During the debate Obama was asked about his relationship with 1960s bomber Bill Ayers. In his answer, Obama smeared Tom Coburn.
George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about ["the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief"].
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George.
The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.
Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.
Why in the world would Obama drag Tom Coburn into this? Coburn is an accomplished man - a medical doctor who has delivered thousands of babies, elected to the US Senate by the people of Oklahoma. And Obama tosses him under the bus to justify his relationship with an unapologetic terror bomber.
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But that seems to be Obama's habit when confronted about his relationship with scoundrels.
Here is Barack Obama smearing his own grandmother while defending Jeremiah Wright:
I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
This reverse name-dropping is no-class stuff. Obama's grandmother didn't need to be dragged into the Jeremiah Wright debate, and Tom Coburn didn't need to be dragged into the Ayers debate.
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