A swifter boat struck the dock this weekend and at the helm, a pained John McCain. Playing with matches, they matched Barack Obama with the word “terrorism,” stoking the basest, most baseless beliefs of the GOP base. As the crowds grew more and more rowdy, McCain’s 1st mate, Sarah Palin, didn’t even blink. Of course, according to her, not blinking is a sign of “confidence,” “readiness” and “knowing that you can’t blink.”

This same vice-presidential candidate who admonished Joe Biden for “pointing backward” when discussing the happening-now policies of the Bush administration, spent the week trying to link Obama to incidents of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The McCain Campaign’s tactics and latest ads are some of the ugliest in presidential campaign history. It is downright despicable, knowing Obama to be the target of a racist whisper campaign, to put his image in an ad next to the Pentagon, repeating the word “terrorist,” calling him “dangerous,” and asking if he is “too risky for America.” Sadly, there’s nothing the Secret Service can do about character assassination.

How could John McCain have slipped so low? McCain was the subject of phony “polling” calls in 2000, when South Carolina Republicans were asked if they would still vote McCain “if they knew that he had fathered a black child?” McCain probably would have learned a lesson from that incident of race baiting, but I suppose that would require “pointing backward.”

Perhaps he just learned the wrong lesson when he watched the Bush-Rove team, the guys behind the whisper campaign, win. McCain said of those who propagated the false rumors, “I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” The economy must still be alright in hell, because it seems as if that special place is adding an extension.

On Friday, a number McCain supporters’ anti-Obama sentiment had reached a boiling point. At a rally in Lakeville, MN, an uncomfortable McCain had to pause more than once to defend the opponent he’s spent millions to shiv. After asking the crowd to “show respect,” a woman took the microphone saying she “can’t trust Obama … he’s an arab.” To which McCain responded, “No ma’am. He’s a decent family man citizen…”

For once, McCain was telling the truth. Barack Obama is indeed a decent family man citizen. Given the negative and deceitful campaign he’s running, however, it is becoming clearer and clearer that John McCain is not.