The New York Times writes, in despair, that it is "disheartened" by the mendacious McCain advertising campaign, and most of all, by the "closing line…'I'm John McCain and I approved this message", that brings to a fine finish the most recent specimen of broadcast falsehoods.  "Flat-out lies", The Times writes, and then it draws one lesson for  voters--that they should be "wary" of all McCain ads--and another lesson for McCain, that he should "fire his ad writers".   But here the Times seems reluctant to take away from the facts of the matter the most obvious "lesson"--McCain has no wish nor logical reason to "fire" the writers producing the very ads he is approving.

   But another point, not noted by the Times, is that the "approval" statement appended to the ad is not a "closing line".  It is a requirement of law, and McCain led the legislative initiative to add it to the books and to force it on the "ad writers" writing the McCain scripts. His claim was that it would discourage "negative" attacks; and he later argued, in all seriousness, that it had had the effect and could be counted among the statute's successes.

   Never, of course, did it have this effect--and never did McCain  have any ground on which to make the contrary claim. There is material here for reflection, as McCain, all on his own, proves himself wrong--his own campaign and conduct being the case-in-point.

Bob Bauer