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Barack Hussein Obama for President? There was a gasp from the crowd at Fox News...

Well, now that the Democrats and Republicans have chosen their horses, the gloves have come off. The Republican attack machine took a little while to warm up, and understandably so. You had to be careful attacking Hussein Obama. You might get called a racist, and if such a tag sticks in the 21st century, you are finished.

So the Republicans took a few jabs to see what would fly. The press is OK with: not patriotic,
elitist, presumptuous, inexperienced, untested. Never mind that all of these accusations have racist overtones. Accusing the Republican attack machine of racism would miss the point. The point is to destroy him, by any means necessary. If calling Obama a "racist cracker" would work, they would do it. Certainly the Republicans hope to connect with an unconscious sentiment that this uppity black man is getting too big for his britches. Hence, the suggestion that John McCain is an regular guy, Joe-average. This is simply a play out of the Clinton handbook. Recall that Hillary Clinton, product of an elite private school, former first lady and New York State Senator, was swilling beer and bourbon at the blue collar happy hour by the end of her campaign.

This is where it gets interesting. Anyone watching these days would note how truth is turned completely on its head in American presidential elections. Somehow, the son of a Navy Admiral, and life-time Washington politician and insider, is the Joe-average six-pack.

And the guy who was raised by a single mom, at times on welfare, is elitist.

Oddly, both Republicans and Democrats ought to be relieved that the other sides chose moderate politicians with records of rational decision making. But Republicans in particular have decided that only a scorched earth policy can play this season. They accuse Obama of being the most liberal politician in Washington DC, which is of course, non-sense. This is now simply the mantra of the Republicans before every presidential election. The Democrats could choose Hitler as their candidate and the Republicans would accuse him of being the most liberal Nazi of all time.

The real pity here is that the issues facing the nation are staggering, and a healthy debate of these issues would do wonders for the national psyche. Instead, the Republicans have decided to rely on these curious insinuations: he is presumptuous. Frankly, I am not even sure what that would mean in this context.