The Perils of Mud-Slinging

"McCain is a better man than that." - David Gergen on the Colbert Report. He comes on about 3 minutes into this clip.



But as long as the Republicans are engaging in the campaign of personal destruction, they have to be answered. You don't answer by playing defense, you have to counterattack. It helps if you don't do attacks such as "that guy walked down the same side of the street as a terrorist." Guilt by association is a bit iffy, for everyone knows or is related to people who have done shady things.

However, the closer you can get, the better, as when you can mention how Sarah and Todd Palin spent years trying to get their ex-brother-in-law fired from the Alaska State Police. We can mention how carrying out a personal vendetta seemed to be the top priority of Sarah Palin as governor or Alaska. Or we can mention the sheer effrontery of Palin investigating herself and saying, in essense: "I looked into allegations that I committed misconduct and I am pleased to report that I did no such thing." (Except her spoken English is nowhere that coherent.)

Let's face facts: In McCain's arsenal of campaign weaponry, personal attacks is all he has left.

He can't talk about the economy, what with global stock markets tanking. This morning's stock futures on Bloomberg.com project a fall of the Dow Jones Average of another 200+ points, I wouldn't be shocked if the DJIA is around 8,000 by closing.

He can't talk about national security, not when Afghanistan is rapidly spiraling towards defeat and the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq contradicts "the surge worked, we won" line that McCain has been spouting.

He can't talk about collecting intelligence since it has been reported that the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency were listening to the overseas calls of Americans and gossiping about the details of those calls.

Mud-slinging is all McCain has left in his tank. He will end this campaign as a dishonorable shell of his former self.