Sarah Palin Unleashed, Racism Unleashed

There are signs within the shattering McCain campaign that there is much controversy about the proper role of Sarah Palin in the waning days until the election. One camp believes that she is the cause of McCain's decline. The other camp says she needs to be unleashed.

Palin is already tugging at her leash. Last weekend, much to the dismay of her handler, she held an impromptu Q & A with local reporters while deplaning in Colorado Springs. But let's remember that Colorado Springs is the epi-center of the radical right Christian movement, the world of mega-churches and James Dobson.

Read the analysis in Politico.com.

And then there is the issue of the unhinged campaign worker in Pittsburgh who falsified a police report that she had been mugged and mutilated by an Obama supporter. Rather than just let the incident play out, the McCain Communications Director in Pennsylvania, was briefing the press, telling reporters that the attack was a blatant retaliation for her working for McCain and that the "B" carved into her cheek stood for "Barack." Police became suspicious because the "B" carved into her cheek was backwards, a sign that the unstable young woman had carved the "B" herself. In a mirror!

That any campaign attracks weird and unstable people isn't surprising. It happens all the time. But for the McCain campaign to make this into an issue, to spread the word that a young white woman was attacked by an angry African American man was pure and utter race-baiting. And in a state where accusations of racism are becoming commonplace: first John Murtha and then McCain's botched attempt to use Murtha's comment to his advantage, but getting tongue-tied, he ended up agreeing with Murtha that Western Pennsylvanians are racist.

Read the hoax story and see the press that was preserved by talkingpointsmemo.com, the result of the McCain campaign's briefings.

John Moody, VP at Fox News, said that if the story turns out to be a hoax, then McCain is sunk because of its opportunistic and rash decision to connect itself with the story. Read this post from the Huffingtonpost.com.