It's disheartening to see the 2008 presidential campaign sink into smear tactics. This raises ugly echoes of the false Swift Boat accusations of 2004 and the racist Willie Horton ads of 1988.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin stooped to mud-slinging by saying Democrat Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" because he served on boards with Dr. William Ayers, a 60-year-old University of Illinois distinguished professor who was a youthful leader of the radical Weather Underground one-third of a century ago, opposing the Vietnam War in the 1970s when Obama was a tot.

The McCain-Palin ticket should beware of such hatchet jobs, because both GOP nominees are vulnerable to counterattacks.

McCain betrayed his crippled first wife and lived with beer heiress Cindy Hensley, whose father had been convicted of mob bootlegging charges. McCain used Hensley money and connections to succeed in Arizona politics. He nearly sank politically because he pulled Washington strings to help crooked financier Charles Keating, who went to prison after his savings-and-loan chain cost U.S. taxpayers billions.

Palin is vulnerable because she has spent her life in Pentecostal churches where members speak in tongues, cast out demons, await the Rapture, practice faith healing and try to ward off witches. So far, the Obama-Biden campaign has declined to question her fitness in this regard.

After eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, America faces a nightmare. The national debt has leaped past $10 trillion, with no stabilizing in sight. Three-quarters of a million U.S. jobs have been lost so far this year, including 159,000 last month. The stock market plunge has wiped out trillions in personal savings. The unnecessary Iraq war has killed more than 4,000 young Americans.

McCain is tied tightly to the Bush-Cheney agenda because he supported invading Iraq, supported deregulation that brought the Wall Street financial meltdown, and supported trillion-dollar tax giveaways to the wealthy that wrought monster deficits and the soaring national debt.

These are the overriding concerns of the 2008 presidential campaign. They mustn't be camouflaged by petty mudslinging attacks.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin stooped to mud-slinging by saying Democrat Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" because he served on boards with Dr. William Ayers, a 60-year-old University of Illinois distinguished professor who was a youthful leader of the radical Weather Underground one-third of a century ago, opposing the Vietnam War in the 1970s when Obama was a tot.

The McCain-Palin ticket should beware of such hatchet jobs, because both GOP nominees are vulnerable to counterattacks.

McCain betrayed his crippled first wife and lived with beer heiress Cindy Hensley, whose father had been convicted of mob bootlegging charges. McCain used Hensley money and connections to succeed in Arizona politics. He nearly sank politically because he pulled Washington strings to help crooked financier Charles Keating, who went to prison after his savings-and-loan chain cost U.S. taxpayers billions.

Palin is vulnerable because she has spent her life in Pentecostal churches where members speak in tongues, cast out demons, await the Rapture, practice faith healing and try to ward off witches. So far, the Obama-Biden campaign has declined to question her fitness in this regard.

After eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, America faces a nightmare. The national debt has leaped past $10 trillion, with no stabilizing in sight. Three-quarters of a million U.S. jobs have been lost so far this year, including 159,000 last month. The stock market plunge has wiped out trillions in personal savings. The unnecessary Iraq war has killed more than 4,000 young Americans.

McCain is tied tightly to the Bush-Cheney agenda because he supported invading Iraq, supported deregulation that brought the Wall Street financial meltdown, and supported trillion-dollar tax giveaways to the wealthy that wrought monster deficits and the soaring national debt.

These are the overriding concerns of the 2008 presidential campaign. They mustn't be camouflaged by petty mudslinging attacks.