I used to think McCain was one of the best of the Republicans. Then his star was tarnished as ran for the Republican nomination this year.

But now he has shown himself willing to run a blatantly disrespectful, and even race-tinged campaign.

I won't go so far as to compare McCain to Joseph McCarthy, but there is a parallel to the seething remark by attorney Joseph Welch to McCarthy in 1954:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your ... recklessness…. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Ok, I'm being overly dramatic, but think about the last two weeks: "Obama wants to lose a war," "Obama doesn't care about the troops," "Obama is just another Paris Hilton," and now "Obama's playing the race card!"

What prompted McCain's explicit introduction of race into the campaign? Obama made a joke about having a funny name and not looking like other presidents on U.S. currency.

This was a far, far cry from "using the race card" and McCain knows it. His new hatchet man Schmidt is apparently willing to bring the country back forty years to win.

What exactly does "using the race card" actually mean? According to Wikipedia the race card has two accepted meanings:

(1) alleging that someone has deliberately and falsely accused another person of being a racist; or

(2) someone exploiting prejudice against another race for political or some other advantage.

Obama's self-deprecating remark obviously fits neither definition, but McCain's unseemly remark obviously fits number two. (And it is a pile of number two!)

In other words, just as he is falsely accusing Obama of "using the race card" it is he who is playing the card.

Time to get your sense of shame back, Mr. McCain. There is more at stake for you in this election than winning. There's that little detail of your soul.

John, the legacies of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have been to turn Republican presidential campaigns into total war. Mark my words, you ain't seen nothin' yet. John McCain hasn't even reached the high-water mark of vitriol left by Hillary Clinton.

But after the conventions, McCain and his surrogates will swing open wide the gates of hell in order to defeat Barack Obama. The Fray's resident right-wing ideologue, Ralph7, has been helpfully copying material from wing-nut blogs to give us a preview of what's coming. The outline of what the GOP fear and smear machine is ginning up is becoming clear.

The swiftboaters took John Kerry's courageous service in Vietnam and turned it upside down to portray Kerry as a coward. Obama's moderate views on race and politics are going to be turned upside down to portray Obama as an angry black liberation adherent who holds radical Marxist views and will, if elected president, take out terrible retribution on us good white folk.

Sound completely absurd? Yeah, well that's what Kerry thought when the swiftboaters first crawled out from under their rocks. For the above narrative to get any traction, race has to be injected into the campaign big time. McCain is laying that foundation right now.

This is also why the right-wing noise machine is frantically trying to find a copy of Obama's senior year research paper when he was a student at Columbia. Here is the Weekly Standard hinting darkly that the "missing thesis" will prove Obama to be a "budding socialist". <link>

Kerry made the fatal mistake of discounting the swiftboaters until the damage had been done. And Kerry just had to deflect a smear. Obama will have to contend with a smear that plays into racial fear and tension. It will be Willie Horton all over again but with Obama himself in the title role as the Scary Black Man.

As I said, this is going to get very ugly with a wink and a nod from McCain, who has no decency or honor. Disabuse yourself of any notion to the contrary. McCain showed his true colors weeks ago when he spoke of Hamas "endorsing" Obama. Obama would not stoop so low.

So what can Obama do? He has to tread very carefully. The media herd is fickle and alert to the scent of blood. But the media herd is also wary of being manipulated by the Republicans, as they were in the Kerry swiftboating and the selling of the Iraq War.

So Obama will have to stay cool and woo the media herd and the public, something Kerry was never very good at. How will he do that? I haven't the foggiest notion. This will be Obama's trial by ordeal in the campaign. If he survives, then there will be no doubt about his worthiness of the presidency.

His aproach to surviving or beating it is by tying the racist, extremists to John McCain.

Obama uses the word, "they" very loosely. He uses the term to imply anyone who opposes him. Which puts McCain in the same crowd as crazy email forwarders that still think Obama is a Muslim.

Kerry at first ignored the swiftboaters. Then he got fellow veterans to defend him. He never directly blamed Bush. Obama has learned from his mistakes.

By using the word, "they" Obama puts the crazy folks down and protects himself from criticism of using the race card since he never used John McCain's name.

Clever.

What Obama said was this:

“What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he -- Oh, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's the argument. That's essentially the argument they're making. It's like, the argument is, "I know you don't really like what we're doing, but he's risky." Seriously, right? Right? I mean that's basically the argument. It's like, "Well, we don't have much to offer, but he's risky."

And anyone with an objective mind can easily see what he is doing and how he is doing it. It is so obvious it isn’t even funny, risky?????? Yeah right! And if you really read the transcript, it shows once again that without a prompter this guy is really bad at just speaking like a normal human, oh wait, that is normal WORLD human, LOL!

An "objective mind"....thanks for the laugh!

I really don't like when people, particularly the press, talk about a controversial comment or statement without either quoting it or providing the playback. Where I am I haven't seen any McCain ads, just Obama thus far.

I'm sure this missing thesis has some things that Obama would love to take back. He was in college! People grow up, and they realize that the world isn't so simple anymore. I don't care if the man had a Che t-shirt and a red banner on his dorm room wall - if he's elected I don't think we're in for Red Anarchy.

Regarding the Swiftboat thing, let's be clear. John Kerry couldn't carry Obama's jock. He had that lethal combination of arrogance and a lack of personality. In no way was he a quality opponent.

Besides, do you really think politics are played by the Marquess of Queensberry rules? You don't think Obama's people aren't above a rabbit punch? Obama's guy is David Axelrod, a guy who came up in Chicago! He is a consigliere to the Daleys! You think they play fair in the Windy City? Puhleeze!

Redwhite&blue, et al;

I saw the whole comment. It is the same comment he has been making since he started campaigning last year I heard him say this line in Iowa in person twice.

It's for laughs but as with all humor it makes a very important point about politics. That point is that change is resisted and things like his name and his skin color don't matter. Obama has never accused McCain of racism, even though many of his supporters have blatantly spread racial venom -- muslim, black theology, "will the white house still be the white house?"

It is McCain and only McCain who has taken this stump speech and tried to turn it into a race war. And it's not McCain being McCain. It's McCain letting neandrathals like Schmidt lead him a round with a leash. "Be a jerk or you'll lose!" He just goes along.

Obama has a secret weapon though. Organization. Good old fashioned person by person, office by office, voter identification and registration. While McCain is spewing hate and silliness, Obama is organizing in the battleground states.

This year it won't work, but John McCain's excellent reputation is gone.

he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills

Read here:

<link>

See here:

<link>

The video came out in June. Obama's response was not out of line...

McCain placed him on a hundred dollar bill. He mocked him.

Obama mocked backed.

Knowing this was out there waiting to be found and reach the MSM. Clever.