It never stops...just when you think they can't get any lower, they dredge a little more slime out of the pond. Politico:

The Republican Party on Monday morning will make a new push to convince voters that distant ties between Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former radical William Ayers are somehow disqualifying for the presidency.

The Republican National Committee plans to e-mail “an audience of tens of millions” the link to a new video on the subject called “Guilt by Participation” and encourage recipients to forward it to friends and family, aides said.[..]

The 80-second video ends with a new slogan, a variation of one Republicans have used in the past: “Barack Obama: Career First. Country Second.” The slogan is likely to be used again, officials say.

The video flashes garish lettering like “WANTED BY FBI” and “DON’T REGRET SETTING BOMBS.”

The Obama campaign on Sunday released a roundup of media quotes headed “McCain's Strategy of Distracting From the Economy ... How's It Playing With Republicans?”: “In case you missed them, below are stories across the country voters are reading and hearing about McCain’s closing strategy, even conservative pundits, Republican officials and Republican voters are rejecting it."

Among those quoted was Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who said on “Fox News Sunday”: “[T]he main thing to say about these negative ads, which, I don’t think — almost none of them has been across the line — they haven't worked. Obama's favorable rating is as high as it's been in three months. It's actually gone up in the last month. So it's a stupid campaign.”

Hear that, guys? It's not working...McCain's numbers are sliding further and further down. So then it has to be asked: WHY would the RNC be launching an ad campaign not helpful--indeed, detrimental--to their candidate? If they're not interested in saving McCain's campaign, are they laying the foundation for four years of smears and distraction to an Obama presidency?

Politfact gives McCain (and now, the RNC) the official "Pants On Fire" seal for his attempt to tie Obama to Ayers.

  Read that headline twice. It might just be the dumbest statement made on television since Bush took office. After accusing Obama of voting to deny armor for the troops, Dick Morris tries to argue that Obama displayed poor judgment during the Georgian/Russian conflict because he pointed out that we would be in a stronger position to condemn Russia if we hadn't squandered our credibility by invading Iraq. After Colmes reminds him that Obama is right, Morris proceeds to make himself look even dumber by claiming we invaded Iraq at the invitation of Saddam Hussein. Huh?

Download | play   Download | play (videos and transcript courtesy of Heather)

Morris: You saw by these, these ill prepared reactions on Georgia. And you saw what he said today? Obama said that he understood that countries should not invade other countries and we would be in a better position to say that if we had not gone into Iraq.

 Colmes: Where is he wrong?

 Morris: Where he's wrong is that we went into Iraq at the invitation of the government. Not as an invasion.

 Colmes: We went to Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. [....]

 Morris: We're in Iraq now at the invitation of the government.

 Colmes: They've asked us to leave. They said there's a timeline to get us out.

 Morris: We're in Iraq as a result of a democracy asking for us to come in there. It's not an invasion. It's not a takeover. We're not trying to annex Iraq.

 Colmes: We went in there by our own...of our own. We went into Iraq originally. Not at the invitation of Saddam Hussein's government.

To recap: Obama doesn't want to protect the troops (he does); we invaded Iraq at the request of Saddam Hussein (we didn't); we're staying in Iraq because the Iraqis want us there (they don't); and America has the requisite credibility to scold other countries for doing exactly what we do (we don't). How much does FOX pay this clown?

Full transcript below:

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  "The Daily Show" was in top form last night as they called out every single cable news network for helping spread the myriad scurrilous and unfounded rumors about Senator Obama.

Download | play   Download | play   (h/t to the wonderful Heather)

Obama's camp initially agreed that the cartoon was "tasteless and offensive". Really? You know what your response should have been...let me put this statement out for you. Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists, of which Barack Obama is not. It's just a f%#!-ing cartoon! But as always, no where was the anger at the media hotter, than in the media.

Even though these coordinated lies about Barack Obama are shameful and disturbing, the fact remains that this presents a real problem for his campaign. According to a recent Newsweek poll, a whopping 29% of respondents said they believe Obama was raised a Muslim, while a significant 12% said Obama was sworn in on the Qur'an. Indeed, most of the reservations I hear from close friends about thier reluctance to vote for Obama revolve around their doubts about his "character," most of which are exacerbated by these deliberate and coordinated distortions.

This is where the whole New Yorker cartoon comes into play. Although many have argued that the whole controversy is a net gain for Obama -- because it vividly illustrated the absurdity of the lies, therefore debunking it on a wider scale than otherwise possible -- I tend to agree with those who think it's harmful to the cause of setting the record straight. Regardless of whether or not you found the satirical cover funny and clever, I fear it may have just reinforced the false impressions people may (or may not) have had.

In the end, though, it's almost kind of humorous. After the whole Jeremiah Wright saga, you would think everyone would recognize that Obama is, in fact, a Christian. I think Kos said it best when he wrote this:

[The Wright scandal] really puts Obama's smear merchants in a bind -- do they push false rumors that he's a secret Muslim bent on delivering America to Al Qaida, or is he a member of an intolerant and radical black Christian church?

While I know the crazies on the Right have a remarkable power to ignore the laws of reality, science, and logic in pursuit of their wrongheaded ideology, trying to float both these theories at once might be a stretch, even for them.

Unfortunately I think Markos may have misunderestimated the power of the right wing smear machine and its ability to convince more than a handful of people that both lies are simultaneously true.