Guilt by association
"Guilt by association is not only a valid campaign tactic, but it is also a necessary ingredient to getting to know a candidate."
--Bobby Eberle, president and CEO of GOP USA, 4-24-08
It's not often you read a straight-out defense of right-wing smear tactics like this, but here's the post it came from. This could have come straight from the playbook of the old smearmeister himself, the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin. GOP USA is not the national party organization, but rather a far right group that works to advance conservative "ideals," according to its website.
Eberle, who is said to have once employed fake journalist and former gay male escort "Jeff Gannon" in his Talon News Service (gay by association?), was defending a sleazy new TV ad being run in North Carolina by the state Republican Party against two Democratic gubernatorial candidates, but which ultimately targets Barack Obama. The ad, which you can view on the link in the second paragraph, notes that these two candidates support Obama, who in turn "supports" Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the soon-to-be Willie Horton of the 2008 campaign. As you may have heard, Rev. Wright, pastor of the church Obama attends, goes off on radical tangents on rare occasions, saying things that many black people believe but which tend to outrage whitey.
(Just as an aside, if everyone quit their place of worship when the preacher, rabbi, or imam said something they didn't like, the world would look like a Keystone Kops routine. People belong to churches, synagogues and mosques and support them for more reasons than who's giving the sermons).
Sen. John McCain, who may be worried about ads linking him to people like Charles Keating, has condemned the ad, as have some other national Republicans, which upset Eberle to no end. But McCain can't really control this sort of hate-mongering, and we can expect more of these Six Degrees of Separation ads linking Democratic candidates, through Obama, to everyone from Adolph Hitler to people who club baby seals. The sense of shame that once made people hide their support for slimeball tactics like this has been replaced by an ethos of, if it works for us, it is good for us.
The key is to not let it work for anyone.