Blowing every time they move their teeth

A fine editorial in the Washington Post this morning, on the subject of the Palin-McCain campaign's "increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks" against Illinois Senator Barack Obama:

Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable — especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults.

Much as I said yesterday. The Palin-McCain gang are a pretty pathetic bunch, if they cannot engage the views of Prof. Khalidi but rather are reduced to not only fabricating his own associations but erecting even more tenuous fabrications on top of those, in particular Senator McCain's comparison of Khalidi to "neo-Nazis."

Their entire campaign is simply an appeal to fear and ignorance.

More from Juan Cole.