Thursday, September 18, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN, BARACK OBAMA

We Wish McCain Got His Immigration Policy From Rush Limbaugh

The media denounced John McCain in a furious frenzy for the line in the education ad referring to sex education — a line that was, as Byron York and I noted, was accurate. (You can argue whether it's fair, and I'd agree that McCain is wrong to call it an Obama accomplishment, but the description of the bill's text was accurate.)

Well, now Obama has put up an ad so strikingly flat-out wrong — arguing that John McCain and Rush Limbaugh have the same views on illegal immigration —  that MSNBC has to blow the whistle:

Now the Obama campaign has unveiled a whopper of its own by comparing McCain to Rush Limbaugh in a new Spanish-language ad on immigration. "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the ad’s announcer says, per the Washington Post. Then a picture of Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." The narrator continues, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families." The big problem with this ad: McCain and Limbaugh don’t agree on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. It’s a pretty low blow, particularly since McCain did see his campaign nearly die because of his support for immigration and the attacks he was receiving on the right from Limbaugh and other talk radio conservatives.

Mickey Kaus speculates that the aim is to get McCain to blow his stack and furiously insist he does support comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship. I don't think McCain is that uncontrolled. What will be interesting is whether any of the media voices who were so horrified by the sex-ed ad, and who couldn't bring themselves to bother to look at the bill text — E.J. Dionne, the guys at the New Republic, the house editorial writers at the Washington Post, Joe Klein, etc., will even bother to raise an eyebrow in disapproval of his ad.

UPDATE: Wow. One of the Limbaugh quotes is from during the NAFTA debate in 1993, when El Rushbo was arguing (accurately) that jobs for unskilled labor would go south of the border. And in the eyes of ABC News, that's the fairer of the two quotes (even though it has nothing to do with immigration reform, and took place seven years before George W. Bush was elected), as the second one ("Shut your mouth and get out") was accurately describing Mexico's legal position on immigrants who protest or criticize their country.

A reader asks, with good reason, if Rush Limbaugh can be characterized as "a friend" of McCain, can Bill Maher (or Michael Moore, or the other idiot celebrity du jour) be characterized as "a friend" of Obama's in ads?

Attention, media: Are Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, and Tony Rezko fair game now?

09/18 11:36 AMShare