NOT THAT "A" SLEAZE -- THE OTHER "A" SLEAZE

The blogosphere is focused on the fact that John McCain just told a radio interviewer that he'll talk about Bill Ayers in tomorrow night's debate -- but I have a feeling he'll merely repeat the line he and his campaign staff have robotically offered every time the subject has come up recently, namely that Ayers's organization bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol but McCain doesn't care about "an old washed-up terrorist" -- and then pivot into ACORN.

It all depends on whether McCain and his team are truly in sync with Sarah Palin and her allies and admirers in the wingnuttosphere, who seem even more obsessed with ACORN than they are with Ayers. Today, on Rush Limbaugh's show, Palin uttered the word "Ayers" only once, but "ACORN" four times:

GOVERNOR PALIN: ... Now, yes, speaking of some of those associations -- and you're right; mainstream media is not holding Barack Obama accountable -- let's talk quickly about ACORN and the unconscionable situation that we're facing right now with voter fraud. And given the ties between Obama and ACORN and the money that his campaign has sent them and the job that he had with them in the past, Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN and prove that he's willing to fight voter fraud. We called him on it.

RUSH: He's not going to do that. He's been paying for them.

GOVERNOR PALIN: (laughing) Yeah. Right.

RUSH: He's not going to rein them in! This is why you guys have to have the responsibility. Obama is not going to do anything to harm himself.

GOVERNOR PALIN: Well, here's the deal then. We call him on it again today, right, as we did almost a month ago. We reached out to Obama and we said that there has to be an effort to cooperate on potential voter fraud. That was a month ago. It wouldn't surprise you, of course, that we haven't received a response from back then. But again, though, calling him on it again today -- and for shame if the mainstream media were to cover this one up! There's already been too much ignorance, ignoring of, his associations with Bill Ayers and with others in the past. But this ACORN stuff, it is unconscionable.

Note, by the way, that, according to Palin, it's Obama's job "to rein in ACORN." What, you say, Obama doesn't actually run ACORN? Nitpicker! Aren't all the ACORN people we've seen in news stories black? And isn't Obama black? Aren't all black people responsible for anything any black person does? Of course it's Obama's job!

I wonder if McCain, the guy who (sort of) suspended his convention and (sort of) suspended his campaign, is considering an attempt to suspend the vote (or at least discredit it) on Election Day. Could that be what McCain advisers have in mind when they "say they're saving their best material for the last ten days"?