Republican politics at its best

From the washingtonpost.com

As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) campaigned in South Carolina yesterday, he confronted crudely produced fliers attacking his war record and a blitz of robotic phone calls twisting his position on abortion, attacks he said were reminiscent of the political kneecapping he endured in the state eight years ago.

So McCain fights back. Of course you can guess what the South Carolina Republicans do. They attack him for fighting back!

While the McCain camp sent out e-mails immediately decrying the flier and the phone calls, his opponents questioned whether the senator's true intent was to bat down the attacks or if he is more interested in garnering sympathy and attention.

The Republican seem to find intellectual honesty impossibly hard. Someone who is intellectually honest will deal with issues and not make ad hominem attacks on the person taking the opposite side. But Republican can't bring themselves to operate that way. No matter what the issue, their strategy is always to attack the person arguing the other side. That's been the Bush strategy on Iraq for years. Don't defend your position; call your opponents traitors. When will we wake up to this? It's not all that complicated.