Slime Merchant David Brock Dishonestly Attacks McCain

McCain is the target of a new dishonest hit piece from David Brock

Ahh. You’ve gotta love the 527′s and their tens of millions of dollars spent on trying to attack the candidates (often times with dishonesty).

David Brock has a new slime outfit that has an attack ad out on McCain (WATCH THE VIDEO HERE). It claims McCain is too rich. Yes, folks, McCain did well for himself personally and happened to marry a wealthy woman, and somehow that’s a bad thing. The war hero who lives the American dream. Attack-worthy surely…

A little background…David Brock is the “former conservative” who came out as a homosexual only to claim conservatives hated him for it…he attacked Bill Clinton mercilessly, then claimed he was being dishonest the entire time due to his love of fame and money. The guy is an admitted liar who now spends all his time smearing everyone he can with his Media Matters outfit. This is the disgusting group that started the whole thing with Imus and did their best to destroy free speech there and elsewhere.

This ad follows the “fabulous life of” McCain in the style that MTV does of celebrities. McCain’s wife has a lot of money…the complaint? Not even sure really. It just makes claims that McCain has numerous homes and spends a lot of money.

The ad makes the following dishonest claims:

The voiceover announcer claims that McCain has an American Express Centurion Card which requires you spend at least $250, 000 a year on the card…now, one could argue this means McCain wouldn’t understand most Americans and their lives, but how do you attack a candidate with this? He did well for himself, so we attack him? Furthermore- there’s nothing behind the claim. I googled the Centurion Card, and according to wikipedia, the $250, 000 minimum spending a year isn’t even true in all cases:

As of Aug 1, 2007, in the United States, requirements include minimum annual spending of $250,000, exceptional credit history and significant financial assets. Certain requirements may be waived for celebrities and public figures. Requirements for acceptance in other countries can differ slightly
[emphasis added- link]

So, it’s quite possible that McCain doesn’t have to spend a minimum of $250, 000 a year. He is a high ranking public official, so he certainly falls into the category listed above. That, and who knows what he uses the card for? For all any of us know, he might use only the card on everything he purchases…Even further- McCain and his wife had a prenuptial agreement, and most of the money claimed here is in Cindy McCain’s name alone and not even available to the senator. (AP Story)

So, the man himself has access to millions, but which candidate doesn’t? Michelle Obama recently whined to a group of women in Ohio that she had a hard time making it because she spends over $10, 000 on her kid’s piano and dance lessons every year (and that doesn’t make the Obamas out of touch???)

This makes even the claim at the start of the ad specious (at best) because it states, “In the US Senate, John McCain is the 8th richest, worth up to $100 million.” Cleary, HE is NOT worth up to $100 million. His wife is! And, as mentioned, they have a prenup, so the money is in HER name. If you can’t even start the attack out with an honest piece of information, why bother?

OpenSecrets even disagrees with Brock’s claim. They list McCain as having a mere $4.4 million in assets, which puts him at 17 on the richest senators list. Behind 11 DEMOCRATS and only 4 Republicans. According to the list at OpenSecrets, there are 28 senators worth over a million dollars…and the rundown is- 16 Democrats and 10 Republicans and 1 of the Republicans is no longer in office (Slade Gorton). So, where is Brock’s attack on Rockafeller, Diane Feinstein, Lautenberg, Ted Kennedy, and the others above McCain? Are they blind to the plight of the average American as well?

Let’s continue with the attack ad. The voiceover, near the end, claims:

Voiceover: “The McCains are living the fabulous life. Ask John McCain how he thinks other Americans should live, and his answer is anything but fabulous.”

McCain (giving speech): “…working a second job, skipping a vacation.”

Voiceover: “And what does he say about our economic problems?”

McCain (giving speech): “A lot of this is psychological.”

Voiceover: “John McCain. If he doesn’t understand our problems, how will he solve them?”

Unfortunately, when it comes to politics and elections, many Americans (maybe most of us?) are too lazy to do any actual research, so we hear attack ads like Brock’s here, and we buy them hook, line, and sinker. Fortunately, I’ve done a mere 10 minutes of research to track down the truth of the matter here…for all of us.

By watching Brock’s video, you’d assume that McCain was telling average Americans how to live…that they should work second jobs and skip vacations just to scrape by. In fact, McCain was in no way saying that. Brock twists McCain’s words here and takes them wholly out of context. The comments are part of a speech that can be read in full here.

Let’s look at the full context of the quote about getting a second job and skipping a vacation:

A sustained period of rising home prices made many home lenders complacent, giving them a false sense of security and causing them to lower their lending standards. They stopped asking basic questions of their borrowers like “can you afford this home? Can you put a reasonable amount of money down?” Lenders ended up violating the basic rule of banking: don’t lend people money who can’t pay it back. Some Americans bought homes they couldn’t afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates. There are 80 million family homes in America and those homeowners are now facing the reality that the bubble has burst and prices go down as well as up.

Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million are doing what is necessary — working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets — to make their payments on time. That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?
(emphasis added)

Now, as you can see McCain was speaking about the housing market bubble and NOT about how Americans, in general, should live their lives. And what he said is 100% accurate. I personally know family members who bought homes with adjustable rate mortgages betting that the rates would go down, then they could hopefully lock into a fixed rate mortgage some time later with a lower rate. That didn’t happen tho, and some of them are having a hard time paying for the bet they made. They knew they were making a bet on the rates, and some of them found that they were left with bills they couldn’t pay.

Millions of Americans have done similar things with mortgages in the past few years, so what he said was accurate and, in fact, rather perceptive. Why, then, does Brock completely distort what McCain was saying?

Now, as for the second McCain quote-
Here is the video snippet in which McCain speaks of some economic problems being psychological. This is the full text of this part of his speech on the economy:

“Now, as far as putting additional money in American taxpayer’s pocket, that’s fine. Because a lot of this is psychological, a lot of it’s psychological. Because I believe that the fundamentals of our economy is still strong.”

Now, from this snippet, it’s clear that he’s not saying all the problems with the economy are psychological, but that SOME of the related items are psychological. When the government sends you a $600 rebate check, it helps pump funds into the economy, which gives it a boost…a small one probably, but a boost nonetheless. BUT, a large part of this IS psychological. People have an extra lump sum to spend all of a sudden, and it boosts their confidence in their own lot and the overall state of the economy. Some of us can use that rebate check to pay off a small credit card perhaps, or maybe some medical bills, or maybe just buy something for our homes that we didn’t have enough money for just a short time ago. How can that not work on our psyche?

What he was saying is completely true, and I doubt most of us would disagree with that. Brock’s video clearly changes the entire meaning of what McCain was saying, making for an easy, yet lame, attack.

David Brock is a man who cannot be trusted. He’s a self-described liar, and it’s really about time that we take him at his word. The attacks will continue from Brock’s $40 million smear machine, but hopefully the media and bloggers alike will point out the dishonesty within these attacks, so Americans can base their decisions on facts not bogus claims from the likes of Brock.