They're doing it to Bill Clinton again, this time accusing him of calling Barack Obama
"unpatriotic." 



Gen. Tony McPeak accused Clinton of McCarthyism today during
a rally in Oregon as Obama stood beside him, his arms folded, head
down, seeming
to agree, or at least not disagree.  McPeak was reading the
statement, so it was obviously planned, probably with the campaign's
approval. If not, the campaign would have repudiated it by now.

Of course, the cable networks -- CNN just a few hours ago -- and the Associated Press  today took just
the snippet that seems to make this case, omitting the fuller context
that makes it far less clear -- in fact, makes it seem innocuous.  Even the
biggest Clinton mind-reader and word parser -- who swears the man calculates everything, down to the ums and ahs --
would find it hard to interpret it that way in its totality.

Listen to all three, and judge for yourself.  This is the full version:  Here is a shorter version that provides some context, but was still
used by "Hardball" and other shows to show Clinton's McCarthyite tendencies. And here is the truncated version that could have the most insidious interpretation, for those seeking it.

This practice of playing carefully edited clips over and over again --
purposely leaving out sentences before and afterward that would give
the whole picture -- is the very thing  Obama decried in his excellent
speech on race last week. 

We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.”

Yet today he stands beside Gen. McPeak, tacitly, if not explicitly, comparing Bill Clinton to Joe McCarthy.   And by accepting the most malevolent interpretation of these clips, he is perpetuating the practice he so eloquently condemned.

This episode, combined with the Obama campaign's months-long effort to paint the Clinton as racists, is nothing short of character assassination, and Obama himself is complicit in it.

Every time I try to get used to Obama as the nominee, I recoil when I see him pretend to play the "new politics" game while trouncing Hillary at the old game, with a foul rarely, if ever, called by the refs.  The refs, as you've probably suspected, call fouls only on his opponent.

Trying to win by accusing your opponent's campaign of McCarthyism -- based on no evidence and a lot of suggestion -- could almost be considered McCarthyism itself, based on this definition::

"2. the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, esp. in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."

There's no better way to stifle criticism: Make incendiary charges that the media is all too ready to believe, about a political figure they'd like to take down, by a candidate all too willing to accommodate them.