McCain is caught in his lies:
McCain's campaign falls into disarray
The wheels have come off Sen. John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" as his campaign finds itself in disarray over a mounting backlash against his diatribe on Christian conservatives and swirling questions about the candidate's truthfulness.
Over the last few days, Mr. McCain has:
* Apologized for comments to the media that Christian conservatives, including the Revs. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, are "forces of evil" after Christian conservatives in Virginia turned out in droves to vote against him.
* Remained silent over reports by a former campaign adviser - who quit as Mr. McCain continued to hammer Mr. Bush's visit to Bob Jones University - that he lied about his involvement in attempts to make his own campaign speech at the school.
* Interceded in an internal campaign staff squabble that led to reports his communications director had been fired for publicly criticizing his boss's initial decision to bypass an important California debate today.
* Suffered a stinging rebuke by Gary Bauer, his most prominent supporter among conservative leaders, for his diatribes against Mr. Robertson and Mr. Falwell.
* Engaged in a fierce on-air argument with radio talk-show host Michael Reagan in which the former president's son hung up on the angry candidate, who refused to talk about anything but Mr. Robertson and bigotry.
* Admitted orchestrating a series of telephone calls to voters that implied Texas Gov. George W. Bush is an "anti-Catholic bigot." Mr. McCain had steadfastly denied being behind the calls.
* Demeaned voters in Virginia and Washington state after being trounced in both states, saying, "Most people in Super Tuesday states are not going to be affected by what happened in Virginia or Washington, to tell you the truth."...
Mr. McCain has belittled Mr. Bush for his visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina, which bans interracial dating and has been connected to anti-Catholic rhetoric. But ABCNews.com reported yesterday that Mr. McCain considered a visit to the Greenville school.
The Web site said Terry Haskins, who was the McCain campaign's South Carolina co-chairman and is speaker pro-tem of the state's House of Delegates, confirmed that "negotiations took place around the same time Bush delivered his address at the school" and that "the national headquarters tentatively signed off on the idea, schedule permitting."
Mr. Haskins added that the visit was to build support for the South Carolina primary and not to denounce the university's policies on race or its anti-Catholicism - a lapse for which he has derided Mr. Bush. ABC also quoted him as saying Mr. McCain had hoped to speak there not to make any statement on race or religious bigotry.
"There were a lot of primary voters up there and we thought it would be good to be seen and not heard," Mr. Haskins told ABC News.
Rep. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican supporter of Mr. McCain's, had led the negotiations with the university. Mr. Graham holds an honorary degree from Bob Jones....
...As for his role in a telephone campaign dubbed a "Catholic voter alert," Mr. McCain, after days of denying involvement, finally acknowledged being behind the calls.
After Mr. Bush had defeated Mr. McCain in a bitter South Carolina primary, aides drafted a telephone script, bought lists of Catholic voters and contracted with a telemarketing company to call 24,000 Roman Catholic households in Michigan.
In a television interview on Feb. 25, Mr. McCain said he had personally approved the calls. But two days before, Mr. McCain was asked "Have you ordered that those phone calls be stopped?" Mr. McCain replied, "I didn't have anything to do with them to start with".
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Mr. McCain's statement last night was clearly at odds with what he had said earlier.
"This startling revelation," he said, "undercuts the entire premise of John McCain's campaign ? that is, straight talk and that he will never tell a lie."
In another misstep, Mr. McCain, musing with reporters on his bus, the "Straight Talk Express," said that Mr. Robertson and Mr. Falwell are "forces of evil." Yesterday, he issued an apology....
washtimes.com
Can anyone now doubt that McCain is a fraud? A Clintonesque dissembler?
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