Friday, May 16, 2008

More Weasel Words from the Washington Post   [Mark Hemingway]

The media continues to have no compunction about distorting the words of John McCain to make it look like he's making spurious charges against Barack Obama. Earlier in the week, I noted Washington Post op-ed by Richard Cohen that wrongly left the impression that McCain had mischaracterized what Hamas said about Obama:

"[McCain's] message went on to claim that Obama's foreign policy positions have earned him 'kind words' from Hamas" — Excuse me? That's not a claim, that's exactly what happened. No less than David Axelrod said, “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it’s flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps.”

Well, Soren Dayton at Red State draws our attention to another op-ed in today's WaPo by James Rubin that says this:

Despite his reputation in the media as a charming maverick, McCain has shown that he is also happy to use Nixon-style dirty campaign tactics. By charging recently that Hamas is rooting for an Obama victory, McCain tried to use guilt by association to suggest that Obama is weak on national security and won't stand up to terrorist organizations, or that, as Richard Nixon might have put it, Obama is soft on Israel. [Emphasis added]

Again, McCain isn't "charging" anything here. A senior Hamas official said "We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle."

UPDATE: A reader notes that Ed Henry also used the word "charged" to refer to "the Hamas allegation" yesterday. Gah.

05/16 12:12 PMShare