mccain's pennsylvania campaign director pushed the hoax story about the attack on the mccain volunteer, giving details to the story before they became widely known. just another sleazy tactic by the mccain campaign, right?
but here's what really bothers me: why does the mccain campaign keep treating the public like they're a bunch of morons? let's pretend the story wasn't a hoax. assume that a mccain campaign worker got jumped, beaten and sexually assaulted by someone because he saw a mccain campaign sticker on the campaign worker's car. let's further assume that he said "you're from the mccain campaign, i'm going to teach you a lesson" as he assaulted her and carved a "B" on her cheek. it's a horrific story. but why would a random lunatic reflect badly on the obama campaign? it's not like anyone thought the obama campaign intentionally unleashed this guy to assault mccain workers.
it's like if someone i've never met heard of me somehow and then started shooting people yelling "upyernoz is awesome!" it's unlikely, but it could happen to any of us. would i be responsible for the actions of that guy? i'm sure i would feel guilty if that happened, but let's face it, the crazy shooter is not my fault.
this isn't even guilt by association. there's no association. frankly, it would be idiotic to blame the obama campaign for the attack. just like it's idiotic to blame mccain if one of his fans in al qaeda blew up a building in mccain's name.
pushing a racially inflammatory story like this, even if true, would be irresponsible and would display a shocking lack of judgment. but beyond that, the only reason they pushed this story is because they're desperate and thought that there are enough stupid people out there to blame obama for the actions of a disturbed individual. or maybe they just thought they'd be racist enough to be too afraid to vote for a black man because a completely different black man attacked someone somewhere.
