Column: Ooh that smell, can't you smell that smell?

By: Christopher Kromphardt/Columnist

Posted: 10/6/08

There's a distinct stench that has hung over the McCain campaign for quite some time now; that familiar reek of something being not quite right, that something is not quite what it seems.

The stench hangs over much of what he says and does. It tinges his speeches and can be ephemerally sensed around the edges of his campaign maneuvers. Although sometimes the stench is more odious and nearly identifiable - rotten eggs? spoiled milk? - the McCain campaign always arrives quickly, armed with Febreeze and ready to quell any suspicions that the stench ever existed.

It's the stench of deceit. It wafts in every time John McCain enters a room, and quickly emanates to fill the corners. Before anyone can ask, "What smells funny?" the odor has replaced everything else. There's nothing to oppose the stench, not when McCain is ruling the room.

McCain adds to the stench every day. Whether he's on the stump belaboring the possibility of energy salvation through offshore drilling or holding Sarah Palin's hand through the rigors of a fluff piece with Katie Couric, McCain keeps polluting the air with half-truths and spin designed to conceal the more unsavory aspects of his campaign or to replace substantive policy debate.

McCain doesn't seem to mind the stench either. To him it must smell like daisies - he just wallows in the lies up to the point where he must believe them.

It doesn't matter that his decision to put on a Superman cape and go save Washington, D.C., resulted in him sitting quietly through the White House meeting he called for, contributing little to the debate; he also had absolutely no qualms declaring victory for himself on engineering the success of the Bush/Paulson bailout plan.

And he didn't seem the slightest bit discouraged when that victory turned into utter failure when the plan failed to pass the House. What matters is that not enough people are calling him on his deceit to make him acknowledge the fact that it is indeed lying.

While most of those paying close enough attention are hesitant to call McCain out on his lies, his opponent made an important step forward at the first presidential debate.

"You were wrong," Barack Obama charged, accusing McCain face-to…well, face-to-shoulder (McCain can't even look those whom he's lying to in the eye) of his insistence on the legitimacy of the Iraq War.

Perhaps Obama should charge McCain on being "wrong" for the purely political choice of Palin as his vice president nominee, and on telling the American people that Obama's plan will raise most people's taxes, and on claiming to support wind and solar energy despite being a staunch opponent to Congressional measures to extend the necessary credits to make them into viable energy sources.

Perhaps Obama - or anyone with respect for the truth - can crack a window and let some fresh air in, because the room is really starting to reek.

Christopher Kromphardt is a senior political science major. He can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENopinions@gmail.com.