Obama Descends To Scare Tactics

Sometimes a newspaper columnist who leans left - heavily - does the right thing. When Ruth Marcus wrote a column in the Washington Post titled Closing the Whopper Gap, she earned recognition for at least trying to be an honest broker of opinion. No doubt she has thoroughly perplexed her fellow Obama supporters.

Marcus writes about two ads currently running from the Obama campaign against John McCain. One, on immigration, is running on the Spanish language stations. In Spanish, the ad claims that John McCain is in alliance with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and then goes on to quote Limbaugh out of context. Also, the Obama campaign lies about McCain's plan for employer-provided insurance.

So, to scare the Spanish speaking population of voters, Obama wants to spread falsehoods about immigration reform and insurance coverage. Remember the problems John McCain got himself into with almost every Republican on the face of the earth over his bi-partisan leadership on reforming immigration and the path to citizenship of those here illegally? You would have had to have been living under a rock to have missed that. I guess Obama thinks the Hispanic population is stupid.

Remember when Obama said using scare tactics was wrong and that only Republicans did it? Remember when it was called using scare tactics to emphasis the importance of national security and the war on terrorism? I guess Obama thinks it is acceptable, however, to use scare tactics on social policy. I guess it is acceptable to Obama to use scare tactics on the elderly, too.

Obama is running behind in the state of Florida. This is not a shock to most who follow politics, but Obama thought he would not be chastised by those on his side of the aisle if he told the elderly voters in Florida that John McCain would leave them helpless with his policy on Social Security reform. FactCheck.org, a non-partisan web site keeping both sides honest, points out it is not true that McCain would cut benefits and risk Social Security in the stock market. "This is rank misrepresentation." "The Obama campaign stretches the truth beyond recognition when it says that this would cut benefits in half."

Fact checking? Defending Rush Limbaugh? John McCain doesn't want to force senior citizens into living on the streets eating cat food? Wow. That won't get Marcus invites to the swell D.C. soirees.

Marcus writes, "Obama has descended to similarly scurrilous tactics on the stump and on the air." "To Democrats who worry about whether their nominee is willing to do whatever it takes to win: You can calm down."

Indeed. Just another politician from the south side of Chicago.