Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination has been marred by the controversy over remarks made by his fomer pastor, Jeremiah Wright. And now that relationship is being used by the Republicans in a strategy Democrats say is racially tinged.
We sent Max Blumenthal, a writer for the progressive magazine, The Nation, to the southern state of Mississippi. He asks if attack ads used in a congressional election there could be a sign of things to come.
We can't do anything about voters who are driven by racial bigotry or fundamentalist religious attitudes to gullibly suck up the swiftboating kool-ade that will begin pouring over their heads the nanosecond Obama is announced as the Democratic candidate.
But we can inform people that swiftboating is a smear-the-candidate tactic that relies on there being huge numbers of Americans who lack the broad knowledge that would enable them to spot blatantly unfair attacks. When people are armed with this information, then those who do not fall under the two categories I named above will at least be watching these attack ads with their eyes wide open.