slyly alluding to Palin's description of herself as a pit bull in lipstick, but there was nothing in his remarks to support the claim. Obama accused the GOP campaign of "lies and phony outrage."

   

The lipstick wars were fully engaged when the McCain campaign produced another ad saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. … 

   

[…]    

   

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMtvzhUJmkDwVPsjJ0vhp-MDl1-gD934RHCG0    

  

 

Will wonders never cease.  Babbington has done a true and overdue smack down of the neocon liars in the McCane-Palin traveling medicine show.  And The Arizona Republican has published it.

   

Hats off to Charles on this one!