One can imagine at least two reasons that Hannity wanted Stephanopoulos to ask certain questions. First, the idea was to catch Obama off-guard and get him to either (1) make an overly general statement about guilt by association that would protect McCain from the Keating 5 controversy, (2) make the good visual that Karl Rove has been publicly seeking connecting the weathermen to Obama or (3) both.

The second reason that Hannity and the GOP needed the question asked is more nefarious: the GOP is exploiting the ongoing Democratic nomination fight to enable the soft-racist campaign against Obama to go forward blessed by the liberal white establishment. Certainly, most white middle-class baby-boomers have a gut reaction against blatant racism.  But, subtler forms of racism still exist to be capitalized on by amoral operatives like Hannity and Rove. 

Thanks to Stephanopoulos, the GOP now has cover to push their campaign of racism by another name (RBAN). Rove and Hannity used Stephanopoulos to open the door to their general election strategy. Buchanan will continue to talk about reverse discrimination and try to inflame blue collar America.  And the GOP can now take advantage of the fact that any successful African-American politician in the U.S. is going to have met and/or worked with African-American figures that are controversial to the white community (i.e. most of the prominent African-American leaders from the 60s and 70s). Oh, and it's not coordinated because they're all just making their own statements on television for all to see. No back room required.

That's the way it is folks. Stephanopoulos got played. If McCain wins, we'll have old George to thank for opening the door to the Western Pennsylvania strategy, calculated to bring you 4 more years of Republicans and 40 years of the most conservative supreme court since the early 1900s. He'll get to keep his job, of course. The question is: will you?

Of course, McCain won't win -- Obama will still beat him.