Clive Clemons' Inappropriate Response Channel

I'm glad there's only a couple months left before the election, because this is getting old. To repurpose a line from Reagan, "there you go again," McCain.

McCain's new ad, supposedly running in blue-collar swing states, claims that Obama wanted "comprehensive sex ed" for kindergartners. "Learning about sex before learning how to read?" the narrator scoffs. The word "icky" has become an adjective of choice for me lately, and I think it's useful here. The claim of the ad is a lie. Not a distortion, but a lie.

The bill Obama supported, which did not pass, for what it's worth, called not for comprehensive but "age-appropriate" sex ed for kindergartners. What dos this mean for kindergartners? Teaching them about physical boundaries and what constitutes a "bad touch," and how to talk to a safe adult if they're touched inappropriately. Period. Keeping them safe. Not the birds and the bees. Not "when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much..." To suggest otherwise, as the McCain campaign has done, is a lie. Stay classy, San Diego.*

Some commentators have unfavorably compared this ad to the infamous Willie Horton ad, since at least it was true that Dukakis supported a forlough program that Horton was out on when he committed robbery and rape, even if that ad was (also icky) race-baiting. I certainly hope that this ad does not gain the traction that the Horton ad did, since it is truthfully-challenged, and the media, uncharacteristically, seems to have been calling the McCain campaign on their bs lately.

So if someone brings up this claim, it's not true. Spread the word.

Now, as for the photo above, it comes from an old Conan O'Brien bit Nels told me about years ago but I hadn't seen until recently. It's very funny.

* Speaking of accusations of classlessness, I do not buy for a second that Obama's comment yesterday about "lipstick on a pig" was (a) in any a reference, veiled or otherwise, to Sarah Palin or (b) otherwise inappropriate because of her presence in the race. Obama has used the phrase, along with a variety of other corny (probably Kansan) verbiage, many times in recent, including before Palin's selection, in reference to McCain's and Bush's policies. Hell, McCain used the phrase last year in reference to Hillary Clinton's policies. Nobody got vocally upset about the phrase then. The fauxtrage now is the same as ignorant liberals claiming racism when someone uses the phrase "call a spade a spade" or the word "niggardly." Grow the hell up, people. (Oh, also, as a fan of words and metaphor, I enjoyed Christopher Orr's take on this.)