And the mudslinging begins

John McCain and Sideshow Sarah are having some real problems. Their economic message has been by and large rejected by the public (McCain’s erratic behavior didn’t help either), Palin’s folksy hockey-momness has turned out to be not so awesome, and Obama has begun to pull away. In short, they are running out of time and options. Thus, the McCain campaign has jumped into the gutter with both feet.

In an interview with conservative The New York Times columnist William Kristol published Monday, the Alaska governor said there should be more discussion about Wright, Obama's pastor of 20 years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The Democratic candidate denounced Wright and severed ties with the church last spring after videotapes surfaced showing Wright making anti-American and anti-Semitic comments from the pulpit.

Wright had appeared to be off limits for the McCain campaign ever since McCain himself condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that called Obama "too extreme" because Wright was his pastor. "Unfortunately, all I can do is, in as visible a way as possible, disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning," McCain said at the time.

When Kristol pressed Palin about Wright, she replied, "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country."

She continued, "To me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

At a morning rally in Florida, Palin kept up her criticism of Obama's ties to Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group blamed for several bombings during the Vietnam War era, when Obama was a child.

One of the great legal maxims is “If you have the law is on your side, pound the law. If you have the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If you have neither is on your side, pound the table.” Well, Team McCain looked around, weighed their options, and started to pound the bejeezus out of the table. They have nothing left but to peddle lies and distortions, smear Obama’s character and generally bring the level of discourse down into the realm of the third grade playground hissy fit - classy. And I might add, not terribly Presidential either.

One other point – when the Obama campaign retaliates by bringing up McCain’s involvement with the Keating 5 scandal, please note that everyone on the Right will declare that to be irrelevant old news, water under the bridge, and ancient history. So if you scoring at home; shit an acquaintance did when Obama was a kid: totally germane and in need of a full discussion. Stuff McCain did as a grown-up (presumably anyway) Senator, immaterial and inappropriate – the man was a POW for goodness sake.

It is gonna be an ugly four weeks, get out your hip waders.