Obama aide questions McCain's honor

The Obama campaign took its most personal shot ever at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday evening, questioning his honor over a claim in a new TV ad that the Democrat calls "perverse."

The issue was a new McCain advertisement belittling Obama's record on education, and accusing him of supporting sex education for kindergartners.


"Obama's one accomplishment?" the narrator asks. "Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

Bill Burton, Obama's press secretary, responded in a statement: “It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was. Now we know why."

"Honor" is a touchy issue to invoke with the former prisoner of war, but Democrats have expressed increasing exasperation — and worry — about what they see as constant distortions in McCain ads.

In an interview the magazine described as "prickly," McCain repeatedly refused to define "honor": "Read it in my books. ... I'm not going to define it. ... I defined it in five books. Read my books."