When Sarah Palin quoted a newspaper story saying that Barack Obama is ‘palling around with terrorists’, this was a desperate and poorly researched attack on the campaign that races ahead in the polls. McCain and Palin seems to be losing, and they know it. To shift emphasis in the media from the economic crisis that keeps on battering the US they have started what seems like a smear campaign. Smear campaigns have worked well before in US politics, but people who live in glass houses….and so on.

If Palin had been bothered to read more than the headline, she would have known that Obama and Bill Ayers are not friends. And that all charges for rioting and bomb conspiracy against Ayers were dropped in 1974 and that he is now a well respected member of society, and a professor of education at University of illinois.

Unfortunately for mr. McCain, he was too quick to jump on the band wagon; accusing Obama of lying about his ties to the home loan industry and also asking what his opponent had ever achieved in government.

In retaliation, Obama, who is usually not one for personal attacks, has highlighted McCain as one of the Keating Five. 20 years ago five senators were investigated by the a senate ethics panel for their intervention with bank regulators on behalf of Arizona tycoon Charles Keating who was convicted of securities fraud after his bank collapsed.

McCain is all about experience. Not all good.