Victor Davis Hanson: Has McCain been mean?

On CNN last evening both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the "old" noble McCain is gone-and a "new" nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops.

Recently Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama, likewise lamenting the loss of the old noble McCain. New York Times columnist David Brooks dubbed Palin a "cancer," and he suggested that Obama's instant recall of Niehbuhr sent a tingle up his leg as Obama once did to Chris Matthews as well.


A couple of thoughts: the George Bush, Sr. / Willie Horton campaign was far tougher; so were the Bush 2000/2004 efforts. If anything, McCain's campaign is subdued in comparison to what we've seen on both sides in past years. Indeed, McCain as a vicious campaigner is a complete fabrication, but, again, a brilliant subterfuge on the part of Team Obama that, in fact, has run, via appendages, the far more vicious race.

Obama and his surrogates have repeatedly engaged in racial politics (as Bill Clinton lamented when in fury he denounced the "race card"). When there was never evidence that McCain was using race as a wedge issue, it was clear Obama most surely was--preemptively, on at least two occasions--warning Americans he would soon be the victim of opposition racial stereotyping.

His surrogates like Biden and those in the Senate continue to link legitimate worries about Obama's past with racism. Second, for about 3 months all we've heard are references to McCain's age, with adjectives and phrases like confused, can't remember any more, disturbed, lost his bearings, etc.

Moreover, so far, McCain supporters have not broken into Biden's email, or accused Biden of being a Nazi, or accused anyone of not bearing one of their own children, or photo-shopped grotesque pictures of Obama on the Internet (as in the Atlantic magazine case). I don't think deranged McCain supporters in Hollywood or television almost daily are quoted as damning Obama in unusually crude terms. Nor are white racist ministers calling McCain a 'messiah' or McCain operatives fraudulently swarming voter registration centers. And on and on....