Paper That Was Basis For McCain Claim Of Obama-Raines Link Says He's "Exaggerating Wildly"

[Hope And Change]

Paper That Was Basis For McCain Claim Of Obama-Raines Link Says He's "Exaggerating Wildly"

By Greg Sargent - September 19, 2008, 1:36PM

John McCain's claim in an http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/mccain_ad_tries_to_seize_narra.php">ad yesterday that former Fannie Mae CEO Frank Raines is a leading adviser to Barack Obama is based largely on a Washington Post article reporting that Raines had "taken calls" from Obama's campaign "seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

The notion that that makes Raines a leading adviser to Obama himself, of course, is a pretty ridiculous stretch.

Now The Washington Post's very own fact-checker has http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/obamas_fannie_mae_connection.html">declared that the McCain campaign is "exaggerating wildly," dismissing the Raines claim as "particularly dubious."

That's nice to hear. But we have to take issue with the notion that the McCain camp's assertion is "particularly dubious." In truth, when compared to some of the more ambitions and even epic falsehoods that we've heard from the McCain campaign in recent weeks, this latest act of deception sounds like an angel's hymn.


http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/paper_that_was_basis_for_mccai.php#comments">Link

[Jennicut]

1. MCLiar is at it again, what else is new?

[Hope And Change]

2. Kick!

[PermanentRevolution]

3. I'm starting to form a theory about McCain...

It's kind of a political variant of Stockholm Syndrome - his experience of being destroyed by unfounded smears in the 2000 primary shocked him to the point where he not only began to empathize with the negative tactics used against him, but began to embrace them and take them to extremes which even partisans on his side are decrying as "over the line."

Or, for "Firefly" fans, it's like the kid they found on the ship hit by Reavers who went crazy and started cutting himself and turning into one.