The McCain campaign is crossing the line from exciting their supporters to inciting them. They do not bear responsibility for everything the dumbasses at their rallies do, but they do bear responsibility for whipping them up and not reining them back in when they cross the line.

Some of the most incendiary rhetoric at the McCain/Palin rallies comes from the people who introduce the candidates. Those are the ones who call him Barack Hussein Obama and question whether he is really a Christian. That kind of crap is someting McCain can control --- he can either expalin the acceptable limits of behavior to these people before he puts them on the stage, or he can cut them off when they veer into the hate-speak. It is pure BS to say he can't control that.

A typical McCain/Palin rally these days seems to start with someone referring to Barack Hussein Obama and questioning whether he is really a Christian. Then Palin goes on stage and says Obama "pals around with terrorists." Then McCain goes on and says Obama is not being truthful, he has "secrets," and then he asks "who is the REAL Barack Obama?" Why are they surprised when the answer the crowd gives them is "terrorist", "Arab", and "traitor?" Why are they surprised people yell "kill him" and "off with his head?" If you tell an angry frustrated crowd that Obama has a muslim name, he's not really a Christian, he pals around with terrorists, and he has secrets, then you bear some responisibiltiy if they think he is an Arab terrorist traitor who should be killed.

After things started to get really ugly at the rallies last week, the McCain camapign started to back off on some of this hateful behavior. McCain corrected one woman last week when she said Obama was an Arab. The fact is that things were gettng so far out of hand that people were getting really turned off by the xenophopbia they were seeing at these rallies. It started hurting the campaign, so they backed it off a few notches.

The Obama campaign has been criticising McCain for the guilt-by-association tactics with Ayers, and now McCain has said he plans to bring up the Ayers link at the debate tonight. I think they are laying a trap for McCain, and it will be interesting to see if he takes the bait. If he does, there are a thousand ways Obama can use it against McCain, but if he doesn't bring it up, his base who is dying for him to do it will be totally pissed off. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, McCain!

McCain created this situation, so I think it is great that it is backfiring on him.