thoughts from a brokenSoldier

Reading over an article today on Huffington Post, I saw an AP article that discusses the McCain campaign’s efforts to stall the Alaska State Legislature’s investigation into the Troopergate scandal.  This isn’t just a one-pronged effort, either.  As a first step, they are not allowing Palin’s camp to answer questions from reporters based outside Alaska, instead referring them to the McCain campaign for answers.  And their reason behind this? 

"In general the state is sending media inquiries this way because we’re just inundated with hundreds and hundreds of phone calls," Stapleton said. "It provides for the most expeditious channel to get stuff out there."

So the most expeditious way for Palin to answer questions about things that have gone on exclusively within Alaska and her administration is to have someone from the Arizona Senator’s office try to answer them for her?  This would seem to be ludicrous, but only when you’re looking at it in the sense that "expeditious" means the quickest way to get an answer.  In that sense, this is anything but expeditious.  The McCain-Palin ticket, however, seems to be unconcerned with that.  Expeditious to them means the quickest way to deflect such questions, thus minimizing the damage that forthright answers will almost certainly cause to their campaign.

Oh, but they’re not done - not by a longshot.  They are also augmenting her legal team with Ed O’Callaghan, who recently resigned from the US Attorney’s office to help with McCain’s effort for the White House.  (Look on the bright side of that one, though - there’s one less Bushie still in the ranks of the Department of Justice…)  And in addition to those two measures, they are doing something that is truly worthy of the Orwellian doublespeak tag.  Here’s the direct quote:

Republicans are rebutting what they describe as smears against Palin. Last week, McCain’s campaign formed a "truth squad," which includes current and former GOP politicians who agree to speak with reporters.

Nevermind the hilarity of having GOP officials on something called a "truth squad" or the idea that GOP officials are willing to be open with reporters about a scandal that could sink their efforts - the most humorous thing about this is the fact that McCain’s campaign is the one running it.  After their Rovian attack ads, many of which have been repeatedly debunked by national media of all political persuasions (even Fox News, for crying out loud), I cannot believe that McCain still has the balls to connect anything he does concerning his campaign with the word "truth."  Apparently he has such a low opinion of the average American’s intellect that he simply ignores factual rebuttal, electing instead to follow the Republican mantra of "say it enough and some people will eventually start to believe it." 

Case in point, take the attack ad he ran - and continues to support as truthful - stating that Obama favored legislation for comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students.  In his interviews yesterday on the morning circuit he continued this lie, saying repeatedly "read the language of the bill" when confronted with the assertion that the ad was untrue.  After reading through the entire bill that was proposed, (you can find it here and decide for yourself)  I can honestly say that I don’t believe McCain has ever even read the language of the bill himself.  I read - and this is a very low estimate - at least five different sentences that all stated that the instruction should be age appropriate, along with numerous mentions of the stipulation that parents would have full prior access to the curriculum in order to allow them the choice of opting their child out of said instruction.  McCain’s insistence, then, that Obama wants to force sex education down children’s throats before even teaching them to read is simply an outright lie.  Though it is becoming painfully obvious that his hardcore supporters don’t really balk at his constant fleecing of the truth.

Which makes the idea of a McCain campaign "truth squad" almost enough to make me piss myself laughing.