"I want to cut his nuts off..." Rev. Jesse Jackson

This unfortunate, candid comment from the good Rev. seems to me a central element of the GOP playbook. They'll trash character, personality and upbringing rather than competence or the realities of one's platform, hoping that the American people are too stupid to notice. Then they leave the American people with "where there's smoke..." and a sense that the Democrats are too weak to fight back. "See, we pass the Commander in Chief test cuz we're mean enough to be prez."

In this, they're brilliant. We are too stupid and don't seem to appreciate folks who try not to take the bait.

Now, while you're getting sweaty rushing to hop to the comments section to tell me how not-stupid you are, stop for a minute and breath (in through the nostrils, out through the mouth). Some 20 months into this campaign, we've still got a good portion of the American electorate who fears the Communist  Muslim Menace and think that Senator Obama is one of "those evil Muslims." Rather than saying "bite me" and embracing the Muslim Americans who have come out to publicly support him, his handlers have quietly moved Muslims out of camera-shot and refused offers by imams to come visit him in their mosques.

What would strike me as a new form of leadership is for a Republican candidate to play nice and a Democrat to retaliate with Donald Trumpian force when a member of the GOP lobbed a low, stinky one.

John Kerry lost, in part, because he didn't smack Bush and his cronies back to Crawford, Texas, when the Swiftboat Veterans for Tr...Tr...(sorry, just can't write that) lied their way into the public consciousness. Now, Jerome Corsi's come out with his New York Times bestseller, Obama Nation, which--as news reports on MSNBC would have it--has over 85 errors of fact...in the first 35  pages. Failing to understand that this is a Rovian tactic from the Big Book of Republican Election Strategy, the Obama campaign has taken the bait, spending time and resources to counter Corsi's lies on a website (that Corsi's fans will simply not read and those on the fence will never hear about) rather than coming out swinging.

Enough.

Reporters delight in proclaiming that "no one knows who Barack Obama is or what he stands for" (um, try his campaign website...which McCaintucky copied back in May or June). We're being distracted, as a nation, by superflua...just like we were 4--make that 4 and 8 years ago.

And we're going along with it. Again. And the GOP will continue to try to "cut his nuts off."

Michelle should be afraid.

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