9/20/08

Methinks (you know the rest)



Ross Douthat is verklempt. He calls that "the sleaziest, most dishonest anti-McCain ad imaginable." I think his imagination is less fertile than mine.

As to the narrow question of the formal truth of the discrete claims made in the ad, maybe someone with better Spanish than me can weigh in.

In any case, it seems to me that it's difficult to know what to think about the general truthiness of the ad because it's difficult to know what McCain's position on immigration is. Certainly, at the time of the inflammatory Limbaugh quotes cited in the ad, McCain was on the anti-nativist side of the debate. But he has since gone on record saying that he would vote against his own bill, and living here in Michigan I can attest that there are pro-McCain ads on the air which take a very hard line against illegal immigration.

I'm inclined to say that this makes the ad reasonably fair even if it turns out to be factually inaccurate, but I'm not sure how strongly I'd be willing to endorse that assessment. If the ad is indeed factually inaccurate, Obama probably ought to pull it. But he could and should replace it with an ad using the same Limbaugh quotes and emphasizing McCain's cave-in to the far right nativist wing of the GOP.

No comments:

Post a Comment

eXTReMe Tracker