The issue is the double-standard of the media. Can you doubt that a Republican in this situation would have made the front page for weeks? Didn't the Palin Flap show you anything about what REAL digging looks like when the media is inspired to do it? The people doing the investigating, because the media won't, were interviewed extensively for this article. None of their material was used. The conclusions was decided long before the story was written.

Look, I don't think Ayers should be the major feature of McCain's campaign. I think Obama's radical foundations are a legitimate issue, but if you get bogged down in one specific case, that overall message is lost.

My personal fantasy is that McCain and his campaign had the conservative credentials to mount a philosophically and intellectually based discussion of the economy and why statist ideas have gotten us where we are today.

Guess what: they don't have that kind of intellectual ammunition, and if they do have access to it, they're not listening to it. McCain is an economic pragmatist, like Nixon, and is likely to do anything as President (remember Nixon's wage-price controls?) The Republicans have nobody in the bullpen ready to take up that mantle, although there are some potentials in the House and a governor or two. (Not Palin, not in this arena).

On the other hand, I know exactly what Obama's and Biden's economic principles are. Or more accurately, are not. Unfortunately populist "eat the rich" rhetoric is very attractive to frightened voters. There's a reason so many government-controlled economies raise their ugly heads in our world, and somehow nobody ever seems to learn from the inevitable results.