McCain Has Even Gone Too Far For Karl Rove

Even Karl Rove has conceded that John McCain has stepped over the line in his recent ads. On Fox News Sunday Rove said:

“McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far,” he told Fox News, “and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the ‘100 percent truth’ test.”

The Obama campaign quickly responded:

“In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove — the man who held the previous record — said McCain’s ads have gone too far,” said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor

Andrew Sullivan comments:

Isn’t history poignant at times? John McCain who once prided himself on not being Karl Rove will now, in fact, go down in history as too disgusting and despicable for even Karl Rove to support.

Not surprisingly Rove was also critical of Obama, but there is hardly any comparison between the ads from the two. McCain supporters have criticized Obama for his ad which mentions McCain’s computer illiteracy, claiming that McCain does not use a computer due to war injuries. Previous articles on this subject have quoted McCain as speaking of his lack of knowledge of computers, not physical limitations due to war injuries. He is also known to have used a Blackberry, raising doubts as to whether he would have difficulty with a keyboard. McCain has also spoken of attempting to become computer literate.

McCain and his supporters have played the POW card too many times to be taken seriously on this. Even if it turns out that this claim is correct, those who made the ad referencing this would not have been aware of this when it contradicts previous statements by McCain. It is certainly possible that McCain might have preferred to refrain from discussing his injuries in the past as McCain had previously shown the dignity of not falling back on his POW experiences at every opportunity as he does this year. An inadvertent criticism which would be inappropriate if McCain’s injuries really do prevent him from using a computer being used in one ad is hardly comparable to a string of ads from McCain which are intentionally dishonest. Hopefully Obama does drop this line of attack, as it is hardly the most important aspect of the campaign, leaving all the questionable ads coming from McCain.

Leave a comment