Fear-Mongering Palin Scares Mac Straighter

These days, John McCain is more concerned with calming down his crowds than riling them up, writes Roger Simon in Politico, which “may not be a winning thing to do. But it is honorable.” The problem is that Sarah Palin “is running a separate—and scary—campaign,” depicting Barack Obama as an outsider and a terrorist sympathizer. And no one, it seems, is controlling her.

Nor is Palin alone. A Time journalist recently caught Virginia’s Republican Party Chairman comparing Obama to Osama Bin Laden. “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he told volunteers. “That is scary.” Perhaps, but the scared person is McCain. That’s why he tried to calm his jeering crowd Friday, telling them that Obama isn’t an Arab. Maybe he can’t win honorably, but “at this point, he is trying.” (More John McCain stories.)