when confronted with this fact, he lies, saying that ayes was just some guy in the neighborhood. then he attempts to erase the grave lack of judgement involved in collaborating with him as an adult with the trivia that he was only eight years old when ayers was committing his acts of treason. that’s as if to say that a serious person is not required to consider the meaning of events which occurred just prior to their own puberty.

if the noting of all of this seems harsh and disturbing and grates on your sensibilities, it’s because it’s been heretofor unthinkable that a man with such decrepit and corrupt asssociates would be allowed by his party to even seek the nomination.

it’s not mccain’s or palin’s or even bill o’reilly’s fault.

i’d like you for a moment to consider a hypothetical situation in which palin had been connected to eric rudolph. let’s say eric rudolph was praised by a pro-life group which had also praised eric rudolph for his wave of abortion clinic bombings (or “radicalisms” or “activisms” per whatever euphamism being granted to ayers today.). just imagine how readily the people wringing their hands today would go “low”.

as it is, after claiming that palin’s youngest child is actually her daughter’s by way of incest, publishing fake book-banning lists in an effort to smear her, etc., the mainstream media, obama himself and his supporters have found that there is in fact sufficient requisit for “guilt by association” attacks: angry utterances overheard at palin rallies are now taken to be first-order, prima facie evidence of palin’s racism.

imagine the case which could be made by team obama if palin had actually entered into a decade-long political collaboration with 1988 democrat presidential candidate, david duke. or would that, per the phony outrage being spoken here and elsewhere, be seen as going too far and too low?

the thing about those angry utterances – or really two things:

1) they’re largely apocryphal.

a clearly confused woman at a mccain rally called obama an arab. it is only in anna marie cox’s transcript of the event at her time blog that the word “terrorist” is appended.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-no-maam-hes-decent-family-man-with.html

a reporter claims to have heard a palin supporter shout “kill him” as palin spoke of the ayers-obama connection. not only does the original reporter remember the utterance as being directed toward ayers, who was a terrorist who killed people himself,….

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/1008/_Milbank_Secret_Service_hasnt_called.html

…but secret service has been unable to confirm that any such utterance occurred.

http://www.timesleader.com/news/breakingnews/Secret_Service_says_Kill_him_allegation_unfounded_.html

2) obama supporters have said and done similar, and yet worse.

for instance, the obama supporter who said of palin, “Let’s stone her, old school.”

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20081012_Palin_hears_plenty_of_boos.html

the male obama supporter who marched up to a 98 pound woman at a mccain rally, tore the sign from her hands and beat her with the stick.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-supporter-assaults-female-mccain-volunteer-in-new-york/

the luridly illustrated reference to sarah palin as a “Mom I’d Like to Punch”.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/SPIo-JCohJI/AAAAAAAAWWQ/K_FRVCtu0YY/s1600-h/sarah+palin+art.jpg
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080903210107AAvsTUC

etc.

the few angry utterances at mccain palin rallies have been attributed undue signifigance partly though misrepresentation, but in larger part due to the refusal of media outlets to aknowlege the insane, violent rage of obama supporters.

and, really, when was the last time you heard a citizen call an elected official a “terrorist?”

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bush+terrorist

this is now something progressives suddenly have no taste for?

are progressives suddenly sensitive to rhetorical death threats after nursing seven years of lurid stroke fantacies about assasinating the president?

http://www.brendastardom.com/arch.asp?ArchID=531

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096/

etc.

Sure, America tried it early on, but it morphed into conservatism and liberalism.

I think there’s a reason for that.