When The Truth Is Found

Here's an odd article in Slate. Farhad Manjoo just can't understand why Obama is so damn honest.

Apparently, he rarely lies (unlike McCain) and when he does, he soon corrects it. Let's assume that's true and look at what it means. As Farhad puts it:

Last month PolitiFact wrote that Biden was wrong to say McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. Shortly thereafter, the Obama camp began using a more accurate measure, 90 percent.

It's not the numbers here, it's the basic argument that's dishonest. Obama and his people know the Bush brand is highly unpopular, so they'll do whatever they can to tie McCain to Bush. But the truth is quite a few Senate votes are uncontroversial. Both Obama and Biden, fairly left on the Senate spectrum, vote with Bush about half the time.

More important, what counts are the particular votes. Obama's "truthful" argument essentially breaks down to "Bush bad, McCain like Bush, McCain bad." If the public was actually familiar with what Bush supported, they might find they like McCain voting with him more than Obama voting against. Yet this is exactly what Obama tries to paper over.