If Senator John McCain were the DEMOCRATIC nominee for President, the Republican Party, in the guise of Rush and Sean and Anne and Michelle, would destroy him as follows:

They'd talk about the Keating Five scandal in the context of Mr. McCain's having a seemingly ceaseless addiction to lobbyists and they'd bring up his Dr. Jekyll then Mr. Hyde then Dr. Jeckyll then Mr. Hyde positions on everything from the war to taxes to the religious right to campaign finance reform and they'd hammer him on his inability to support or even understand the Martin Luther King Holiday and they'd eviscerate him on the circumstances of his first divorce and a thousand other things.

Then they'd innocently ask:

How does a man with so few accomplishments and so much personal and political baggage become the nominee of the Democratic Party?

And they'd pause... waiting... like a coiled adder under a pile of dry leaves.

Next they'd casually wonder, rhetorically speaking of course, if John McCain would be the nominee for the Democratic Party... if he'd even qualify as a United States Senator...
if he'd not spent significant time as a prisoner of war.

And then one of them... I suspect it would be Malkin... would say:

"Isn't John McCain LUCKY he was captured and tortured in Vietnam?"

Now the adder strikes and... suddenly... there's blood all over the ground.

"Has he USED his experience at the Hanoi Hilton for political gain?"

"Given his stance on torture, could it be that he has OVERSTATED how bad it was?"

"His frequent skin cancer... the condition with his arms... ARE THOSE REAL or is it possible that he knows... without them... he couldn't get elected dog catcher?"

"What kind of soulless, conscienceless individual could MANIPULATE his good fortune at getting to come home when so many were left behind?"

Take a candidates strength and try and incinerate it to little more then ash.

By the time the Republicans got done with Senator John McCain there would be privileged, old, women talking of their "captivity diets" as they showed off designer, period-era, prisoner garb to the national press on the convention floor.

I write the above, NOT BECAUSE I BELIEVE A SINGLE DISINGENUOUS WORD (as THEY would not believe a single disingenuous word), nor BECAUSE I ADVOCATE TRYING TO DESTROY JOHN McCAIN VIA THE ABOVE TACTICS, but... as fair warning going forward.

If... no WHEN... the Republicans try and turn Senator Obama's personal history against him... when they attempt to make his childhood poverty and his heritage and his skin color and his struggles as a community organizer... into a suggestion of liberal guilt or of preferential treatment or, most likely, of a signal that he is a Manchurian Candidate programmed to destroy America from within... we the people will engage and retaliate with furor and speed and, if necessary, with the kind of revisionist character-assassination that has been the only thing the Grand Old Party has succeeded at in the last twenty years.

Just so we're clear.

So, now we're THERE and though I STILL DON'T BELIEVE THE ABOVE IS A GOOD IDEA, I wish SOMEONE on a television SOMEWHERE would furrow a brow and mention the fact that, while the current REPUBLICAN candidate for President is using his military service as his way out... well... everything and anything, the last DEMOCRATIC candidate had his EQUALLY NOBLE SERVICE TO HIS COUNTRY turned into a personal cancer... the only difference being the depths the opposition party is willing to go descend in order to win an election?

And while we're at it:

Isn't it ironic that the GOP has picked a Vietnam Vet who married into big money...the very type of persona they rallied against in 2004.

I assume, then, we'll see more purple band-aids at next weeks Republican convention?

Keith?

Rachel?

Anyone?