Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been Less Paranoid Than I Am?

In a statement by John Murtagh:

Barack Obama may have been a child when William Ayers was plotting attacks against U.S. targets - but I was one of those targets,

Imagine how different Murtagh's claim would sound if we just did little switching:

I may have been one of those targets when William Ayers was plotting attacks against the U.S. - but Barack Obama was a child.

Murtagh added: Barack Obama's friend tried to kill my family.

This recent use of the noun friend and the verb phrase palling around is sickening. It's the same type of thoughtless stoking that leads to pleas for ignorance like Carol Platt Liebau's.

It's disturbing to see how and why this story has kept its legs. It is born of a legacy in this country that I pray dies, sterile and cold. But this is the task, sanction by the Republicans, that John McCain has given to fear: Stop the voters from thinking. Make the hideous connections for them. If anyone does not blindly follow you to the pit of your mistrust, accuse them of supporting the cause of your fear. If anyone questions the extent of an influence, blame it on that very influence infecting their mind.

The appalled voice needs to re-emerge and demand once more

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.… Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?… If there is a G-d in heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good.