Josh Marshall fucking nails it:
It's easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.
Josh also notes that the press is starting to lose their respect (finally!) for McCain -- and this is the opening the Obama campaign and all of us need. It's time to hammer McCain for running the most dishonorable campaign in modern history (and that's saying something after 2004). Here's just a taste of the lying, sleezy nonsense that McCain's camp has done this year:
- In time for the primary, McCain flip-flopped on a large number of his past positions to win the nomination. In fact, he went so far as to say he didn't support his own immigration bill anymore.
- McCain continually (and falsely) insists that Obama would rather see America lose in Iraq (whatever that means) than to lose an election, which is a blatant shot at Obama's patriotism.
- McCain lied about why Obama didn't visiting troops in Germany, ignoring the fact that the Pentagon had told Obama he couldn't go given that he was traveling with campaign staff.
- McCain picked Sarah Palin, one of the most scandal ridden and inexperienced ultra-right wingers in the nation, because of political reasons.
- McCain issued a Willie-Horton-style ad falsely accusing Obama of supporting a bill that would teach kindergartens about sex. The bill did no such thing.
- McCain and Palin continue to insist that she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, which is such a verifiable falsehood that we can objectively say that they are repeatedly lying on purpose now and don't care.
- McCain falsely claimed that Obama called Palin a pig and issued an ad calling Obama a sexist, even though Obama was calling McCain's "change" mantra a "pig with lipstick" and not referring to Palin at all.
And there are certainly other examples -- these are just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head. McCain is running the most dishonorable campaigns in modern history, and it's time for every Obama, Biden, and all of their surrogates to say this over and over. Hammer the point over and over: McCain isn't running a civil and honorable campaign because he's just a cynical say-anything-to-get-elected politician that's been in Washington too long. Over and over and over. And then pivot back to how McCain would rather do smear-style politics than to talk about the issues that are affecting everyday Americans. Why? Because he can't win on the issues. He has to win dirty -- by lying and smearing -- and that's what dishonorable, cynical, say-anything-to-get-elected politicians do.
McCain's armor of "maverick-ness" and "straight-talkishness" and "honorableness" has shown its soft underbelly. He's overreached here, the media is noticing and ready to start a new narrative, and it's finally time for the entire Democratic establishment to counter-jab hard.
UPDATE: A point I made in the comments, but I'll add it here. If Obama and his surrogates don't hammer McCain (and I mean more than just press releases) for running blatant smears and lies, it'll be like Kerry not responding to the swift boat liars. In fact, this year's dishonorable swift boater is McCain himself -- and it's time for Obama to bring that gun to this knife fight.
UPDATE: Digg
UPDATE: Obama gives a good response here - very powerful. He says "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" and calls this all false outrage, lies, swift boating. Also notes that this is the sort of ignore-the-issues campaign McCain is running. Would still love to hear Obama call McCain "dishonorable" or a "say-anything" politician because it would go to the heart of McCain's fake maverickness, but I'd be content if the surrogates picked up that part of the attack.