In Hardball McCain Smears, Obama Casts Doubts on Transcendental Appeal

Barack Obama, who repeatedly refuses to denounce left-wing smear attacks against eventual GOP nominee John McCain, looks more and more like a run-of-the-mill politician, rather than the image of some transcendent political star he's tried to cultivate.

Steve Huntley makes the case:

The best indicator of Republican John McCain's surprisingly strong presidential prospects in what should be a slam-dunk Democratic year is not his solid general-election poll numbers but rather the increasingly shrill attacks from Democrats.

The latest was a grotesque slam from Barack Obama supporter Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. In a newspaper interview in his home state, Rockefeller let loose this stinker: "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."

Never mind that laser-guided missiles hadn't been invented during the Vietnam war. Bombing is a part of warfare, and McCain was serving his country as have legions of other bomber airmen. Rockefeller smeared them all. One further point: McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi when U.S. planes bombed the city, on the orders of McCain's admiral father.

So wrong was this that Rockefeller not only quickly apologized, but his office also later made a point of saying that McCain had accepted his apology.

For his part, Obama said nothing, but his campaign issued a statement that he "does not agree" with Rockefeller's remarks.

It wasn't the first time Obama let his campaign do the talking when one of his supporters crossed the line. Last week, liberal radio talk show host Ed Schultz, speaking at a political event before Obama, called McCain a "warmonger." It was another shameful slur on a war hero. Inconveniently for Schultz, the New York Times carried a story a few days ago that McCain's Marine Corps son had just served a tour of duty in Iraq.

The day after this ugly character assassination, Obama twice declined to repudiate Schultz's statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. His campaign finally had a spokesman say, "John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such."

Contrast that to McCain's handling of his own episode with a conservative talk show host shooting off his mouth. After learning that Bill Cunningham had, at a McCain rally, repeatedly referred to the Democratic candidate as "Barack Hussein Obama," McCain immediately stepped forward to condemn Cunningham's behavior. This took political courage because McCain already had problems with the right-wing talk show circuit, which considers him insufficiently conservative.

Obama has himself attacked McCain with a flagrant distortion, accusing him of wanting to bog America down in Iraq fighting for 100 years. The respected Annenberg Political Fact Check Web site said Obama had "twisted" McCain's words. Answering a question about how many years U.S. forces would be in Iraq, McCain said, "Make it a hundred. . . . We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as American, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

Obama, who complains about "snippets" of anti-American talk misrepresenting the whole career of his spiritual mentor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has no problem quoting McCain out of context.

Be prepared for more of this. Wealthy Democrats plan to fund a $40 million, four-month attack barrage against McCain, reports Politico. It will be independent of whoever is the Democratic nominee, but is yet another sign of Democrats' worry about McCain.

The recent attacks could be written as standard political hardball in a hotly contested race. But, as McCain points out, Obama has promised a campaign of hope, free of the cynicism and divisive ugly politics of the past. True, good intentions tend to go by the wayside when you're battling for the most powerful job in the world. And the line between legitimate electioneering and reckless politics can be fuzzy. Still, all this does leave Obama looking a bit more like just another politician.

See also, "Obama's Nebulous Campaign Funding Operation."