The Race From Integrity

I don't agree with Brian McLaren about everything. In fact, the recently released edition of Creation Care magazine documents that we disagree about who should be leading our country in 2009. But we do share similar concerns about how that race should be run.

Therefore, let me heartily endorse the following statement from brianmclaren.net:

[M]y hope is that Democrats will complain when Democratic candidates are less
than honest and honorable, and Republicans will do the same. If we let our
candidates get away with sleaze, if they win the election but lose their
integrity, we'll get what we deserve after the elections.

I share John Weaver's concern that the McCain campaign's focus on driving up Obama's negatives is doing a disservice to a man who could win the presidency in a more honorable way. It is also a disservice to the nation.

Over the past year, I've highlighted the lack of integrity present in the fundraising mailers from Mr. Straight-Talk and the Republicans. The most recent is a breathless letter from the RNC (under the fake signature of Carly Fiorina) concerned about supposedly low fundraising numbers that threaten to bring about the Apocolypse. This letter was sent to me and thousands of others who like me receive some form of this letter nearly every day, but this letter needed special Postal Service treatment.

Perhaps it is just my crazy frugal ways, but I am less likely to give money to an organization that spends $3.02 to send certified junk mail.

Obama's anything to be President style is no better in my book. I can offer no insights on his fundraising letters, for the obvious reason that I am not on that list, but I do note his reneging on a promise to take public funds if the Republican did. The Republican did. Obama didn't. The media let it slide.

And for months Obama has distorted John McCain's 100 years in Iraq statement. Here's what factcheck.org has to say about this "whopper":

We first caught the DNC distorting McCain's remarks all the way back in
February. But that didn't stop the DNC or the Obama campaign from continuing to say that McCain wanted to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years. In fact, McCain is referring to a peacetime presence in Iraq, as the full context of McCain's remarks makes clear. Here's what McCain actually said, in a Jan. 3 town hall meeting:

"Maybe a hundred. ... We’ve been in Japan for 60
years. We’ve been in South Korea
for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as
Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or
killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a
presence in a very volatile part of the world."

Recently, one of Obama's Congressional supporters goes so far as to not-so-subtly imply that Governor Palin (and apparently any moose hunter) is a violent anti-Semite/racist. Another representative for Obama declares that Jesus is a Democrat. Both of these jaw droppers are here. Brian McLaren is rightly "disturbed" about this.

And there is much to be disturbed about in the McCain campaign. The recent ad highlighting Obama's "John is right about" comments, without mentioning the buts that followed, seems likely to drive even that small dose of civility from the next debate. That's not good for the country.

This past Saturday I saw Cokie Roberts speaking about the "Founding Mothers." After noting that papers once actually reported in an election cycle that one of the early first ladies was being pimped, the wise Mrs. Roberts noted that this certainly isn't the nastiest campaign in American history (or even her lifetime), but the fact that we have come to be accept such a low bar of integrity sadly says much about our current state of affairs. When "not the worst" is meant as a compliment, we have indeed fallen far.