Obama won’t repudiate “warmonger” smear

At the Washington Post’s campaign blog, The Trail, Alec MacGillis reports:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) declined twice Saturday to personally repudiate a liberal radio host's declaration that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a "warmonger."

At a morning stump speech in Missoula and an evening Montana Democratic Party dinner in Butte, Obama made no mention of Ed Schultz's comment, which came Friday night at a fundraiser for the North Dakota Democratic Party, which Obama later attended.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such. He's a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged."

But that was not enough for the Republican National Committee or the McCain campaign, which compared the situation to McCain's repudiation of comments by conservative radio host Bill Cunningham, who repeatedly mocked Obama's middle name Hussein while warming up the crowd at a McCain appearance.

"Senator Obama must personally and publicly repudiate his campaign supporter's attacks -- rather than give tacit approval to this blatant smear -- or his rhetoric of change will be exposed as nothing but words," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

McCain even broached the issue himself while speaking with reporters in Arizona. "Mr. Schultz is entitled to his views," he said. But he added, " I would hope that, in keeping with his commitment, that Senator Obama would condemn such language, since it was part of his campaign." …

The rest of MacGillis’ report is here.

It a shame Sen. Obama hasn’t repudiated Schultz’s remarks.

Perhaps he would if the liberal MSM newspapers (and that's most of America's major dailies) would criticize him for not doing so.

But that may be expecting too much from almost all the editors.

As for Obama, a question: Is he still going around the country promising “to bring us together?”