I wonder if McCain really listens to himself when he talks, or does he, like Peter Griffin, just sort of drift in and out every now and then? More to the point, does he listen to Palin?

The McCain/Palin ticket, languishing in the polls at 42-50, has announced that they’re going to go really negative and attack Obama’s character. I guess they didn’t take into account the fact that announcing their new strategy gives the Obama campaign — never ones to let something like this slide — a chance to launch a pre-emptive counterstrike. Before McCain’s new set of ads come out, Obama’s campaign has already launched an ad emphasizing McCain’s erratic behavior during the recent economic crisis. Expect Obama to put out more such ads.

Meanwhile, Palin has decided to play the terrorist card, attacking Obama’s association with William Ayers, one of the founding members of the Weather Underground. Never mind that Ayers has been, since the 60’s, a respected professor of philosophy and an ardent politician (having worked closely with the Chicago mayor’s office to bring about school reform, for example), or that Obama’s association with Ayers was limited to working on two fundraising boards with him and living in the same neighborhood. These facts are supposed to be irrelevant; the point is, Palin insists, that Obama was “palling around” with terrorists.

Well, okay, I suppose that’s fine. But if they’re going to play the terrorist/anti-American card, they should expect to have it played back at them. For example, there’s John McCain’s association with G. Gordon Liddy, one of the men convicted of crimes surrounding Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Liddy served four years for his crime, and extolled more crimes in the name of subverting the Constitution. Said scandal, of course, led to Richard Nixon’s resignation. Liddy is now a conservative radio host, and McCain and Liddy apparently have a close relationship. Of course, Liddy’s radicalism never led to more than a breakin and time served.

Then, of course, there’s Palin’s association with the Alaskan Independence Party. The McCain/Palin campaign has delivered Palin’s voter registration history, showing that she was never a member of the party, but so what? Obama was never a member of the Weather Underground, but that hasn’t stopped Palin. Joe Vogler, founder of the AIP, made a number of statement extolling his hatred of the federal government and the “damn flag”. Palin was never a member, but the fact is her husband was a member for seven years, and she herself contributed to them.

Personally, I don’t care. Ayers’s radical past is behind him. Liddy has served his time. Palin’s association with the AIP ended several years ago. People and their ideologies change, and what matters in an election is the candidate and who they are now. Are any Republicans ever going to disallow Lieberman because he once embraced Democratic ideals? No, I didn’t think so.

Glass houses, stones. That’s all I’m sayin’.