Democratic Presidential politics has been devolving for years into the unspeakable drip-drip-drip of he said/she said.
Say what?
In such a cesspool, Barack Obama enjoys a distinct advantage because he is not old enough to have said all that much, whereas Hillary Clinton on the record has been a broken record for time immemorial.
Flotsam and jetsam of all kinds are bound to come to the surface unless the candidate is gagged and then flogged and then bagged by bloggers. Whether it's a plagiarized speech or a phrase ineptly gleaned, Presidential candidates of all persuasions know from the get-go that everything they say can and will be held against them. We get that and so do they. But what is becoming as absurd as the blow on your face is the notion that the candidate is on the hook his own self for everything thing anyone they know says about race or the race.
The gotcha web has grown like Spidey goo. When Geraldine Ferrara spoke about Obama's so-called advantage of being black, she was bleeped into oblivion by the Clinton campaign and forced to resign from her theretofore insignificant role. When one of Obama's operatives called Hillary "a monster," she might as well have inked her own political death sentence in stem cell discards. Roger Clemens be damned: moronic tabloids erupted in 'roid rage over idea that someone in the Obama campaign could find Hillary a monster. (Stop the presses.) And let's not forget Dollar Bill Clinton's say-it-ain't-so hoof-in-mouth disease in South Carolina and beyond.
You can make a case that a candidate has to answer for a spouse or a close adviser. Fair enough. Beyond that? Foggedaboudit!
The latest twist is to treat the candidate pastors like they are speaking in the tongue of he or she who would be the next preacher-President. When throwing the anti-semitic Black Muslim Louis Farrakhan against Obama didn't work in the Ohio debate, concerns about his local preacher and church hit the news cycle like a hammer.
The political six degrees of separation works on the rumps of the Elephantiasis Party as well. Republican Presidential nominee-to-be John McCain got hit upside the Scriptures in much the same way as Obama. Not happy to whack him for what he's actually said and done, the blundering herd realized it could smack the Mac Attack for the excesses of his local preacher.
As if the third-party blindsiding of a Presidential contender isn't nasty enough, the subsequent drill requires the candidate to personally denounce what that particular person has said as if it were his or her own. Crazy, you say? You said it. The only reason this is happening is because partisan fart-blowers need fresh ammunition the way sharks need chum.
Where does it end?
It won't in our lifetimes. At some point, Kevin Bacon will say something that embarrasses his chosen candidate, and the candidate will have to repudiate what Kevin Bacon says, return his contribution, and then profusely apologize for what the inseparable actor thinks out loud.
Of course, that's much easier than actually judging candidates on what they say or do. So let the vetting begin. Presidential candidates angling for 2012 and beyond had best beware: the friend you befriend might just break you in two.