The John McCain campaign has suspended an aide for distributing a harsh parody video of Barack Obama and his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, over the Twitter network. Lee already covered this at Blue, but it is worth re-posting here because the aide in question is former Red State blogger Soren Dayton. Jonathan Martin reports at The Politico:
An aide to John McCain was suspended from the campaign today for blasting out an inflammatory video that raises questions about Barack Obama’s patriotism.
Soren Dayton, who works in McCain’s political department, sent out the YouTube link of “Is Obama Wright?” on twitter at 12:31 today with the tag, “Good video on Obama and Wright.” It has since been taken down.
Twitter is an online device that allows users to send out short messages and links en masse through computers or PDAs.
McCain and his campaign have repeatedly said that they would stay away from personal attacks on Obama, but the temptation has increased as Wright’s words have dominated the race in recent days.
Last week, they included an op-ed that hammered Wright and Obama in their morning clip package emailed to reporters. The same day, a campaign aide they regretted doing so.
Read the rest at the link above. Ironically, it seems Dayton was hired by McCain because of his posts attacking Mitt Romney . . .
This could be a very bad precedent to set. McCain shouldn’t start out the campaign agreeing to fire anyone who offends Obama. Let’s hope it’s because the particular video was seen as too severe, not that the opponent’s sensitivities dictate the campaign.
