Regarding Charlie Black's gaffe (recall that Michael Kinsey said a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth), Richard Clarke, as usual, has it right. Monday evening on Keith Olbermann's show, Clarke said:

[W]hat Charlie Black did is reveal their thinking, not that they wanted terrorist attack, but that they do plan to run by scaring us. They‘re using the same playbook they‘ve been using for years because it works.

And if McCain is sincere in saying that he‘s shocked, that there‘s gambling going on in his casino, then he ought to part with Charlie Black. I mean, Charlie Black ought to be gone tomorrow morning so that we can say, once and for all, that this campaign is not going to be a campaign about fear and about saying that one guy is soft on terrorism and if you vote for him, there will be another terrorist attack; all the sorts of things that we‘ve heard in the past.
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So, we‘re now in the situation where the American people won‘t believe a warning, if there were a real one but McCain can stop all of that. He can stop talking about Hamas has endorsed Obama; he can stop all of this sort of innuendoes and go to the issues-based campaign he said he was going to do.

And the way he does that is by tomorrow morning announcing the resignation of Charlie Black and saying that he wants to run on the issues and not as the “scare candidate,” not as the scaremonger and not as the scarecrow.

But it's Wednesday evening and McCain has yet to fire Black....? Oh well, guess they're going to use that fear-mongering playbook after all. Hopefully the voting public has finally learned their lesson regarding these beneath-contempt campaign tactics and won't get swayed this time when McCain & Co. whip up the scares and frights.

Obama should make the case, "If you don't want change, if you want four more years of Bush, then vote with your fears come November." That should do the trick.