October 7, 2008

     Get out your foul-weather gear;  the campaign is getting ugly.  Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is the chief mud-slinger.  Barack Obama, she told a crowd recently, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist....This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America."  And so on and so on.
 
     This sucks.
 
     The alleged terrorist is William Ayers, who has now morphed into being part of the liberal establishment.  Years ago he was a member of the Weather Underground.  They did bomb things, but it was a long time ago.  Obama has described Ayers as "somebody who engaged in detestable acts forty years ago when I was eight." 
 
     Nowadays?  They know each other, have worked on community boards together, but the Associated Press says, "No evidence shows they were 'pals' or even close when they worked on community boards years ago."  The New York Times adds "...the two men do not appear to have been close," and goes on to quote Obama's comment about detestable acts.
 
      Palin probably knows this, so what her repetition of the charge means is that she feels no obligation to campaign using the truth, but simply to scuff up the other guy because she wants so badly to win. This is scuzzy but not unusual in our politics.  If you're old enough, you remember Spiro Agnew denouncing us reporters as "nattering nabobs of negativism," which at least was well written (by William Safire, I think) and good fun.  But the Nixon White House also had its enemies list, approved a burglary in an effort to get dirt on an enemy.  Those weren't much fun at all.
 
    So Palin isn't new or surprising.  Just shabby.  

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