[Apologies a second time for reposting, but an RIA bug again screwed up the formatting.] [My apologies for reposting most of this from another of my reviews (on John Edwards), but no one appears to have read that one, or at least no one has rated it if they've read it, so I feel entitled to repost. Maybe someone will notice it this time.]

The McCain campaign ads are full of distortions, inaccuracies, and falsehoods. See YouTube. See also Washington Post, Jonathan Weisman (9/10/08). Here's a list of more news sources that are calling foul on McCain's campaign tactics:

The New Republic...
Mark Halperin... EJ Dionne... McClatchy Papers... Joe Klein... CBS... ABC's Jake Tapper... Andrew Sullivan... MSNBC...
Paul Begala... AP... David Corn... Atlanta Journal Constitution... Glenn Grenwald... Taylor Marsh... Chicago Tribune... Slate...
Politico's Jonathan Martin... Ruth Marcus...The American Prospect... Ari Melber...

Dammit! Aren't we entitled to expect honesty from those who want to be our leaders?

This is not a partisan issue; it's politics as usual in Washington. See Scott McClellan's [Bush's former press secretary] book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. As he says, the "permanent campaign" mentality has led both parties to ongoing dishonesty as a way of life in politics.

It evokes the famous line from the movie Network (1976), uttered by the character Howard Beale, a TV newscaster going off the deep end, played by Peter Finch) [btw, highly recommended if you haven't seen it]. We should send that message to Washington and all our candidates: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

* (Here's the famous speech):
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.

[Shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,

[Shouting]: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:

[Screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

Note: this was a 1976 movie! Some things never change, do they? Well, when are we finally going to stand up and yell?