With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he said. “That is scary.” It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. “And he won’t salute the flag,” one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, “We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born.” Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.
So now they are actually teaching their campaign workers to tell prospective voters that Obama is a terrorist. They are linking Obama to those responsible for 9/11 — which is just as despicable as creating the mobs that include folks calling for blood. We already know that if you have an R behind your name, you are delighted to be ruled by your worst fears and anxieties, but calling out Americans as being connected to Osama bin Laden just because you need a way to up the ante is further demonstration that any honor that McCain had has been utterly squandered away by a campaign that apparently doesn’t think that McCain’s own personal reputation no longer matters.