There is a stanza from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that goes like this:
"Our enemies have beat us to the pit.
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us."
It looks like McCain is taking this idea to heart.
McCain has all but guaranteed that he will address the "Ayers issue" at Wednesday's debate. And his reason for that statement? Obama and Biden goaded him into it.
"John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him," Biden told a campaign crowd. "In my neighborhood, you got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him."
Asked about the comments, McCain retorted that he had never been afraid to challenge someone; he said the town-hall format of last week's debate didn't lend itself to the Ayers issue.
Today, McCain said the dares almost guarantee the subject will come up Wednesday night for the last debate.
McCain is willingly leaping into the pit for Obama. When he brings up Ayers, the only question is how Obama will decide to respond.
He could bring up William Annenberg and ask if McCain is calling him a "friend of a terrorist" as well.
He could restate the facts and add the recent statement from the prosecutor of the Weathermen case in the 70s about how foolish it was to link Obama to Ayers.
He could bring up Keating. The World Freedom Council. Liddy. Or a number of other questionable McCain associations.
And all these responses have the added bonus of being factual and relevant, unlike the Ayers attack.
Obama has laid this trap out for McCain and has simply bided his time, waiting for McCain to stumble into it. And it looks like he just did.
After all this time...how stupid do they have to be in the GOP to think Obama hasn't prepped for this? He has been two steps ahead of them the whole way. That won't change on Wednesday.