Golly, maybe this has been McCain’s problem all along. When the dumbest hacks in the lefty blogosphere attacked him for coded messages in the Britney ad, I thought they were objecting to the alleged message. Turns out they were probably just objecting to the fact that it was coded. If only Maverick had been forthright and thrown in a bon mot about Barry O being “clean,” the freshness of his candor would have charmed us all and been celebrated as a political strength. Except, of course, by Kos, who once declared that sort of condescension to be career-killing “in a just world.” I wonder if he’s changed his mind.

On any other day, this would take the prize for the most embarrassing race-related spin among the commentariat. But not today. Click the image to watch.

Update: Yep, looks like he’s changed his mind.

Update: Goldstein sums up:

All of which points back to the animating tenet in “liberal” ideology — namely, that, simply by virtue of adopting the left-liberal agenda, one is good, and so his “mistakes” are but minor slip-ups, hiccups in a life of sublime goodliness. Whereas any kind of minor slip-up by those on the “right” (classical liberals included, these days) are to be seen as brief inadvertent flashes revealing their grubby souls — even when those flashes are either admittedly unintended, or else have to be run through a special code book to prove visible to the watchdogs of all that is good and righteous.

Update: Advice from Ace on how McCain can prove his own refreshing political incorrectness.