SATURDAY ROUNDUP

by Walter Alarkon - 10/04/08 5:18 PM ET

Barack Obama, who is up in the polls exactly one month before Election Day, is about to come under even more scrutiny. John McCain’s campaign is finally ready to question Obama’s past associations, conservative bloggers note. It’s about time Republicans do it as the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media aren’t going to, they write. But the attacks won’t work this late in the game, according to liberal bloggers.

While McCain exposes Obama’s ties to radicals, he should also go after his opponents connections to failed companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, because they’re part of the economic collapse that’s been dominating the news, writes Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey. McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), has kicked off the new strategy by criticizing Obama for “palling around with terrorists” such as Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers, writes Jennifer Rubin at Contentions. It’s a better approach than relying on others, such as the Times, whose Saturday story about Obama and Ayers is “embarrassingly one-sided,” according to Rubin, and a “whitewash,” according to The Corner’s Stanley Kurtz.

But both the Times and Kurtz have yet to dig up any meaningful dirt about Obama and Ayers even though both spent much time investigating them, writes Political Animal’s Steve Benen. McCain’s tougher strategy will only serve to ruin his bipartisan brand and drive his negatives down, especially since it comes at the end of an election and as the country fights two wars and an economic crisis, writes Balloon Juice’s John Cole.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Team McCain Taking Off Gloves – Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
If You Want Something Done Right… – J. Rubin, Contentions
NYT’s Obama-Ayers Whitewash – Stanley Kurtz, The Corner
NYT on Ayers-Obama: Nothing to See Here – E. Morrissey, Hot Air
Obama and Some Guy He Barely Knows – S. Benen, Political Animal
America to be Reintroduced to Rev. Wright – J. Cole, Balloon Juice
Ayers and McCain – Jane Smiley, Huffington Post
I Suspect It Won’t Work – hilzoy, Political Animal