Not only “Willie Horton” in tone but in pedigree: The guy behind it, Floyd Brown, was also responsible for the Dukakis ad. How lame is this? Consider for starters that our own runner-up in the Republican primaries this year is considerably more compromised on this point than Obama is, which makes it hard to throw stones. Beyond that, the potency of the Horton attack on Dukakis lay in how shocking the circumstances of the release were: Only the bleeding hearts in Massachusetts, the thinking went, would be so naive as to give weekend furloughs to convicted murderers. The best they can do here against Obama is to note that he wants killers locked away instead of executed. Big difference. Most importantly, though, why on earth would you waste energy trying to tease out a connection between Obama’s position on crime and foreign policy when you already have plenty of ammo against him on the latter point, starting with his willingness to negotiate with any group of terrorist cretins that happens to have its own state? If opposing capital punishment makes one ipso facto weak on terror then our own Ed Morrissey had better have his hawkish credentials re-checked pronto.