It seems McCain is having some kind of change of heart as to he wants to directly portray Obama as some kind of single-man terrorist cell. Of course, it's all a little confusing as to what the hell McCain wants Obama to be. As Ezra Klein writes:
If his vice president is going to continue telling audiences that Obama sees "America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country," and if McCain is going to continue funding ads that say "Obama worked with [a] domestic terrorist," then the occasional calming word during a townhall is a tinny counterweight. When McCain's supporters call Obama a danger, they're drawing the only logical conclusion from their candidate's rhetoric. A president who supports terrorist attacks against this country would indeed be a danger. That McCain makes that case, then tries to calm the firestorm by saying Obama is a "decent man" is unlikely to change their minds. They'll just believe him to be bowing to the pressures of the liberal media. McCain should either end the rhetoric producing these fears or accept his role as the instigator. But he cannot be both the cause of, and solution to, the problem.
Greenwald takes a little more cynical view of McCain's change of heart:
Right. He spent the last seven days whipping up the Right in this country into an unprecedentedly ugly frenzy, and just as polls show that he is falling further behind and the tactics are backfiring ... McCain abruptly and flamboyantly condemns such sentiments. Whatever else that is, genuine isn’t it.
I'm with Klein on this one, not that Klein and Greenwald are that far removed. They both agree that it was McCain and his campaign that unleashed this monster. I do, however, genuinely believe that McCain believes that, somehow, he's being honorable here. Maybe he's finally seeing just what his dangerous and despicable pitchfork rhetoric is doing. Maybe, just maybe, John McCain isn't as a big a bastard as he seems.
Yeah. Okay.
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