We’ve seen this before from the McCain campaign, its Maverick-y process of rationalization. When Obama didn’t agree to McCain’s call for a series of 80 town halls, the McCain campaign used this as a justification to make nasty shit up about Obama, such as “Obama wants to teach your kindergartners how to bang each other.” When the Obama campaign made fun of McCain’s ~7 houses, the McCain campaign considered this an insult to Cindy McCain — wives are off-limits! — and responded with its first ad about, uh, Tony Rezko. And now we come to the present situation, in which the McCain campaign is using a random Congressman’s weekend rant to justify its upcoming usage of Jeremiah Wright. MORE »

What is the world coming to when the ladies on The View ask John McCain the toughest questions he’s gotten in weeks? And yet even these hardened journalists don’t follow up on one of his most infuriating talking points of this whole infuriating campaign, which is that he had to start running ads that were complete utter laughable bullshit lies because Obama didn’t want to debate him as often as McCain would have liked. This is akin to saying, “I was forced to smother your house in a truckload of diarrhea because you wouldn’t answer my phone calls.” Anyhow, here he is, squirming despicably. [Huffington Post]

• THE FREE MARKET, IT WORKS!: All of you gossip hounds probably know this already, but the website for popular celebrity magazine Us Weekly is actually “UsMagazine.com,” whereas “UsWeekly.com” is, well, an anti-Obama smear site. Oh it’s talking about liberation theology… oh my. [The Frisky]

Wonkette email operative “Bob,” like many Americans, has received an email claiming that Obama is a Muslim, a.k.a. Not American. These patriotic emails are the only way to stop the Obama Conspiracy that threatens to Blackify our government. But Bob, most likely a Liberal, was not so sure he wanted to accept the email as truth, so he replied to the sender that Obama is not a Muslim, and if he were a Muslim that would be acceptable. For this, Bob received the reply, “whatever, he’s not american, white or black……” Despite the authoritative double ellipsis, “Arugula Bob” still couldn’t understand. And that prompted a longer response from the Smearer to Bob, which we have copy-pasted below the jump. MORE »

Here’s an independent ad that was running in South Dakota before its June 3 primary from some Christian group, against Barack Obama. The Obama team complained about it shortly after its debut, and Obama has been referencing it recently as a typical attack ad he’ll see more of this fall. But he doesn’t mention how funny it is! The basic idea here: Obama is like a slave in the Underground Railroad, and when he escapes to the North, he and his crazy black church preacher institute a Muslim theocracy. Well *sorry*, Mr. Sensitive Luo Tribesman, we thought the people of South Dakota would’ve wanted to know this information before voting. STOLEN ELECTION. [YouTube]

OMG Obama’s first general election ad. In case the reality of this election hasn’t fully sunk in for you yet, this ad should do it: every second of the next 4.5 months will be Barack Obama trying to convince old white Democratic-leaning voters in western Pennsylvania that he doesn’t want to blow up their houses in the name of Allah and/or O.J. Simpson. This election will literally be about that and nothing else. [YouTube]

We all remember Fred Hobbs, the proud member of Tennessee’s Democratic Executive Committee who recently confessed that he thought Barack Obama was “terrorist-connected.” He has been apologizing all week, and in a letter to colleagues he explained what was running through his mind: his comments “did reflect questions I had after what I had seen reported on Fox News, but I should have taken some time to check the accuracy of what I saw on television before speaking publicly.” Fred added that he also doesn’t know how to drink water or walk without falling sideways, or whatever it is the human beings are doing these days. [Chattanooga Times Free Press]

Well. The National Press Club, Washington’s very Esteemed Lunch Club for reporters, has allowed Larry Sinclair to book 2.5 hours worth of prime real estate on June 18. Larry Sinclair is the guy who claimed he had hot gay blowjobs and did coke with Barack Obama in a hilariously fabricated YouTube video, and hasn’t given up his efforts, despite failing a lie detector test. Normally we think petitions are boring, but, well, sign this fucking petition. [Firedoglake]

“Mr. Sensitive” over here, Barack Obama, has launched a creepy new website to tackle the various Smears about him that have reached unforeseen levels of ubiquity among AOL e-mail accounts. It features a number of neon blue bald eagles flying around for The Truth. It also calls GOP operative Roger Stone a “sleazemeister,” which is a pretty funny made-up word. And that’s why he’s a Muslim. [Fight the Smears]

This rapidly circulating flyer was seen ON THE DESK OF Bill Sandifer, a Republican South Carolina state representative. Can you see how horribly non-racially transcendent it is already? MORE »

Between Bill Cunningham and the Tennessee Republican party, there sure have been a lot of Rovian Attacks(TM) on Barack Obama’s middle name, “Hussein,” in the last day or so. It’s signaled new vistas for the Internet, as “Hussein” has already been institutionalized as a verb — like “Swift Boat,” which was also a hilarious verb. But not every Republican operative thinks this Rovian Attack is the best way to go at Obama. A promising, young strategist named Karl Rove, of Texas, thinks that Rovian Politics might do more harm to the GOP than Barack Obama in the general election. Can this upstart Karl Rove rid the party of Rovian Politics? MORE »