For the past several years, it hasn't been hard to find voices that claim Barack Obama is a terrorist or has ties to terrorist organizations, but these attacks have been limited for the most part to the absolute far right or the Weekly World News.
Now the McCain camp has dragged those voices into the mainstream.
In a speech delivered Saturday in Colorado, Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists," based on the damning report by the New York Times that Barack Obama is close to former Weatherman Bill Ayers.
Except the reality of the information is anything but damning. Obama lives in the same Chicago neighborhood as Ayers and has served on the same charity board with him, but they have never been close and certainly never "palled around."
Ayers helped to found the radical leftist group the Weathermen in the 1960s. The Weathermen masterminded over 40 bombings over the next decade, which resulted in a relatively low death toll. The thing is that during these years, Obama was a child.
Does a fleeting association with a man who committed heinous acts 40 years ago reflect so poorly on Obama that it renders him unfit to run the country, especially when he has publicly condemned the actions of the Weathermen?
Or does the McCain camp's use of this information with less than a month until the election confirm their desperation as Obama moves ahead in the polls?
The American people should not tolerate the McCain camp's admitted plan of "character assassination," but instead see it for what it really is: an example of the informational botchulism that has become the status quo in this country.
We must say, "No more."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
