Under the title 'The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama', Frank Rich in the New York Times issues a stinging rebuke to McCain as the man who once disdained racism and is playing it now because all other hope is dead.
All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly "even-handed" journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.
more below the fold
Kossaks know what McCain and Palin are doing, but it's helpful and hopeful when the big guns in the media begin to see it for what it is, to call it, to name it, and to demand results. They may be the 'liberal media elite' but they still speak to and for many in the more reasonable wing of the GOP (it does exist, but it's waning by the minute).
Lewis's comments came out after all this was written and may change the ball-game yet again, but at the moment, we have some serious big guns making serious points.
Rich again:
What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist." He is "palling around with terrorists" (note the plural noun). Obama is "not a man who sees America the way you and I see America." Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.
and then later
Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that "a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that." To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.
and finally
But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.
Meanwhile in the Washington Post, Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner has penned a piece; 'McCain and Palin are playing with fire'
I prefer to discuss politics through my novels, but I am truly dismayed these days. Twice last week alone, speakers at McCain-Palin rallies have referred to Sen. Barack Obama, with unveiled scorn, as Barack Hussein Obama.
He goes on to point out - as many Kossacks have done - that the McCain camp is branding the entire swathe of muslim America as terrorists, and that as a secular Muslim, he is damaged by this but goes on:
But never mind any of that.
The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama's middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened. The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain's call Friday to "be respectful." Back in February, the Arizona senator apologized for the "disparaging remarks" from a talk-radio host who sneered repeatedly about "Barack Hussein Obama" before a McCain rally. "We will have a respectful debate," McCain insisted afterward. But pretending to douse flames that you are busy fanning does not qualify as straight talk.
well quite.
Both articles are well worth a read.
and to cheer us up, The Observer in the UK, while touting Troopergate as the reason to bury Palin, says:
The travails of Sarah Palin may be making all the headlines in the race for the White House this weekend. But a scandal in Alaska, however embarrassing for the McCain/Palin campaign, is likely to be of only passing interest in Canton, Ohio. Here it has always been about the economy.
and goes on to explain why Obama is winning
It's difficult times, but there are some intelligent minds out there, and they are working in the right direction. They'll never drown out Fox, but they can still work to damp the McCain campaign's toxicity.
Edited for tags and to add this (because we only get one diary a day and I think this is being sadly overlooked)
Somewhere in the place where the two camps talk, an Obama-aide is saying to a McCain aide, 'Hey, you owe us. We took the heat off Troopergate.'
I don't know why they did, but that's no reason why the netroots should do so - and this diary by stef, Did Sports Complex Contractors Build Palin's House for Free? should be a serious line of enquiry