Quote of the Day, eesh that was harsh edition

It looks like we needed a woman candidate to revive the lost art of ratfucking.

From the comments to this Matthew Yglesias post regarding former NE Senator Bob Kerrey's repeated references to Obama's middle name being Hussein, his father and stepfather being Muslim, and his brief stint in a "secular medrassa" in Indonesia, all the while insisting that he thinks it's just great that a black guy who used cocaine and might be a supersecret Muslim can still run for president in this country.

Though it might surprise you, I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt for now to the Clinton campaign even though it's getting harder and harder to do that. The "did you ever sell cocaine" thing was bad enough when it was isolated to Billy Shaheen, but when Mark Penn repeated it on Hardball even as he insisted it was not an issue, that was highly suspect. Kerrey's kind of an idiot so I want to believe that he wasn't acting on any sort of orders from the campaign to reinforce the same memes that got 2 Clinton staffers fired for forwarding emails in Iowa claiming Obama's a deep dark muslim in disguise. Finally, I like to believe the Clinton campaign is not stupid enough to invite turnabout as fair play, given how much material her opponents would have to work with if they raided the 90s right wing muckraker archives.

But how many times do these sorts of assy behaviors have to be repeated by supporters of one particular candidate before we all start to wonder if they're coordinated? Are we hearing about Dodd, Richardson or Edwards supporters or surrogates accidentally calling him Osama or playing Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" subtly in the background while talking about the opposition? If they were all just innocent uncoordinated mistakes then it seems like we should be seeing them from a variety of campaigns and not all just from one. I'd also like to see much stronger condemnation from the Clinton campaign and less subtle reinforcement of the message, as Penn did last week with the cocaine mention.

But with 3 weeks left til the Iowa caucuses and at least 2 months (hopefully longer) until the also-rans start dropping like flies, I have a feeling this shit is only gonna get uglier and more frequent before all is said and done. Ultimately, whether a series of uncoordinated brain farts from idiot supporters or something more, it still is the sort of thing that turns people off from politics and makes those of us who dare to have a little hope and inspiration in our bellies start to give way to the crushing cynicism all over again. And I hate that feeling.