New McCain Ad "Disrespectful" Almost Off The Scale

I just can't believe how evil these people are... The just keep getting worse and worse! Seriously, I wouldn't have predicted this even from Rove (who's now on Team McCain, as you know).

Here are three new ads, two from Obama and "Disrespect" from McCain.

I'd heard bad reviews of the Obama ads...but they weren't as bad as I expected. "Change" is good, and I think they should keep the template--Obama just speaking reasonably to the audience. "Still" is o.k., but not great. It's a barely covert attack on McCain's age, and I find this objectionable. Also, it's exactly the kind of thing I've been warning against: getting a little nasty instead of going strong and direct against the smears.

But the McCain ad is just off the scale. First, it's the same nauseating type of patently dishonest bullshit they've been cranking out of late--but it also does something I've been warning about: it preempts legitimate Obama responses. I've said several times that Obama should clearly and directly say "They are lying" and "they are being disrespectful." In this ad, McCain asserts that it's Obama who has been disrespectful. Furthermore, it asserts that, despite his (allegedly desperate) charge that she's lying, she's been proven right "again and again" or some such thing. I have to say, if these ads are intended to make rational Dems so angry they can't think straight, they're dangerously close to working.

One final, important thing: I'm not given to charges of racism and sexism. I think most such charges encountered in contexts like this are false. I think, for example, that complaints from the HRC camp about sexism were largely bogus, and I was distressed to hear some Obama folks recently making what I thought was a weak charge of racism--which was, it seems, quickly squashed by the campaign.

But there's a bit in this McCain ad about Obama dismissing Palin as "good-looking" that really put my hackles up. These things are tough judgment calls, and easy to get wrong. But all I'm claiming is that something about it struck me as code-like. Black man, calling white woman good-looking...against the backdrop of insisting that he's disrespectful to her... It really hit me in the gut, I've got to say. I'm afraid these people might be even worse than I'd thought.