Note to Barack Obama: You cannot be civilized with these people

Now do you understand that trying to bob and weave and dodge the poisoned darts that the Republicans are throwing at you; that shaking your head ruefully and speaking with great poise and dignity about how "disappointed" you are with McCain, is NOT the way to deal with these people?

How many elections of Democrats taking the high road and claiming that Americans are "too smart to fall for this" does it take before you realize that no, they aren't. Or even if they are, they CHOOSE to fall for it. They choose to fall for it the same way a sizable number have chosen to believe that you are a Muslim spy, that you aren't really a native-born American citizen (funny how that never bothered them during the Great Arnold-for-President frenzy of 2007), and now, apparently, that you have murdered untold numbers of people.

Republicans know what Americans will believe. They understand that small, mean, scared part of the human brain that Rod Serling so deftly pointed out in the classic Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street". They understand how when faced with a choice between more of the same, even if the same is bad, and a change that can in any way be portrayed as Really, Really Scary, more of the same wins every time. Because Americans hate risk, and we hate change, and we hate difference.

Look at how children are being raised today. Yesterday I wrote about the body armor and the car seats and the antibacterial wipes, but there's more. There are the kids who aren't allowed to play in their own yards because Mom is terrified after watching too much television news that predators lurk behind every tree, ready to take their children. There are the kids whose parents call every day because they're frantic with worry. And yet, these same parents push their kids into youth sports without caring about the backgrounds of the coaches or the lead leaching from the artificial turf that cronies of the local government put down. They feed them soda and Lunchables and fast food. They delude themselves that Fruit Roll-Ups are just as good as fruit. They're ignorant of the radiation emanating from their granite countertops in their gourmet kitchens. So it isn't about the safety, it's really about the fear.

And as we all know, fear works. And when you combine fear of change (new, not well-known, young) with racism (black) and ignorance (Muslim charges), and throw it into a media maw that has demonstrated quite clearly that its masters WILL have John McCain in the White House, you have the environment in which McCain can get away with this:

A new McCain ad that began airing Saturday in selected markets also chides Obama as disrespectful for making "time to go to the gym" during his European visit while at the same time canceling the visit with wounded troops.

"Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras," according to the ad, which is being televised in Colorado, Pennsylvania and the Washington D.C. area. "John McCain is always there for our troops."

McCain himself joined in the rebuke, saying in an interview to be aired Sunday by ABC's "This Week" that "if I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn't visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event."

And because Charlie Gibson and George Suckupagus are firmly in the tank for McCain, you can bet that there will be absolutely no questioning about MCain's implication that NOTHING will get in the way of HIS photo-op -- not even the whether the use of “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead” is appropriate.

Senator, your campaign's pinky-in-the-air response:

"Senator McCain knows full well that Senator Obama strongly supports and honors our troops, which is what makes this attack so disingenuous. This politicization of our soldiers is exactly what Senator Obama sought to avoid,"

...is exactly what the Republicans expect from you. It is the presidential campaign equivalent of the Sternly Worded Letter from Congress™ -- and you see how far that's gotten the Senate and House in getting any cooperation from the Bush Administration.

If this is how your campaign is going to handle these outrages in the fall, then you might as well throw in the towel before the convention even happens. Because history has shown that whether you find it distasteful or not, and even whether Americans find it distasteful or not, when push comes to shove, they will vote for the sleazy, lying, dirty campaigner over the classy guy who think intelligent people of goodwill can disagree every single time.