Desperation

As I posted below, Obama, sliding in the polls, has promised to be much more aggressive in his attacks on John McCain. But Obama has to be truly desperate to go after John McCain on the basis of his associations. Given Obama's history of ties to radical after radical, this would seem a can of worms he would stay away from like its radioactive. Yet he is now preparing to run an ad criticizing McCain for associating with Rick Reid, an individual involved with Jack Abramoff scandal that McCain exposed.

Here is the ad the Obama campaign is now running:



The McCain campaign response, posted at NRO, is stinging:

Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail.

However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?”

— McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

This is clearly an effort to slime McCain, but it is ill advised for Obama to say the least. All of the MSM effort to play down and ignore Obama's associations - ones that should have disqualified from running for the presidency in the first place - will go for naught if Obama opens up this can of worms himself.

That said, it is not enough for the McCain campaign to respond to this with a statement. They should be making an immediate demand that Obama pull the ad. If that fails, then the McCain camp should respond in kind. They are more than justified in doing so.