As VP candidate Sarah Palin discussed Barack Obama’s alleged ties to William Ayers at a rally in Clearwater, Florida (surprise) today, one of her fervent supporters shouted “Kill Him!” Palin failed to rebuke them and moved on with her allegations. It’s now abundantly clear the McCain campaign is happy to foment it’s base into an angry frenzy to get them to get out and vote against Obama and his “terrorist pals“.

And earlier today at another rally, McCain allowed one of his supporters to call Barack Obama a terrorist without so much as a blink.

I’m not asking the candidates to control their supporters, I know that’s pretty much impossible. But at least call them out when they make such outrageous and incendiary statements. But they can’t even bother to do that. Just imagine the outrage on the right if something like this had happened at an Obama rally.

This is what the race has boiled down to. And we all may suffer for it.

A picture is worth a thousand words, particularly in this case. Below is a word cloud of Palin’s answers in the Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden. Words that were said more frequently are larger, also, relative to others, also. Very interesting, don’t you think? Reminds me of the “blizzard of words” comment made by Charlie Gibson during the first Palin interviews.

Click on the image for a larger version. You can create your own word cloud at wordle.net.

McCain sat down with the ladies of The View today and it was surprisingly hardball interview, with questions on abortion, his vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and the attack ads he has been running against Obama. Three clips are below… check it out.

ABC released an excerpt from Charles Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin that will air nationally tonight. Apparently Alaska’s proximity to Russia provides her with special insight.

When asked by Gibson if under the NATO treaty, the U.S. would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin responded: “Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.

Palin advocated the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, meaning that if attacked again in the future, the United States would be bound to go to war….

“I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help,” she said.

Palin, who obtained her first passport this year and who has served just two years as Alaska’s governor, told Gibson that she was up to the challenge of being Sen. John McCain’s vice president.

Who let loose the dogs of war?

Full story and video here.