PSoftheD

From Maureen Dowd, NYT: Certainly, at some level, John McCain must be disgusted with himself for using the tactics perfected by the same crowd that used these tactics to derail him in 2000. He’s now curmudgeonly, even hostile, toward the press — the group he used to spend hours with every day and jokingly describe as his base.

He unleashed Sarah Palin to slime their opponent and suggested that the Democrat with the foreign-sounding name who came from the Harvard Yard boutique is not on the American side.

Campaigning last weekend, Palin cast their Democratic rival as “someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

The woman is sounding more Cheney than Cheney. Palin said that Obama’s relationship with the former Weatherman William Ayers proved that he did not have the “truthfulness and judgment” to be president. Asked by William Kristol if the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should be an issue, she said, “I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more.”

On Monday, McCain made Obama, who has been campaigning for almost two years now, sound like an ominous intruder, questioning his character and motives, telling a New Mexico crowd that “even at this late hour in the campaign, there are essential things we don’t know about Senator Obama ...

“All people want to know is: What has this man ever actually accomplished in government? What does he plan for America? In short: Who is the real Barack Obama?”

The new McCain TV ad, “Dangerous,” calls Obama “dishonorable,” “dangerous” and “too risky for America.”

McCain aides have been blunt in their need to change the subject from the economy. But, as with Bush Senior’s re-election campaign, slithery character attacks don’t scare as well when Americans are already scared about keeping their jobs and retirement savings.