REPUBLICANS BLAMING McCAIN HIMSELF FOR THE VICIOUS AND RACIST CAMPAIGN AGAINST MICHELLE OBAMA

Filmmaker Frank Schaeffer blogs at HuffPo but he's a lifelong conservative. (He recently re-registered as an independent.) Like longtime GOP operative Mark McKinnon, who quit the McCain campaign after he saw the vicious attack plans drawn up to destroy Obama and his family, Schaeffer is sickened by the demonization McCain partisans are using against Obama and his wife. (Today Senator Obama said he was deeply disappointed that McCain is sitting by while his supports make up the most vicious and psychotic stories about Michelle Obama. (They're also making up vicious and psychotic stories about the Senator too-- but we expect that from Republicans. One of them was arrested today.)

Michelle Obama is the most attractive aspect of Senator Obama's presidential race. She is the jewel in the crown of a beautiful and exemplary family, the kind of family that "family values" Republicans such as myself are supposed to revere. The fact Michelle Obama is Senator Obama's wife is one very good reason amongst many to vote for him... Today the Republicans unleashing a series of vile and stupid lie-based attacks on Michelle Obama have eschewed and/or forgotten, both the traditional lessons of gentlemanly behavior and any code of honor let alone a post-feminist achievement-based respect for women.

Conservative columnists accuse Michelle Obama of being "unpatriotic." They say "she simmers with undigested racial anger." A blogger circulated unfounded claims that Michelle Obama gave a speech about "whitey." FOX News called her "Obama's baby mama," a derogatory term for a black unwed mother. The National Review called her "Mrs. Grievance." From Rush Limbaugh to the most obscure local right wing talk radio host, Michelle Obama is mocked and often in none too subtle racist tones.

Today's Republicans are neither gentlemen (in the old Bill Buckley or George Herbert Walker Bush mold) or enlightened. Their presidential candidate-- McCain-- is a perfect match for the cads lying about Michelle Obama. Having abandoned the mother of his children in her hour of need because she was disfigured in a car accident, having run around on her after he came back from Vietnam, and then, finally, having chased down and acquired both a $100 million fortune and a young blond along with it, McCain is hardly a poster boy for the traditional values the Republican Party used to at least say it represented.

Now McCain's allies, from the National Review, to the morons at FOX News let alone the hosts of talk radio shows, are lining up to throw mud on Michelle Obama. They are a perfect match with the misogynist cad McCain.

This whole crew would be a much better fit in the woman-baiting beer halls of fascist prewar Spain or Italy than in either the old politics of the Republican Party (William F. Buckley are you spinning in your grave?) or the kind of conservatism (with all its imperialist and patriarchal flaws notwithstanding) that I grew up with in the old school of both evangelical belief and my British school.

In the attacks on Michelle Obama the glaring reality of the utter hate-filled moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party and its supporters is apparent. These liars and bullies are all about seeking power through any means. Having failed miserably to govern for the last eight years, having gotten us into a war-of-choice-- in which, by the way, my honorable Marine son fought bravely-- they now turn to character assassination of an outstanding mother, woman, executive and yes I dare use the term, Lady.

Earlier today Mike Huckabee said this strategy is so offbase that it could doom whatever slim chance McCain has to win the presidency. At the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo Huckabee called Obama's nomination "a landmark achievement and, alluding to the disastrous stewardship of the economy by Bush-- a stewardship that the record shows has been fully rubber stamped by McCain-- he said "When people are really hurting-- and they are right now-- they're not looking at a person's race... Republicans will make a fundamental if not fatal mistake if they seek to win the election by demonizing Barack Obama."

But with new polling showing McCain sinking further and further in the public's eyes-- as though the more they see of him, the surer they are they don't want to see him in the White House-- the lobbyists running the campaign are growing increasingly desperate and willing to use the most vile and divisive tactics to cut Obama down. Here's what they saw when they woke up this morning:

• Florida: Obama edges McCain 47 - 43 percent;
• Ohio: Obama tops McCain 48 - 42 percent;
• Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain 52 - 40 percent.