You know those ridiculous and untrue emails your Aunt Edna forwards to everyone on her mailing list claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim Manchurian Candidate or doesn't really love America or is the Antichrist? (When you receive them, of course, you should reply by putting away falsehood.)

John McCain - despite his earlier promises to run a positive campaign and not be a scumbag - has joined them with this ad. To the untrained eye, it may seem like a sarcastic and ridiculous attack ad attempting to tear down Barack Obama instead of tell us why to vote for John McCain... which it is, in part. (That John McCain doesn't seem to be able to articulate any reason for people to vote for him aside from "I'm not that black guy" is a matter for another post altogether.)

But to the trained eye, it's a lot more insidious than that. I study the Christian Right for a living, a movement that is dominated by premillennial dispensationalists - people who believe that the end of the world is nigh, and that its coming will be heralded by the Antichrist, a charismatic figure who will form a one-world government and yadda yadda yadda. John McCain has historically had trouble with this crowd - perhaps because he's demonstrated throughout his career that he'd rather spend Sunday Morning in a Washington TV studio than in a pew, or perhaps because his recent attempts to act like he has core principles and get religion are so transparently phony. (Or perhaps it's because, until he started running for president and trying to get these nutjobs' votes, he actually had sane positions on things like stem-cell research.)

But this ad is designed for the Christian Right, and designed to dovetail with those emails they've been sending calling Barack Obama the Antichrist. Look at the dogwhistles throughout the ad... it's basically a coded message to the Left Behind crowd that they should be very afraid of Barack Obama. Throughout the ad, there are subtle visual hints - the clouds, the overlaid words "They will call him the one" (echoing the passages about the Antichrist), the Obama quotes (every single one, I might add, taken out of context and misused in a complete dishonest way) - that those emails you've been getting about Barack Obama are all true, no matter what Snopes may tell you.

Unless and until John McCain repudiates this ad, fires anyone responsible for it, and personally apologizes to Barack Obama and the nation, he has demonstrated that his character is worth nothing, that he is willing to sell out any of the "principles" he supposedly holds near and dear in order to win an election. That John McCain - who undoubtedly knows better - is basically forwarding the emails saying Barack Obama is the Antichrist is utterly disgraceful.

McCain supporters who read this, the ball is in your court: Morality, if not any Christian principles those of you who are of the faith hold, dictate that it is imperative that you let the McCain campaign know that this is unacceptable. Time to get on the phone.

Labels: Barack Obama, General Election 2008, John McCain, Politics, Religion