Monday, September 15, 2008

The Moral High Ground   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

One of the themes of the liberal commentariat over the last few weeks, in addition to the claim that McCain is "lying" about various things, is that what his campaign has been saying, even if true, is a distraction from the "real issues" that ought to concern voters. We have been talking about lipstick and flag pins instead of health care and housing. Whatever you make of this point, can liberals really make it in a partisan way with a straight face? Are they prepared to maintain that the truly important issue in this election is how often McCain uses email? (Or how many houses he owns?) Now of course liberals could retort that the email "issue" is a stand-in for the larger question of whether he is out of touch. But the flag-pin and lipstick controversies involve larger concerns about Obama, too. I don't mind that liberals want to win this election, but do they have to affect so much moral superiority about their tactics?

09/15 04:49 PMShare