FEAR Is an Acronym in the English Language for "False Evidence Appearing Real"

John McCain is in a tough spot right now. He is trying to poke holes in Obama's record while letting his underlings do the dirty work of throwing any negative comment they can think of at Barack Obama and hoping it sticks. It seems that McCain has some conscience even though his campaign of Republican ideologists do not.

With traditionally strong Republican states being declared toss-up or leaning Obama and the lame showing at the debate last night, Republicans are angry that McCain won't fight as dirty as his predecessor. Andy McCarthy wrote this in his blog on the National Review Online: "Memo to McCain Campaign: Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office. You helped portray Obama as a clearly qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists. If that’s what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing."

I don't think it is the McCain campaign as much as it is McCain himself. When asked about McCain not trying to tie Obama to Bill Ayers last night during the debate, McCain spokesmen seemed perturbed before answering that the question never came up. Republicans would love to see the scathing attacks of campaigns past make an appearance here and now, or for that matter, three months ago. Governor Palin and Cindy McCain are leading the charge on the campaign trail, but McCain seems reluctant. He wants to win on his own accord it seems, and that is just not a part of Republican politics these days.

Republicans will spin these remarks about Obama and Ayers or Obama and Wright by saying that past relationships important because they speak about the judgment of the candidate. That may be true, but nobody has more skeletons in the closet than a man who has been in Washington for over twenty-five years. It's a dangerous game to play when your candidate has links to Iran-Contra and Charles Keating and was directly involved in those debacles. Unless Obama was helping Bill Ayers plant those bombs, this link to a terrorist is a pretty lame attempt to discredit him. That is why the media has questioned it as racist.

Republicans know that they need a miracle to win as long as McCain distances himself from comments like these from the Lehigh County, Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Bill Platt: "Certainly Barack Obama can learn a thing or two from John McCain about what it means to be a patriot. Think about how you'll feel on November 5th if you see the news that Barack Obama—Barack Hussein Obama—is president of the United States." The Republicans want McCain to say those things, not distance himself from them. Without that kind of politics, Republicans must hope that either Obama makes a mistake of epic proportions or that the voters will not be able to bring themselves to cast a ballot for a black man in Novermber 4th.

Maybe McCain is a maverick after all or maybe he is pulling a page from the Clinton good cop-bad cop playbook. That didn't work earlier this year and I don't think it's going to work now.