Well, it had to happen sometime. The devil turned round on them.
Watching what they’re already calling theMacaca Moment of McCain, I’m admiring of the style of it, the way Obama’s campaign is taking advantage of every single aspect of a 21st century campaign: e-mail lists, viral videos, the way the national punditry loves a political attack disguised as a joke, the “did you hear?” level of knowledge you have to have in order to get something like this, to get all of it in one idle conversation with the person next to you at the haircut place. It’s the kind of thing we’ve spent the last three decades fending off from Republicans: Michael Dukakis looked silly in a tank. John Kerry went windsurfing. Al Gore invented the Internet. Entirely random events, used to bolster a kind of self-reinforcing narrative about the candidate that has nothing to do with governance in any way, shape or form.
It is exactly their weapon, turned around on them, and if anything surprised me this week it’s how pathetically unprepared for its effects they were. Come on, Republicans, you’ve spent years and years watching these entirely arbitrary bombs explode all around you, you should know that runningfull on ahead into the fusillade screaming wonky explanations isn’t the way to go. You’ve had a front-row seat for how well that’s worked out for us. You’ve banked on it, all these years.
A.