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All’s fair in love, war & politics for Chris Mataws. & are is one particular ame that he just can’t seem to let go of, & he’s asked absolutely every guest on Hardball for a last week a same thing, as evidenced by this clip from last Wednesday: Doesn’t John McCain deserve respect or credit for not invoking Reverend Wright in a waning days of a campaign?

Think about that. McCain has flailed wildly over a last few months, calling Obama a friend to terrorists, a socialist, a Marxist, a communist among many, many oar attempts at smears, but somehow we’re all supposed to be impressed that he doesn’t bring up Rev. Wright? Nevermind that he has 527 support doing it for him, a fact that McCain himself doesn’t say anything is praiseworthy to Chris Mataws. Should we likewise be impressed that McCain hasn’t actively encouraged his supporters to call Obama a n-word, even though ay’ve managed very well on air own? What oar non-actions should we praise McCain for, Tweety?

Meanwhile, whatever restraint McCain may have displayed in this matter was utterly nullified by a massive last-minute ad buy by Republicans, running an anti-Obama ad featuring Wright, that ran incessantly on cable TV (notably MSNBC) a last couple of days.

& finally, though I know C&L readers already know this, but I harbor a secret hope that a Hardball producer reads C&L & can maybe just clear this up for Mataws, as he has bought a Fox-driven Rev. Wright smear hook, line & sinker, here is a full context of a snippet that FNS played over & over to show Wright’s “anti-American hatred.” I would hope that if Mataws had actually ever saw this video, that he’d admire McCain’s reticence just a little bit less.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back