True Lies

Both Republicans and Democrats carry on that good old American tradition of political mudslinging. The Republicans are especially active because their real goals aren’t popular with the people.

Both sides wage a bitter struggle, often stretch the truth and then get outraged because their opponents are using exactly the same tactics — so far, so good. Political campaigns in the United States have always been like that. In 1960, Richard Nixon claimed John F. Kennedy was waging a campaign to “talk us into recession.”

In 2004, George W. Bush’s campaign discredited John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam with false information. President Bush characterized Senator Kerry as unprincipled and unsteady. “He looks French,” sniffed Commerce Secretary Don Evans. One may recall that in 2008, there was a somewhat ugly campaign waged between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden, a campaign Paul Harris of the British Sunday newspaper, The Observer, described as the meanest in history.

Seen in that light, the 2012 campaign just continues a good old tradition of political mudslinging that, in Germany at least, is unknown. It’s my sense that the 2012 campaign is even a bit more dirty and underhanded than those of the past. Not a week passes without some false or unproven attack being launched. Recently, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader accused Romney of tax evasion. Simultaneously, a super-PAC supporting Obama released a video blaming Romney for the cancer death of a steel worker’s wife because the worker had lost his job and his health insurance due to the actions of Romney’s vulture capitalist firm, Bain Capital.

But the Republicans are following suit. They took one sentence out of context from an Obama speech (“You didn’t build that”) making it sound as if he were referring to the efforts of entrepreneurs when the context clearly showed he was talking about public bridges and roads. Jon Stewart did an especially funny bit about that.

On another occasion, the Republicans took a half-sentence uttered by Joe Biden and twisted it into a racist statement. At a gathering in Newark, the vice president said, “Romney wants to, he said in the first 100 days, he’s gonna let the big banks again write their own rules. ‘Unchain Wall Street!’ They’re going to put you all back in chains.” He was referring to consumer rights, shady business practices and the necessity of stronger regulations on stock trading. But because the audience was predominantly black, Republican Paul Ryan said Biden was trying to score points using racist cliches. That incensed Newark’s black mayor, Cory Booker, who urged CNN and other outlets to stop taking things out of context and start stressing the content of politician’s remarks. That shows how idealistic Democratic politicians can be.

Republicans prefer to attack Obama and Biden as unworthy, hate-filled and utterly desperate, allowing their supporters to produce dubious videos such as a recent production by a source that claims to be independent but is, in fact, headed up by Republicans who once worked for the George W. Bush administration. During the course of the 22-minute film, the claim is made that the Obama administration leaked information about the hunt for and death of Osama bin Laden that compromised American security, just in order to make themselves look good rather than the military that actually deserved the credit. Naturally, they provide no evidence to back up that assertion.

Will such actions deflect attention away from the fact that neither Romney nor Ryan have any experience in the military? Hardly; voters are now engrossed in who should pay how much in taxes and how much health care they’ll receive. In these areas, the Republicans aren’t offering very popular concepts so that they’re obliged, as publisher Michael Tomasky writes, to lie in order to win.

The only question remaining now is how much truth the Democrats should trust the voters with.