There is a spectre haunting the Conservative commentariat—the spectre of socialism! Barack Obama just might be the President, and should that happen, he will immediately redistribute all the wealth and hand over control of the means of production to the workers. Also the government will round up whitey and send him to reeducation camps run by the creepy YouTube singing children! We know all of this is true because Obama told a pretend plumber that he would "spread" the man's pretend "wealth around." Also he proposes some sort of "progressive income tax" policy and he said the words "redistribution of wealth" once on public radio. "Public" is code for Communist! This is seriously the dumbest attack yet in a season of incredibly dumb attacks. Over the summer, the McCain campaign presented Barack Obama as "a celebrity," a neat, slightly po-mo attack on Obama's popularity. It was, at least, an argument with some resonance in our tabloid-y popular culture. It didn't destroy Obama's brand, but it hurt it. But the desperate and confused McCain campaign never again came up with a coherent attack line on Obama that pleased anyone but the truest of believers. And that is how we got to "palling around with terrorists," a neat line that manages to incorporate 9/11 dread of four years ago and, more importantly, the culture wars of the 1960s, which make guest appearances in every American election. But this year, of course, no one gives a shit about the 1960s, at all. For the first time since the '60s ended, in 1972! So the McCain camp has switched to an attack last used effectively in the 1920s. As Hendrik Hertzberg explains:
