Yes. I think Obama should respond strongly to McCain himself.

Apart from being a correct tactic in itself it would give him a chance to rebut Hillary's implied charge that he's not enough of a fighter
(like her).

Clearly, Obama must wear kid gloves responding to HRC. This is still a sufficiently racist society so that whites simply can't accept hearing a black male criticize a white female,almost no matter the provocation. It's a lose-lose. Be retrained and be considere a wimp. Or respond and be a black bully.

So this North Carolina foul gives him a free penalty shot.

Actually McCain has publicly called for the ads to be stopped, but facts and honesty are not apparently your strong suit. "...he has failed to shun a fellow who did wrong 40 years ago..." Ayers didn't "do wrong" he set off bombs and killed innocent people, he stated recently that he wish he had "done more." He's a terrorist who got off because he was illegally wiretapped, not because he was innocent. "...failed to disavow a Korean War vet and pastor because he spoke too harshly one Sunday..." Rev. Wright is a racist, pure and simple. He preaches hatred from the pulpit, to the pews that Obama sat in for 20 years. If what these guys did isn't "that bad" and Obama truly has no reason to denounce or disassociate from them, you would be honest about who they really are, and not down play their reputations to make your argument.

Actually, McCain has denounced the ads in North Carolina. I think it is more illustrative to point out that these advertisers are the same kind of scum who questioned the commitment to national security of a triple amputee veteran in Georgia. I think you expose the swiftboaters and question their service to America (just like I wish Obama had retorted to Stephanopoulos, "the question is, does Stephanopoulos love America as much as Reverend Wright, who volunteered for the Army and knows what real sniper fire is?"). I would wager that the advertising group behind this ad (and the candidates it supports) don't have any military service.

Also, SFCWallace: What racism are we talking about here? "U.S.KKK. of A" is a statement about racism, not a racist statement. "Garlic noses" is the only truly racist statement that's come to the press. (And it's the only one that even comes close after the MSM's combed through TWENTY YEARS of often fiery sermons.)

Or should we go after Hagee and Parsley for their ACTUALLY DISCRIMINATORY comments about Catholics, Jews, and Muslims?

Every day I like the Vietnamese who tortured McCain just a little bit more. Maybe they could tell what a nasty little piece of work he is.

Ayers was a member of a radical group; some members of this radical group planted bombs; in one of those incidents a janitor and a security guard were killed (it's worth noting they didn't intend to kill people, just destroy buildings, but I think it's pretty reprehensible all the same). The other people who were killed were MEMBERS OF THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND while they attempted to make a bomb (I think we can say those people deserved what they got). It's worth noting that the vast majority of casualties via the weather underground were weather underground members.

The reason Ayers has never been prosecuted/convicted is because no one has found any evidence he was involved in the bombings. The allegations Ayers is a murderer are akin to the allegations that every Black Panther member is responsible for the black-on-white Zebra murders in San Francisco around the same time.

I support Obama, but you have to answer senile McCain's smears in kind. If he (and his surrogates) don't do that, I don't want him as the nominee.

It seems that Obama is running against two people who are in early stage Alzheimers; McCain is ineffective within his own party or doesn't remember denouncing "guilt by association" campaigning, and Hillary, by her own husband's account, gets so tired at 11 PM that she makes up wild stories, and her memory is so bad that she forgets, or never noticed, the pardoning of convicted terrorists not so long ago.

I disagree with virtually all of McCain's policies, but the John McCain of 2004 was a man with principles. But the John McCain who is campaigning in 2008 bears no resemblance to that man. He has sucked up to President Bush, courted the religious right and has engaged in the same kind of political tactics that he so despised when they were being practiced against him.
The war hero is now nothing more than just another desperate politician willing to do anything to become president.

Negative ads are all you're going to see for the Republicans.
They've ruined the economy and looted the treasury - what can they possibly run that's positive? That they managed to hang a CIA trained and installed dictator that reneged on a quid pro quo oil deal?

I would be happy if Obama ran only one add for the entire campaign....a clip of McSame saying he'd be happy to stay in Iraq for 100 years....followed by him singing bomb bomb bomb - bomb bomb Iran....

I don't know about anyone else but those two clips makes me absolutely giddy. I never get tired of watching them.

I am drunk on the Obama Koolaid, but I really don't want a bunch of Dems whining about how unfair their opponents' treat them. Every time they trot this BS out, flood the airwaves with examples of McCain's corruption, psychotic warmongering, bad temper, encroaching senility, and general cluelessness.

Not this time, please. Rub their faces in the fact they don't know how to run a country, seeing as how they've run this one into the ground. Put the righwing smear peddlers on the defense for once.

I agree with several commenters: it would be very bad, and self-defeating, to appeal to McCain to stop the unfair attacks. It would look like whining and plays into an old Republican tactic: portray Democrats as a bunch of unmanly sissies.

In any case, McCain would respond the way that he has already been responding: he will pretend that those attacks aren't from him, will object to them, but not too strongly, and the attacks will go on, while both sides agree that he is much too honorable to engage in such low tactics.

Certainly Democrats can point out that the tactics resemble those used against McCain by Bush, that they have no validity, and they can point out that McCain sucked up to Bush despite all of the crap they threw at him (cue the embarrassing pictures of the embrace).

If North Carolina Republicans don't think enough of John McCain's judgement or leadership to follow his instruction to cease and desist, just should anyone else?

Reed,
where to begin? for starters, the charge that McCain fathered a black child was just plain false. however, the comments by Jeremiah Wright (a guy Barack calls uncle) were not throwaways from one Sunday when the old guy was hitting the sauce. Accusing whites of being the cause of HIV is a little more than "harshly speaking". Harshly speaking? How much koolaid you been drinking dude?

And dismissing Ayers actions of 40 years ago as no big deal. Hmm? Should we tell Elie Weisel to STFU because the holocaust happened 63 years ago?

You need to work on your arguments. Pretty weak stuff.

It's really disgusting that you would try to link the GOP use of the Jeremiah Wright tapes to Hillary. If you want to blame anyone, blame the GOP, and blame Obama for tying himself to Wright in the first place. And get used to the swiftboat tactics from the GOP. Obama has given them plenty of ammunition, and they are going to have a field day. And it was always going to be that way, even if Hillary had declared Obama a saint.

And while we're at it, your post demonstrates how pissed you are that Hillary won Pennsylvania. Good!

What bothers many Democrats is that Clinton is using the excuse of "well, the GOP will do this anyway if Obama wins the nomination" to basically behave and campaign like a Republican. At least, until the *real* Republicans can take over after the convention.

Neither side's hands are *completely* clean, but at least Obama is taking quite a few shots at McCain. Clinton seems to think that Obama is a better target.

Kinda reminds me of the infighting between the anti-Roman groups in Life of Brian. Except that was just a funny movie. This is the leadup to a presidential election.