Within 10 minutes of this airing we’d already gotten four or five e-mails about it; 20 minutes later, a bowdlerized version had already hit YouTube and begun circulating. I despise lefty sites for twisting conservatives’ words by selectively editing clips, so let’s cut this one off at the pass before it gets going. Here’s the full exchange with Stephanopoulos, making it perfectly clear that when he says “my Muslim faith” he’s referring to how the people smearing him see him, not how he sees himself. No mas, please.

Exit question: If McCain’s responsible for every smear leveled against Obama by a conservative whether he condemns it or not — as certain prominent nutroots bloggers have long asserted — then by extension isn’t Sullivan’s Palin smearapalooza a de facto operation of the Obama campaign? Assuming, that is, that it’s not an actual operation of the Obama campaign.