McCAIN CAMP PLANTS QUESTION SO "PLUMBER" CAN PLAY THE HITLER CARD AGAINST OBAMA

Wow, this is quintessential McCain: media-bashing, hypocrisy, fear-mongering, McCarthyism ... along with incompetent briefing of a messenger and, probably, internal friction. You could take a DNA sample from this moment and clone the entire McCain campaign.

First there was this:

John McCain's campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release a video of a party for a prominent Palestinian activist that Barack Obama attended in 2003.

The Times described the going-away party for former University of Chicago professor, and Obama friend, Rashid Khalidi, in a story in April. The story reported that Palestinians thought they might have a friend in Obama because of his friendships in that community, despite the fact that his positions have never been particularly pro-Palestinian.

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb....

The campaign hadn't previously demanded the video....

(Never mind the fact that a group McCain chaired in the 1990s gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to Khalidi.)

Then -- by astonishing coincidence -- "Joe" "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, while campaigning for McCain, was asked about Israel, of all things:

Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," on Tuesday ... agreed with a claim from an audience member at a John McCain rally that "a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for the death to Israel."

... At a stop in Columbus, he fielded the question on Israel from a self-identified Jewish senior citizen.

The questioner said he was "concerned" with Barack Obama's associations and "It's my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel."

Wurzelbacher responded: "I do know that." ...

Obama-equals-Holocaust is obviously a key message for the last week of the campaign. Obviously the questioner was a plant. But why plant the question for Wurzelbacher?

The obvious answer is that the McCainiacs think Wurzelbacher is a more reliable hatchetperson for them than Sarah Palin (even though you'd think she could deliver this message, given her boast on more than one occasion that she loves Israel and keeps an Israeli flag in her Alaska office). Oh, and maybe Joe Lieberman is trying to slink back into the Democratic Party's good graces, so he didn't want to go there.

Problem is, they sent Wurzelbacher out to do this, and then he wound up on Fox News -- but it didn't go well:

...The push-back against Wurzelbacher's comments began, somewhat unexpectedly, at Fox News.

... Shepard Smith pressed Wurzelbacher on his comments, reminding the woefully misinformed McCain backer that Obama has consistently voiced support for Israel. Pressed several times to explain how he could agree with the conclusion that Obama would lead to the death of the Jewish state, Wurzelbacher was unable to come up with any good reasons aside from Obama's position in favor of negotiating with rogue regimes such as Iran.

"You don't want my opinion on foreign policy," Wurzelbacher said. "I know just enough to kind of be dangerous." ...

Yeah, watch the clip -- Wurzelbacher has been given no talking points, and can't come up with anything on his own. And Smith was very tough on Wuirzelbacher, something no one in the McCain camp foresaw, apparently:



Exceedingly nasty and exceedingly clumsy. Just another day at the office for the McCain campaign.

****

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: I see that the 2012 GOP ticket, Palin/Wurzelbacher, is campaigning together, and now Palin is, in fact, playing the Hitler card. Click on the link for details. Joe McCarthy is popping a Viagra somewhere in Hell.