Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion

Sen. John McCain likes to talk about running a respectful, honorable campaign, yet actions like the last debate filled with half-truths and lies speak louder then campaign words.

On March 5, 2008, McCain pledged to run a respectful campaign, a respectful campaign based on issues.

"I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land," McCain stated in an interview to the Associated Press.

In April, McCain took this further.

"In all my travels here, Americans want a respectful campaign, they do, they want it. Now people say negative ads move numbers, they may, but do we have to go to the lowest common denominator? I don't think so."

I thought of these words watching last Friday's debate as McCain's actions, not words, proved what kind of campaign he considers respectful and honorable.

During the debate, McCain was asked about the fundamental differences between him and Obama. He referred to one example of wasteful spending in a bill that, according to him, gave $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana.

"I've got a pen, and I'm going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will know their names." This part is true to some extent.

What McCain doesn't tell you is he supported the bill, according to factcheck.com.

McCain likes to talk about "pork spending" but what he does not talk about is the $27 million his VP choice requested as the Mayor of Wasilla, a town with a population of around 7,000 when Sarah Palin was Mayor, according to Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer.

Using the Web site McCain suggested during the debate, Illinois is ranked as No. 36 in pork spending with pork per capita of $24.95. This is $8.30 under the national average.

While we are talking about pork spending, let us take a look at another McCain fear mongering, fact-lacking statement.

"But the point is ... I hear this all the time. 'It's only $18 billion.' Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years?" according to the debate transcripts on CNN.

Fortunately, according to McCain's suggested Web site, Citizens Against Government Waste, it's completely false. In 2003, McCain's pork spending was at $22.5 billion, while in 2008 it is down to $17.2 billion, the second lowest in the last five years.

It seems odd to me that McCain can use pork spending as a scare tactic while running a respectable campaign. I guess the straight talk express has a broken axel because it does not seem to be straight at all.

McCain seems to drive his straight talk express around the facts with expert precision when it comes to spending, but How is he on taxes?

When McCain talks about Obama's tax plan, he avoids the truth like the plague. "I know that the worst thing we could possibly do is to raise taxes on anybody, and a lot of people might be interested in Sen. Obama's definition of 'rich,'" McCain said during the debate.

I guess this is honorable and respectful.After all, McCain did not quote his ads where he simply states Obama will raise your taxes, avoiding that most Americans would see a tax break. The truth McCain so skillfully avoids is Obama's tax plan that raises taxes if you make over $250,000 a year, according to Obama in the debate and confirmed by a June Chicago Sun-Times article. Obama is knowingly running with a tax plan that would raise his own taxes.

I have looked and found no honor or respectfulness in McCain's campaign concerning spending or taxes. But it must be there, right? McCain is a war hero and has been in the Senate since the wheel, so there must be something McCain holds sacred. The question is if McCain would use the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for his own political gains.

"Sen. Obama is the chairperson of a committee that oversights NATO in Afghanistan. To this day, he has never had a hearing," McCain commented during the debate.

Well this is true, in a sense; Obama has never held a hearing about Afghanistan, but the part McCain does not talk about it that it is not up to Obama to hold this hearing, as Obama pointed out during the debate.

Is McCain's version of honor and respectfulness to blame people for something they are not in charge of? It seems so.

Later McCain stated that Obama is clinging to a belief that the surge did not work and that he fails to acknowledge that he was wrong about the surge. Yet earlier in the exact same debate McCain stated, "And I'm, I'm, understand why Sen. Obama was surprised and said that the surge succeeded beyond his wildest expectations," according to the debate transcripts on CNN.

How is Obama doing both? Could it be McCain is just saying anything to get elected and he knows some people will eat this up as republican talking points?

Later McCain hit a new low when he stated, "Sen. Obama, who after promising not to vote to cut off funds for the troops, did the incredible thing of voting to cut off the funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

You would think McCain voted to fund the troops in bills like H.R. 1591, a bill that would have funded the troops. According to the United States Senate Web site, how did McCain vote? Nay.

McCain promised us a campaign of respect and honor. At one time, McCain's word would have meant something, but if McCain's campaign has done nothing else, it does prove two things - people change and the honor is gone.

- Editor's note: All quotations were taken directly from the CNN transcripts of the debate.

Acheson is a freshman print journalism major and assistant photo editor of The Spectator.

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