What Joe the Plumber Can't Fix - E.J. Dionne, WaPo

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/15/AR2008101503162.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

The moment of truth in last night's debate came when Bob Schieffer asked the candidates if they would be willing to repeat, face to face, some of the personal charges they have made against each other in their ads and on the trail.

At first, John McCain flinched. Instead of answering directly, he suggested, remarkably, that it was Barack Obama who was running the more negative campaign. Polls show that this is certainly not the impression of voters. They see McCain as the negative guy.

But eventually McCain launched the attack everyone was waiting for, referring to Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, the '60s radical with whom Obama served on a Chicago education board that also included Republican members. Obama calmly noted that his relationship with Ayers was limited and that Ayers would play no role in an Obama administration.

But McCain was wound up, and before he was done, he made the astonishing claim that some fraudulent voter registrations obtained by ACORN -- that's the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- constituted "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and were "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Gosh, I didn't know our democratic fabric was so frail.

more at link above