What to do about slurs?

Recently a blog I view as a paradigm of fair and entertaining conversation, one of like three I read, sadly —

This one —

Argues that should the Dems respond to Obama's besmirching with fire, they should really respond with fire ("GOP protects child molestors").

I would like to see that.

In the meantime I think also that this playbook ends with a sign: "anything goes from now on." The only move that forecloses on that is the highroad, where the public outcry finally turns the Rovian barrage back upon itself.  The New York Times has finally got a little of its cojones back with today's paper, but it needs still to be said:

The McCain campaign is a smear campaign.  The McCain campaign wants to push outward the boundaries of what constitutes civil discourse when it comes to race, and to allow more and more racism into public discourse, because this makes it easier for people to give voice to their own racism, and to vote against Obama for "other reasons."

If Obama makes it about which platform the voter wants to see in operation, realistically, he wins.

The GOP will therefore stop at nothing to make the election "not about issues," but about whether you want a black man named Barack Obama to be your president.  This mild mannered, likable man, moderate in demeanor, cautious if clear, is somehow less "appealing" to the masses, say the GOP thinkers, than — 

a random white mom selected from nowhere —

Let's just say it plainly.

So long as it can also be conceded, as irrelevant to the point I am making, that she is a capable administrator and charismatic leader, not to say a Charismatic!  (Actually I understand a Dominion Pre-Millenialist Christian, but not of the Joel's Army stripe.)