Playing with fire

WaPo, again:

"It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there's a soft spot," said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

"We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him," Harris bellowed. "We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him."

and at a McGrumpy/WolfKilla rally:

"I'm mad! I'm really mad!" another man said, taking the microphone and refusing to surrender it easily, even when McCain tried to agree with him.

"I'm not done. Lemme finish, please," he said after a standing ovation. "When you have Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined.

"It's time that you two represent the rest of us. So go get 'em."

The crowd burst into loud chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

Standing at the center of the crowd, McCain and Palin drew on the crowd's energy as they repeatedly trained their fire on Obama.

"Senator Obama has a clear radical, far-left, pro-abortion record," McCain said after being asked about the issue.

Yes, I know they did this "far-left radical" routine with every Presidential candidate since Dukakis. Yes, I know they attacked Clinton and Kerry as treasonous left-wing anti-war drug users who would establish a Stalinist welfare state in America.

But when have we seen a frickin' Presidential campaign encourage and feed off of such rhetoric in such an active way? They're standing up there like they're about to hand out torches and pitchforks and march on the windmill the monster's hiding out in. They do nothing to denounce or discourage it.

This is all they have. This is evidently what McCain's going to run on for the next three weeks. And they don't give a rat's ass about the toxic foundation they're laying for the future. It's like a political Sherman's March - if he can't be President, well, let's poison the well, tie the railroad tracks into knots and burn the farms as we go through town.