Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

John Moody did not call McCain a race-baiter, nor is that necessarily his view. The only thing he said was that if the incident is a hoax, McCain will be linked to race-baiting, which only means that people will attribute the loathsomeness of the act to his campaign and be put off by it. That doesn't necessarily imply that McCain approves of such tactics (though, of course, he probably does), nor that Moody blames McCain - what Moody seemed to be talking about is people's perception. But the way you state it is misleading, and so often these days your responses to events seem knee-jerk, the angry response of someone who's so fed up that rather than reason out each incident one by one, you paint everything with one brush.

I take my reader's point (although, of course, the incident does not seem to have affected the race in any way). The only trouble with this is that a McCain staffer pushed this story to the local press before the police did. That is what two separate news organizations have shown. I should add that I am indeed angry at the McCain campaign. As someone who thought I knew McCain, I'm staggered by its toxicity. Forgive me for spluttering occasionally at its constant racial insinuations and McCarthyism.