McCain's latest flip flop is his darkest and most cowardly

McCain's Chilling Dance With the Dark Side

So the McCain camp is trying to raise doubts about Barack Obama -- even though the Illinois senator has been on the national stage for four years and has been under the presidential campaign microscope for the last 20 months. They seem to have no qualms appealing to the cultural fears of their agitated, and now energized, base by practically branding Obama as un-American or anti-American. And this is eliciting an ugliness at McCain-Palin events that is justifiably raising alarms that some nut job is going to act on the Republican ticket's cynical campaigning.

For two days now, there have been stories about boisterous McCain-Palin supporters screaming inflammatory words at the very mention of Obama's name. Words like "terrorist" and "Kill him!" and "treason." And at no point has McCain or Palin called on those folks and others who would imitate them to stop. It reminds me of McCain's laughing response, during the primaries, when a South Carolina supporter asked, in reference to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?"

Judging by this picture -- taken on Oct. 5 on Mickle Hill Road in Warren County, Pa., by Maryland resident Kurt Kolaja, who was attending a wedding in the area -- the McCain campaign is tapping into an even more unsavory strain of anger within the electorate.

Or how about this one, taken just down the road by Kolaja's daughter?

We've seen the destructive power of words. Remember when right-wing elements of the Grand Old Party stoked anti-government paranoia with talk of black helicopters enforcing Washington regulations? The party's blind-eye assent to this ended on April 19, 1995, when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blew up Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 800 others.

Just as it wouldn't be inappropriate to raise questions about McCain's association with G. Gordon Liddy, the convicted Watergate burglar whose colorful history includes telling listeners to his radio show in 1994 to shoot federal agents in the head. When McCain went on Liddy's radio show in November 2007, he told Liddy, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family... It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

The New York Daily News reported this week that a "top McCain strategist" said, "It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice. If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

If they keep doing what they're doing, they'll deserve to lose.