The McCain camp, or should I say the Hannity campaign of PA released a vile press release that says: A TERRORIST'S BEST FRIEND." That's pretty disgusting even by Rovian standards. A C&L reader sent this in as a response to the despicable politics the GOP has resorted to as McCain has fallen in the polls.

Tonight is the second Presidential debate, and the race has changed dramatically since the last one. Sarah Palin lost her bid to become viable in the VP debate according to all polls, and the McCain strategy has turned ugly. In PA, the GOP is taking the "terrorist" guilt by association a step further, and saying that Ayers was his "best friend." The campaign and the GOP are successfully whipping their accolytes and sheep into a frenzy as we saw at two rallies Monday.

The train has left the station, the media will get on board, and there is a real potential for this type of crap to have a serious impact on the outcome in less than thirty days, unless ...

UNLESS Barack Obama confronts this crap head on and in person, and makes McCain own up to this type of character assasination. Senator McCain has said numerous times that he intends to run an "respectful" campaign, his wife Cindy went on the Today Show and said that there will be no negative campaigning from their side. Well, we know that's out the window, and it will continue no matter what happens.

But Barack Obama has the opportunity to call Senator McCain out at this debate and if he doesn't, he will put his historic campaign at risk. They have learned the lesson of the swiftboating of '04, and put out a good response with the Keating Five video, but that's not enough. They need to remember the lesson of '88 and FIGHT BACK. Dukakis lost that race when he looked weak on the "rape and murder" question. Obama can't look weak in the face of these people questioning his character and claiming that he pals around with terrorists. American's want to know that the person they are voting for will fight for what they believe in, and if you can't defend your honor it's hard to believe you will fight hard for anything else.

He did it once for his wife, and he needs to come out swinging for himself!