I agree with Al Giordano

That's hardly a surprise, as I go to The Field when I find myself thinking Chicken Little thoughts, but this is especially perceptive:

Since he became the presumptive nominee, Obama's campaign has been hitting hard at McCain and he has been hitting back at his rival's attacks. And his punches have been connecting in ways that soften McCain up for harder punches come autumn, while also giving McCain enough rope to behave in such a way that drives up the Republican's own negatives.

I read that statement earlier today, but it didn't really sink in until I read this post by Joe Klein:

But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the "putting America first" front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action...you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary--and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency--what sort of country--that will produce.

I mean, when you've lost the Joe Kleins/Thomas Friedmans of the world, who do you alienate next, Mark Halperin?