i'm pretty sure he does, but this is an NRO writer and dues-paid right-wing apparatchik: you don't expect him to have any valid specifics, do you?

This is actually a good point: if the McCain campaign's rap against Obama is that he stood in the same room with a former 60s radical without, I don't know, punching him in the face or something, what does it say about McCain that he tolerates the alleged terrorist sympathizer Obama? If Obama is so awful, what is McCain doing shaking his hand, introducing his wife, and generally, you know, "palling around" with him?

I'd like to ask Andrew McCarthy how it came to be that the guy most right wingers love to hate, Bill Clinton, appointed Andrew to the AG office in NY in the first place? Talk about ingratitude...

Having read (and re-read) McCarthy's post as well as a few recent ones, it's pretty clear what the message is ... and it has nothing to do with terrorism. His point, simply, is this, from another of his posts: "If Obama is plausible, McCain loses. And McCain, unfailingly, treats Obama as if he is totally plausible."

I disagree with this point, primary because McCain has throughout the campaign had the opportunity to run on higher ground, and chose not to. (See: The ever-shifting reasons for his not doing so.)

Language may be getting in the way of a more precise -- and understandable -- message, but the frustration is clearly on display. And rightfully so.

In somewhat related news, I highly recommend reading the Rolling Stone piece on McCain. It's long and harsh, but it definitely paints a more comprehensive behavior profile of the candidate even the more skeptical observers are nonetheless shocked by.

Why, is he afraid that as much damage would happen to this country under President Obama as happened under idiot fake patriot George W. Bush Jr., under whose steady leadership we lost 2 World Trade Centers, an entire side of the Pentagon, and New Orleans was left to its corpses rotting in the streets?

Most surprising of all is the very clear implication - McCarthy is admitting he's a hack, and is very disappointed that McCain's campaign is not practicing the same standards of hackery.

I guess I should clarify. The surprise is not that he's admitting he's a hack, but that he's doing it so clearly.

While McCain has run a negative campaign all the way through, this whole ridiculous "Obama may be a terrorist/traitor/Muslim" thing is relatively new for the campaign itself to be selling. It's been floating around, but McCain and his surrogates have largely avoided it.

At this late date, if McCain is prepared to play this card in order to try to eke out a win, in spite of the damage to his own integrity and the country and the slim chance of success, he needs to go all out on it. Instead, they use it in the stump speeches, but then McCain tries to be cordial at the debate and Nicole Wallace goes on the teevee to say that nobody cares about Ayers.

To convince people that the polite, calm, centrist Obama is some secret scary radical, they have to hit that message hard, at every level of the campaign, at every opportunity. This mixed-messaging is ineffective, except to rile up the already-riled base while further tarnishing the reputations of everybody involved.

Obviously, I'm not condoning this strategy. Just that I think that's part of what McCarthy's talking about. It's just a bad campaign tactic, but then none of this campaign has been well-executed.

At the debate, McCain said he had been to the Pakistan/Afghan border. If this was very long ago, he may have met with the anti-Soviet Afghan fighters, some of whom make up the Taliban and al-Qaeda today. Might be some interesting pictures floating around out there.

Good point. My theory is that folks like McCarthy and Hannity don't actually believe Obama is a terrorist sympathizer or a radical. If you try and pin them down with a question such as this one, they'll retreat to saying that this simply points to poor judgment. At the same time, I think they're terrified of what Obama might be because they don't think he's a "normal" American. The clanging, cognitive dissonance in their heads must be deafening.

Th, good point-- especially since McCain seems not to realize that many of the "Afghani freedom fighters" he happily lauded last night became the Taliban.

someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office.

This at least helps explain the Palin pick. She's clearly not a terrorist sympathizer, so she must be qualified for public office.