TIME has more messaging…
Mailer says Obama “thinks terrorists just need a good talking to” and is “not who you think he is.”
Being mailed in Missouri and Virginia.
Here’s McCain’s response…

Absolutely?
By the way, if Obama isn’t who we think he is…WHO is he? That’s the question I’d like McCain to answer. Tell us who he really [...]

Watch.

Anti-Americanism is now the mantra for the right wing.
Expect this to be the meme if Obama wins.

Nothing turns me off like partisan anger. I know a lot of people like to get wrapped up in the false fury propagated by certain partisans, but I try to keep my irrational outbursts focused primarily on my beloved Dallas Cowboys. I don’t really understand those who feel the need to bring the gladiatorial spirit [...]

… when rightwing blogs have to start defending Obama over scurrilous rumors.
The once well-oiled rightwing machine has collapsed into the kind of rumor-mongering and dissociated, random attacks that marked the lefties back in their darker days.
Looks like the vast rightwing conspiracy has fallen on hard times.

Over the weekend, Democratic Representative John Lewis of Georgia released a controversial statement condemning the John McCain campaign. Lewis claimed that McCain and Sarah Palin are stoking the fires of hate and had this to add:
During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George [...]

The caption from Getty…
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA – OCTOBER 13: Supporters hold up signs during a rally for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at the Virginia Beach Convention Center October 13, 2008 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. About 15,000 people turned out to see Palin and [...]

In a column for Pajamas Media, conservative scholar and essayist Victor Davis Hanson fights back against the trickle of conservatives who’ve bailed on John McCain. Hanson notes that the “nasty McCain campaign” isn’t particularly loathsome in historical context and that Barack Obama supporters have smeared McCain and Palin just as harshly.
He touches on a [...]

The slo-mo implosion continues…
From NY Times:
He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational [...]

I’ve been posting a lot recently about the various attempts to paint Obama as foreigner, a muslim, of Arab decent, a friend of terrorists and a terrorist himself.
Well, now this is the first (to my knowledge) that explicitly involves a high ranking member of the GOP, at least at the state level.
From TIME:
“We haven’t [...]

Yes, one of the top conservative blogs is still pushing the idea that Obama is a foreigner because he won’t respond to a frivolous lawsuit being pushed by a disgruntled Clinton supporter.
The post sums up with this:
I repeat, what is it that Obama and the Democratic National Committee are trying to hide? If Obama can [...]

And Missourians respond…
A billboard in West Plains showing a caricature of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wearing a turban and using his middle name — Hussein — in quotes has sparked outrage and accusations of racism. [...]
Outrage over the sign triggered West Plains resident Becky Estes to write a letter in Monday’s edition of the [...]

Check out this delightfully nonsensical bit of jealousy…
There has been speculation about this which I’ve ignored, no doubt because there are enough policy reasons to oppose Barack Obama and I don’t want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia.
But I’ve finally read Jack Cashill’s lengthy analysis in The [...]

The problem?
He suggests that Obama hasn’t been honest about it…
Speaking to Dennis Miller, a comedian and conservative radio talk show host, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said Obama should be more forthright about his background and what he called his “very extreme” record.
“He ought to admit, ‘You know, I’ve got to be honest with you. [...]

If this is all they’ve got, I truly feel sorry for them.
From The Page comes this direct quote:
There’s been a lot of interest in what I read lately. Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago.
Turns out, [...]

From almost the moment John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, we’ve heard the media are out to get her. Because, you know, the media hate average people. How dare they expect the anointed one (Republican model) to make a case for herself or to prove she has the base of knowledge necessary [...]

As anybody knows who follows Ben Smith’s blog day in and day out, he has consistently reported the facts about everybody. In fact, he posted extensively on Obama’s connections to Reverend Wright.
In any event, Smith tried to clarify some facts with the McCain camp today, and they subsequently accused him of supporting Obama.
First, Joe Biden’s [...]

This weekend, Justin alerted us to lies Barack Obama is spreading about John McCain’s Social Security positions. Now, Ruth Marcos of the Washington Post, explores how widespread these lies are.
In addition to falsely claiming the recent stock market turmoil would have affected the benefits of current retirees under McCain’s plan, Obama is running an ad [...]

As I said from the beginning of this nonsense.
Ed Morrissey covers the story:
“Sarah Palin issued a response to the Troopergate investigation yesterday by releasing internal memoranda that show Walt Monegan got fired for insubordination on budget matters and not because of his refusal to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law. Monegan went behind Palin’s back [...]

We’re officially in bizarro world…
“[T]he portrait [on "SNL"] was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so, in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive and Sarah Palin as totally superficial,” Fiorina argued. “I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme and yes, I [...]

I guess there’s one more post to squeeze out of this silly controversy after all.
Earlier today a lot of folks had embedded the “Lipstick” ad, but then it went dead. And when you clicked through to YouTube it had said that CBS Interactive had asked for it to be removed.
Politco has more…
YouTube has removed a [...]