SmearedbytheTruth

Convinced that the facts and the times support my case, I researched and wrote this. Unlike the emails I’ve gotten before that attempted to smear Obama with lies, this email is sourced, and if these truths do not reflect well on one candidate, it’s better that we know these truths now.

I wrote this hoping you’d hold 3 questions in your mind while reading:

• Which candidate do you want to be our commander in chief during a crisis?
• Which candidate do you believe will try to help you in these unstable economic times?
• Which candidate has the character and integrity we need in our next president?

21 Things to Know About This Election
(Click on links for sources.)

Democratic presidents are better for the economy.


Actually true. The economy has grown faster under Democratic presidents. Maybe they have better policies. Maybe God just likes them better. Either way, in these economically trying times – it’s good to be safe.

1. Members of the American military have donated more to Obama than to any other candidate (including McCain).
   

   True. And those serving abroad supported Obama with donations by a greater than 5:1 ratio.

McCain once attacked a negotiator while on a diplomatic mission.


Seems True. McCain denies it, but Republican Senator Thad Cochran remembers McCain’s explsosive presence while negotiating with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

John McCain has a history of over-personalizing and overreacting during crises – which has led a number of top former military officials and others who know him to question McCain’s fitness.


True. Between McCain’s taunting of Putin and his scapegoating of SEC chief Cox, he has shown this tendency several times in the past month.

1. • As retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said, “I am a little worried by his knee-jerk response factor. I think it is a little scary. I think this guy’s first reactions are not necessarily the best reactions. I believe that he acts on impulse.”

   • As retired Gen. Merrill McPeak said, “One of the things the senior military would like to see when they go visit the president is a kind of consistency, a kind of reliability…McCain has got a reputation for being a little volatile.”

   • Conservative columnist and curmudgeon George F. Will wrote of McCain’s reaction to the current financial crisis: “Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama…[The more one sees of McCain’s] impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events the less confidence one has [in him] …It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?”

   • Republican Senator Thad Cochran from Mississippi stated, “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

John McCain will balance the budget by cutting earmark spending.


Not even close . Ever heard of the “starve-the-beast” strategy? It’s about the only thing that explains either this history or why McCain’s tax cuts (estimated to cost as much as $700 billion a year [PDF]) far exceed the cost of earmarks (total pork spending since 1991 has totaled about $271 billion).

2. A McCain presidency would be Bush III.
   

   On all of the “important” issues, yes – as McCain himself explains. (video).

3. Barack Obama is going to raise taxes on [insert any possible item to tax here.]

   Taxes Obama Has Proposed Raising
   

   • Income over $250,000 . Get rid of Bush’s tax cuts for those making over $250,000

   • Capital gains . Restore capital gains tax to what it was under the Clintons – from 15% to 20% only on those making over $250,000

   Taxes Both McCain and Obama Have Proposed Raising

   • Energy tax. See below.
   • Social Security. People only pay social security tax on the first $90,000 they make a year. Both Obama and McCain have said they are open to raising this cap – although McCain’s campaign later denied McCain was speaking for the campaign in suggesting such a thing.

   Taxes Obama Has Never Proposed
   

   • Taxes on the eldery . Obama is actually proposing those elderly making less than $50,000 will not have to pay any taxes or even fill out forms.
   • Restoring the inheritance tax . Obama hasn’t suggested this at any point.
   • Water . Taxing water? Are you kidding me?
   • Retirement accounts . Obama would maintain the current exemptions for retirement accounts, 401Ks, etc.
   • Homes that are more than 2400 square feet . The only place this claim is found is in smear emails. Obama has never proposed it.
   • Taxes on small business.

   The Tax McCain Wants to Start
   

   • Health care...

McCain wants to tax my heath care benefits!


Actually true. But wait, there’s more. As people won’t be able to afford individual health insurance plans…

McCain wants to open “up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking…”


An actual quote [PDF]. McCain clearly think that removing consumer protections from health care insurance will work as well for health care as it did for banking. And it makes sense because…

One of McCain’s closest friends and advisers, Phil Gramm, who wrote McCain’s economic plan and who McCain said he relies on to understand the economy, didn’t believe the current crisis was possible.


Actually True. Gramm said that “This is [only] a mental recession…We sort of become a nation of whiners,” just a few months ago. But though McCain distanced himself from the comments, but he kept Gramm’s plans in place. Gramm was, in fact, one of the authors of the bill that deregulated the banking industry, which many economists say led to this crisis.

McCain will try to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Actually True. Although McCain surrogates Carly Fiorina, Debra Bartoshevich, and McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, have all said that McCain won’t overturn Roe v. Wade, John McCain has promised to do so: “Overturning Roe. v. Wade.”




McCain has “hired to run this campaign” “the very people” who smeared McCain in the infamous 2000 primary in South Carolina against Bush (as Joe Biden has claimed.)


Actually True. Or at least McCain has hired some of them. ABC News reported that McCain hired Tucker Eskew and the firm that made the Swift Boat ads he criticized in 2004. From denouncing to hiring smear artists – that’s change you can believe in.

Alan Greenspan said that the country can’t afford John McCain’s tax cuts.


Actually True.

4. Obama is going to raise taxes on the middle class (as McCain has said in ads and speeches.)
   

   Not at all. Obama pledged not to raise middle class taxes – and plans on cutting taxes for 90% of Americans more than McCain. Here’s a breakdown of the where McCain’s and Obama’s tax cuts would go:

   McCain’s Tax Cuts:
   Top 10% of Americans
   Above $2.87 million                 -$269,364
   $603,403 to $2.87 million           -$45,361
   $226,982 to $603,402                 -$7,871
   $160,973 to $226,981                 -$4,380
   $111,646 to $160,972                 -$2,614
   The other 90% of Americans
   $66, 355 to $111,645                  -$1,009
   $37,596 to $66,345                       -$319
   $18,982 to $37,595                       -$113
   Up to $18,981                                -$19

   Obama’s Tax Cuts:
   Top 10% of Americans
   Above $2.87 million                 +$701,885
   $603,403 to $2.87 million         +$115,975
   $226,982 to $603,402                     -$12
   $160,973 to $226,981                 -$2,789
   $111,646 to $160,972                 -$2,204
   The other 90% of Americans
   $66, 355 to $111,645                  -$1,290
   $37,596 to $66,345                     -$1,042
   $18,982 to $37,595                       -$892
   Up to $18,981                              -$567

   Based on the graph created by the Washington Post to illustrate the analysis done by the Tax Policy Center. Another visually striking graph based on the same data is here.

John McCain has been more bipartisan than Barack Obama.


It’s true that McCain has sided with Barack Obama and the Democrats on issues more often than Obama has sided with the Republicans.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain plan on levying taxes on energy consumption.


Actually true . Although neither call their market-based “cap-and-trade” system a tax.

McCain has been an impassioned deregulator, and thus bears responsibility for the banking crisis we are in now.


Not exactly. While McCain has always voted in favor of deregulation, he has never been impassioned about the economy until the market tanked. As one prudent individual said, “I certainly don’t fault Sen. John McCain for these problems. I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to.”

John McCain doesn’t think this election is about issues.


Actually true according to one of McCain’s top advisers which helps explains this.

John McCain has a history of calling his political opponents motives and patriotism into question.


Very true. Just ask:

• Mitt Romney,
• George W. Bush,
• Pat Robertson,
• Barack Obama,
• John Cornyn,
• MoveOn.org,
• Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, or
• Any number of others.

Some deserved it. Some didn’t. Either way, it’s a pattern.

Many foreign policy experts have said that Obama’s approach to the world more realistic than McCain’s, and have credited him for foresight in focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan nearly a year ago.


True and true. In fact, the Bush administration, guided by a Condoleeza Rice, has moved towards Obama’s positions on Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran in recent months.

Obama is a closet socialist (or communist, or other extreme leftist.)


Not even close. The timing of these accusations are a bit odd as everyone from the Financial Times to the Wall Street Journal have called this Republican administration’s recent actions a form of socialism just for the rich. Noted “socialists” Warren Buffet, Robert Rubin, Paul Volcker, and Lawrence Summers have all endorsed and have helped create Obama’s economic policies.