As we finally put the endless Democratic Primary race behind us, and heads begin to turn to the general election matchup between Barack Obama and John McCain, we find the opening salvos already flying - from who loves terrorists to who is too old.
But all the back and forth aside, or whether anyone believes McCain's age to be a legitimate issue or not, it is important to know who first openly suggested that McCain is too old to be elected President.
And who was that person?
John McCain.
First, McCain offers up a fairly cheap, and hardly original, insinuation that Hamas is eager for an Obama presidency. Apparently, along with abandoning just about everything else that made him moderately appealing to independent voters in 2000, and adopting the Bush/Rove playbook in its entirety, he has also decided to imitate Bush's accusations from 2004 that Bin Laden and Al Qaida favored the Democrats.
Obama's response?
"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing, because John McCain always says 'I am not going to run that kind of politics,' and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."
"I've said it's a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name calling in this debate."
Now we hear from Reuters that the McCain campaign via adviser Mark Salter is accusing Obama of taking a cheap shot at McCain's age by using the phrase "losing his bearings."
It was "a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue," said Mark Salter, a McCain adviser, in an e-mailed statement.
"It is important to focus on what Senator Obama is attempting to do here," Salter added. "He is trying desperately to delegitimize the discussion of issues that raise legitimate questions about his judgment and preparedness to be President of the United States."
To which an Obama campaign spokesman responded with this beauty:
"Clearly losing one's bearings has no relation to age, given this bizarre rant that Mark Salter just sent out."
But all the back and forth aside, and whether or not anyone believes Obama is trying to enter McCain's age as a campaign issue, or whether anyone believes McCain's age to be a legitimate issue or not, it is important to know who first openly suggested that McCain is too old to be elected President.
And who was that person?
John McCain.
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 24th, way back in the year 2000:
Sen. John McCain says he is having a great time campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, but one presidential run is enough.
``I would never do this again. I'm too tired,'' McCain told reporters who surrounded him on his campaign bus yesterday. ``I think it's fun once. I don't see how it's fun twice.''
And from, of all places, The National Review's Washington Bulletin, March 13, 2000:
John McCain has said he won't run for president again. "If I were 43 or 53, it might be different," McCain told his daughter, according to the Washington Post. "But I'm 63, a pretty old geezer. I can't see starting over with town meetings of 20 people."
If age does become an issue in the 2008 general election, it appears McCain has no one to really blame but himself.