Referring to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) repeated false claim that that Iran is training Al-Qaeda, last Sunday on Meet the Press, NBC political director Chuck Todd said the “stumble” won’t hurt his presidential candidacy because McCain has “enough” credibility “in the bank with media that he can get away with it.” The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum takes a closer look at McCain’s media “cred”:
Let’s recap. Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy. Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans. Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists. Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system. Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary. Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee. “Man of conviction” cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock. Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it.
Drum asks: “Remind me again: where does all this cred come from?”
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