Consider it a “welcome present” for her visit to Nashville. Risky business for the party or any of its arms to go after the opposition’s wife but they handled this the savviest way they could have, using only her own words against her and accentuating the positive via the witness testimonials instead of dwelling on her as negative. Even so, we’d better pick our spots with this sort of attack: There’s a reason the Democrats are farming out attacks on Cindy McCain as a sugar mommy to third-party groups instead of letting Obama’s camp handle them. Voters like to pretend there are certain lines an honorable candidate won’t cross.

Team Barry has already responded by doing what it does best, playing the victim and declaring this attack out of bounds even though it targets something she said while out on the trail.