The Discerning Texan

So I guess Saint John has come to the momentous decision that he actually can exploit the weaknesses of his opponent by pointing them out (or at least he will now allow others to point them out, so that McCain doesn't soil his own precious PC bona fides). How big of him to actually to allow people working for him to try and defeat the Democrats without his holier-than-thou campaign having a canyption fit about it...

Well it's a start, anyway. Meanwhile, Obama cannot run fast enough from his intimate friendships with Marxists, race bigots and terrorists (via Belmont Club):

Byron York, at The Corner on National Review Online says that under pressure, John McCain has allowed that the "Rev. Wright Is An Issue, After All".

John McCain, stung by criticism on the right that he seems unwilling to go after Barack Obama on the Jeremiah Wright issue, is changing course. The McCain campaign, latching onto Obama's comment this morning on "Fox News Sunday" that Wright's comments are "a legitimate political issue," is sending around a transcript of McCain's comments at a press conference in Florida today.

One of the nice things about a democracy is that politicians, to a certain degree, listen to their constituents. With the MSM force field leaking in places, politicians are simply forced to respond to things they'd rather not and explore issues they wish they wouldn't. For example, Glenn Reynolds has a mini-roundup suggesting that Barack Obama is belatedly trying to distance himself from his radical base. And the pro-Hillary blogs have discovered the Obama-Ayers connection and are mining it for all it's worth.

Watching McCain operate in a campaign that your side absolutely has to win is sort of like having your wisdom teeth cut out every single day; the pain killers (or in this case, the Xanax...) may help--but it is only masking the pain to come. I am beginning to think that if I am actually going to be able to muster the enormous strength it is going to take for me to vote for McCain in November, I would be much better off ignoring any and news about him at all... (good luck with that...)

UPDATE: The Editors of National Review state the case about at well as it can be stated:

Obama’s relationship to Wright is relevant to his judgment, character, and — in his explanations of what he knew and when about Wright — his honesty. Are we to ignore all this because Wright is black? Are only videos of white pastors damning America fit for airwaves? It’s not Wright’s race that matters, but his racist and anti-American rantings.

We understand McCain’s desire to steer well clear of any racial foul-play, but there’s none in the ad and he’s foolish to be pushed into the position of speech cop for every other Republican in the country. It’s unclear what McCain’s principled standard for criticism of Obama is. The Illinois senator has a closer relationship to Wright than former terrorist William Ayers, but McCain has seen fit to condemn the latter association.

From now until November, any Republican criticizing Wright will be accused of playing the race card. It’s a way to shut down discussion of Wright’s poisonous worldview, and of what it says about Obama. These rules stack the deck and stifle legitimate debate. Republicans must reject them.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs nails it pretty well too.

The New York Times says this ad is race-baiting. Ann Althouse disagrees. Given that the ad doesn't mention race at all, the NYT apparently thinks it is "race-baiting" to show a picture of an African-American man in a campaign ad about an African-American candidate. Which, if you take the NYT's logic to its extreme, must mean that the NYT thinks all of Barack Obama's ads in which Obama is pictured are "race-baiting."