Calls for the REAL McCain to step forward are growing louder by the minute. Yesterday, a Wall Street Journal op-ed highlighted John McCain's YouTube problem, as a remarkable 1.4 million people have already seen The REAL McCain 2 since we launched it just one week ago. The fact that activists spread this video virally through YouTube made it such an instant sensation, simultaneously suggesting that the general public hungers for the truth about McCain, and that this appetite is something the mainstream media cannot satisfy with its ineffectual, inaccurate reporting about the so-called Maverick.
Republicans desperately hope that the mainstream media won't end its love affair with McCain any time soon. According to WSJ writer Laura Meckler, "the McCain campaign has decided that responding to various and sundry hits like [The REAL McCain 2] would only dignify them." And Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant called us an "anonymous smear job," even though both Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films are mentioned at the beginning of the film. Notice that the RNC had absolutely no facts to back up their claim, but instead resorted to childish name-calling.
While we expected nothing less from the RNC, they're going to have to try a lot harder to prevent the 1.4 million who have seen our film from spreading the truth about McCain. And hopefully, the WSJ piece will signal other corporate media outlets to break ranks and follow their lead.
Until that happens, we will continue to bring you evidence of how McCain attempts to mask his deeply conservative record behind overt pandering. And we will continue to call out the press on their nonsense. As FAIR's Peter Hart contends in The Press Corps' Unshakeable Crush on McCain, McCain has flip-flopped on everything from Jerry Falwell to Bush's tax cuts to torture to immigration to foreign policy. All the while, the mainstream press has praised McCain's position reversals, playing the part of a giddy school girl. As Hart suggests, "Given the media's investment in McCain's image, they have an incentive to not pay too much attention to his double-talk."
And with McCain hypocritically denouncing Jim Webb's GI Bill yesterday, the time for the media to quash its crush is long overdue. Just how did McCain spend Memorial Day, a holiday devoted to honoring and supporting our troops? He allied himself with Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens in perpetuating lies that the GI Bill would cause a drop in the military's retention rate. These false claims fly in the face of the the Congressional Budget Office's report, as well as the bill's bi-partisan passage in the Senate. So where is the media to hold McCain accountable?