Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, seems to be living in an inverted universe. In Davis' world it is Barack Obama, not John McCain, who has launched "the most negative" campaign in political history; the media is not spending enough time focusing on Obama's church but is hell-bent on turning over every stone of Sarah Palin's religious background; and the press is literally engaged in "an attack on Christianity" itself.
Appearing on conservative Hugh Hewitt's radio program Wednesday, Davis -- fed a nice menu of softball questions -- provided a variety of remarkable interpretations for how the campaign has progressed to this point in time.
Taking his cue from a report (still unsubstantiated) in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama campaign and DNC sent a team of lawyers to Alaska, Davis said that tactic was "consistent with everything else they've done. It's the most negative campaign I've ever seen waged."
It's not unusual for the campaign throwing stones to turn around and play victim. But immediately after pleading clean hands, Davis broached such touchy topics as Obama's relationship to William Ayers and Reverend Wright.
"It's a disturbing relationship," he said of the Ayers connection (Obama held a fundraiser and served on a board with the former Weather Underground member). "As a campaign, we've chosen not to make this relationship a big case in the campaign."
This statement simply isn't credible. The McCain campaign posted a blog item on Ayers no less than two weeks ago.
Davis went on. Agreeing with Hewitt's assertion that the media was engaged in a double standard when it came to Palin and Obama's churches (focusing on the former while "hands off" on the latter), Davis then proclaimed that the church was, in fact, under assault by the fourth estate.
"You know, I would say beyond that, there's something going on in the media right now, and I've seen it on television in the last couple of nights, and that's literally an attack on Christianity itself. I mean, every one of these candidates are good Christians."