The Willie Horton Ad

Friends my age likely recall the infamous Willie Horton ad from 1988 which George HW Bush used so effectively against Mike Dukakis. In the ad Bush successfully tied Dukakis to a released Massachusetts, African-American inmate who committed heinous crimes post release from his initial incarceration.

McCain has issued his 2008 incarnation in the form of an ad portraying Barack Obama (no need to use a surrogate since he is already black and all) as a proponent of teaching presumeably creepy sex ed to kindegartners.

I have attached some commentary from various sites who are more articulate than moi, I will note only the supreme hypocrisy of McCain. The same John McCain who was portrayed in the Spring of 2000 by his now close political ally, W. Bush as the illegitimate father of a black child prior to the then crucial South Carolina primary. Since the McCains had adopted a dark skinned Bangladeshi the Bushies saw an opening to take facts and utterly mis-construe them.

Would love to hear one of my Republican friends defend the ad.

From the Economist:
"Ah, but there is low and there is looooow...the McCain campaign released an ad yesterday that I can only describe as one of the sleaziest political spots I have ever seen. (The first time I saw it I actually thought it was a "Daily Show" spoof.)

The ad says Mr Obama voted to teach "comprehensive sex education to kindergartners." But what the referenced legislation actually would've done (it never came up for a full vote) is to allow schools to teach "age-appropriate" sex education and tell young children how to guard against sexual predation and inappropriate touching. (McClatchy has a factcheck here—it's something even the Cub Scouts do.) This, of course, makes Mr Obama a pervert in Mr McCain's world.

It's all too easy to blame such dirty tactics on Steve Schmidt, Mr McCain's Rovian chief strategist, or some other campaign hack, but in the end this is John McCain's show and he's turned it into low-brow burlesque theatre. It's a parody of the dirty campaigns that preceded it, with many of the same cast and crew. Mr McCain's campaign was supposed to be different, wasn't it? Win or lose, it's somewhat tragic to see a once-honourable man sink this low."

From Anne Marie Cox at Time:
"A different category of dumb charge. This one very much intentionally ginned up by the McCain camp, and the Obama camp is justified in being outraged over its implication that Obama is some kind of deviancy advocate. It was just as dumb and just as calculated when the Romney people were pushing it during the primaries. And the same argument for Obama's ACTUAL position still stands: “Child predators really prey on the ignorance of children. And the kind of education that Obama’s supporting is something that would actually put weapons in the hands of children in the form of knowledge.” In this case, however, I doubt that anyone will turn up proof -- as they did with Romney -- that McCain was once in favor of the same kind of education. As that would suggest McCain once was in favor of SOME kind of sex education.

The actual ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVLQhRiEXZs&eurl=http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/09/they_cant_be_serious.cfm