This is where the mainstream media has been headed ever since the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate; E. J. Dionne is the latest journalist to claim that any and all criticism of Obama is by definition racist. But he takes it an extra step, saying that John McCain represents the reemergence of the far right.

Yes, really. John McCain, far right extremist. Wow. Meanwhile, Barack Obama associates with people who scream “God damn America,” and with people who are guilty of bombing the US Capitol, and gets a complete pass.

Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a “decent person.”

Yet McCain’s own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama’s association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain’s attacks, she accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” What other “terrorists” was she thinking about?

Since Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and since even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.

Notice how many mainstream journalists shamelessly parrot Obama’s talking points about William Ayers, word for word.