Despite Rove's Advice, McCain's Campaign Goes Dirty On Obama

Less than a month ago, the alleged brain of Bush warned his fellow Republicans to not play dirty with Obama in regards to his race and ethnicity. He used the example of Senator Obama's middle name, but perhaps he wasn't being clear enough with the McCain campaign. Even though McCain himself said that the Rev. Wright comments should not be held against his opponent, his aide Soren Dayton certainly didn't get the message clearly, since he was caught circulating a racially-charged video of the Senator from Illinois.

From Talking Points Memo:

The move by McCain's aide could create controversy for the McCain camp, because the video itself is thoroughly reprehensible -- it interweaves footage of Obama explaining why he won't wear the American flag pin, Wright saying "God damn America," Malcolm X, and Obama's wife saying that his candidacy has made her proud of America for the "first time."[...]

That McCain's campaign aide spread this runs directly counter to what McCain himself has said about the Wright controversy. He suggested in a recent interview that Obama shouldn't be held liable for his pastor's views, and a top aide to McCain, Charlie Black, also recently suggested that McCain didn't believe in trafficking in such stuff.

Dayton posted the following on his own page at Twitter, a blog-hosting site.

Dayton described the video as a "good video on Obama and Wright." The link he provided leads to the Wright mash-up video on Youtube. A short time later the post was abruptly removed from his site, and an hour or so later, after I asked the McCain campaign for comment , Dayton's whole account was deleted.

And now he has been reprimanded and suspended, but not fired from the campaign. Why he wasn't fired is an odd move, but where the video came from is far from surprising.