Flickr: Creative Commons by Robbie1

Earlier today the McCain released a new web ad. We won't run the name of it here. It's about Senator Barack Obama's "murky" ties to a grassroots activist. The activist in question was once a terrorist. When? Before Obama was out of shortpants. What else does McCain/Palin have? Nada.

We're not linking to the ad. Easy clicks are not as valuable as the truth, and since there's no semblance of the truth in McCain's new ad, we're not going there. It's better just to talk about it. We do provide video below, but it shows you the truth--Palin's quotes about her own terrorist ties. While Obama does not have any ties to terrorists, both McCain and Palin do, and unlike this tenuous nonsense about Ayers, their links are recent.

How do we know this? Well, it's pretty simple. While the McCain camp got busy sinking to new lows (think monster truck rally), progressive journalists have been busily working out the ins and out of the terrorist ties on the Republican ticket. The results are shocking.

Salon's David Talbot poked around the Alaska Independence Party and struck gold. "AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. 'She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler'.”

So who is Joe Vogler? He's the group's founder, and he makes Bill Ayers sound like a civics teacher. “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

Palin supports Vogler. Vogler is supported but the Iranian government. I'd call that a tie. (Quite a distinction from the more recent "Bomb Iran" diddy set to the Beach Boys classic.) And before you dismiss the allegation as pie-eyed propaganda, this comes from Salon:

Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.

That’s right … Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.

Now for McCain's ties. (As a side note, it's sad that G. Gordon Liddy doesn't count as a terrorist, because the man adores Senator McCain, and has donated both time and money to this most recent futile attempt to get McCodger elected.)

That said, there's plenty of on-topic material as regards Senator McCain's terrorist network(ing). Let's start with the biggie: McCain's work with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It connected him directly to the Iran-Contra affair. The Contra's were an ultra-right-wing terrorist group. The New York Times reported in 1988 that McCain donated $400 to the terrorist organization. McCain is open about his close relationship to convicted arms trafficker Oliver North.

None of this gets to the point of the matter, as McCain might say. The point is that none of this would stick if Obama weren't black.

I was canvassing door-to-door last weekend in a Philadelphia suburb. It was a white, working-class area. A police officer who lived there had been killed the week before. Racial tension was high. The neighborhood was mostly Democrat, and mostly undecided. Why? The answer I heard more than any other: Obama's a Muslim.

Check out the second video to see what a Kossack gleaned from a recent McPalin rally. The meme is real, and McCain is using it. It's dangerous and irresponsible on many levels. Let's pray it backfires.