Politics and Culture

Story here.

Liberal radio host Ed Schultz, warming up the crowd at an Obama fundraiser in North Dakota on Friday, calls John McCain a "warmonger." Obama isn't there, arrives later. McCain's campaign calls on Obama's campaign to denounce it. Obama's campaign does:

“John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such. He’s a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged.”

Not good enough! This afternoon the McCain campaign is still on it: "This issue won’t be closed until Barack Obama personally and publicly repudiates this smear attack."

McCain does excellently here, forcing Obama to be the "different" kind of candidate he insists he is- keeping him on the defensive. "We should each repudiate attacks on each other's honor and make this campaign on the issues, McCain should continue."

Avoidance of personal attacks hurts Democrats more as a big part of their strategy is dismissing Republicans as mean haters; just listen to any Howard Dean statement of the past four years. Lefties would fume were they to hear Obama say that a Republican has any shred of humanity. Remember how Clinton attacked Obama for some faint words of praise for Ronald Reagan.

The next thing McCain should have Obama concede is that they both care about the economy, but have developed different approaches to the problem.

After that, how about asking them to condemn the Moveon.org, "General Betray Us" ad?