One of the most striking facts I've read concerning gotcha journalism/campaigning is that, in all of the years the "Whitewater" investigation of Hillary drug on, not a single accusation of wrong doing was launched, except, of course, that she had dealings with a man who broke the law. She was Guilty By Association (GBA). But no other charge was even made, much less proven. Obama's got a bunch of GBA's hanging around his neck, and they may be starting to drag him down, not because there's any actual wrongdoing on his part, but because he doesn't respond decisively enough.

He tends to argue against the facts, saying that, for instance, he didn't hear the worst of Wright's hostile, spurious blather. When that didn't work, he said that he was committed to the whole church community and that Wright had done many laudable things that put the lie to his radicalism. Same reaction to the Bitter Blather and the Ayers Associated, Amalgamated Guilt. These arguments can sound defensive to a voting public that should have trouble figuring out the truth. This stuff is confusing. And the problem is not with the facts. It's more subtle than that. It's a logic problem.

I just returned form a conversation with a fairly well educated, pro-Obama voter who was born in Sweden. She kept prefacing her questions about the attacks against Obama with, "I didn't grow up in this country, so I don't understand this stuff." That seemed only defensive to me. The problem was that she couldn't see through the illogic, the flim flam, just as many other well-meaning, probably middle 20 percent of the electorate have trouble.

Obama should only be helping them, not arguing the facts--the facts will abound. And pointing out the illogic doesn't involve trashing his opponents. He can sustain his elevated demeanor but be much more decisive. He just has to play logician and judge instructing the jury, helping people to understand the ploy and how to see through it.

What helped my Swedish-American friend the most was to boil down the attacks to guilt by association. The tricky part of the flim flam is that they sense that we can't help making their case sort of unconsciously, without putting the implicit accusation in play. The implicit accusation is that, in the case of Wright, if Obama won't leave Wright's church, he must agree with Wright. He must be a closet reverse racist. Or he must secretly condone bombing the Pentagon. Or he must secretly degrade low and middle class voters. Making these implicit accusations explicit is a major step toward enlightening people.

I argued then that there is zero proof of these implicit accusations other than the circumstantial evidence that he has some association with Wright, Ayers, and obviously effete folks who could care less about people who hunt and fish. I continued that the people who make these accusations are counting on you to get lost in the aura of guilt they're creating.

Then, If I were Obama, I'd make a speech to on TV with the same tone that Michael Douglas' character had in his role as president in the movie, An American President. Near the end of that movie, he challenged his guilt by association opponent to a debate about character. Obama could say, Either bring on some real evidence against me or stop trying to deceive people.

Furthermore, I'd argue, You're hi-jacking elections. You're grossly deceiving people into making choices based on their vulnerability to the guilt by association flim flam. You're undermining our democracy by creating false choices, by hoodwinking people. Put up with specific charges and evidence, or shut up and find some other way to advance your journalism or political careers.

Do I sound like I'm being defensive, like I'm hiding something. I say to my accusers, Go after me. Find some evidence that I am truly guilty of any of the implied charges. Otherwise, consider that you actually are doing something very wrong. You're hijacking these elections.