McCain's Scorched-Earth Campaign

With poll after poll in the last couple of weeks showing Obama-Biden with a widening lead over McCain-Palin, McCain's campaign has taken a particularly nasty turn.  Unable to present a coherent message about the economic meltdown, jumping erratically from one tactic to another, both McCain and Palin have been trying to attack Obama with appeals to fear and hate that are truly disgraceful.  The connection to former 60s Weatherman, William Ayers, that they are putting so much emphasis on is an irrelavent distraction.  For some first hand, authoritative comment see this letter to the NY Times from William C. Ibershof, who was the lead prosecutor on the Weathermen case in the 70s:

I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

That this tenuous association is being used in campaign advertising is bad enough, but McCain and Palin are beating this issue like a drum at their campaign rallies, working their supporters into a frenzy, and making many people very concerned, such as Joe Klein:

Watch the tape of the guy screaming, "He's a terrorist!" McCain seems to shudder at that, he rolls his eyes... and I thought for a moment he'd admonish the man. But he didn't. And now he's selling the Ayres non-story full-time. Yes, yes, it's all he has. True enough: he no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn't done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling, as the New York Times editorial board said today--and more, it is a national disgrace.

And this from Glenn Greenwald:

Just look at the videotapes of the angry, hateful hordes attending these rallies — screaming that Obama is a socialist; that he’s both a Muslim and a terrorist as proven by his “bloodline” and his name; that his supporters are “commie faggots”; that he’s guilty of treason; underscored by increasing racial invective and even punctuated in one case by a call from an audience member for someone to be killed.  These aren’t just isolated individuals; these sentiments are common at these rallies and becoming increasingly virulent and enraged — at the rallies and otherwise:

Here's what makes this tactic truly reprehensible: McCain knows the accusations aren't true, any more than the allegation made in the 2000 campaign that he had fathered an illigitimate black baby.  But he is allowing certain people, represented by the crowds at their recent campaign rallys, to believe they are true in hopes of gaining a political advantage.  Disgraceful.