Pat Dollard | Young Americans

NEW YORK - John McCain is mocked as an out-of-touch, out-of-date computer illiterate in a television commercial out Friday from Barack Obama as the Democrat begins his sharpest barrage yet on McCain’s long Washington career.

The new fighting spirit (PD Note: article written by AP. Notice how Hussein’s age-based attacks are spun in a positive light as “fighting spirit”?) comes as McCain has been gaining in the polls and some Democrats have been expressing concern the Obama campaign has not been aggressive enough. (PD Note: Again, the light spin. It’s been widely reported from The Politico on down that the Dems have hit a full-blown panic over Hussein’s plummeting polls and floundering campaign, . But here that’s censored for a brighter outlook: all we are told is “some Dems have been expressing concern.” Uh, that’s a, shall we say, very glossed over picture of the darker reality faced by the candidate the AP de facto endorses.) Obama’s campaign says the escalation will involve advertising and pushes made by the candidate, running mate Joe Biden and other surrogates across the country.

“Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe says in a campaign strategy memo. “We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain’s attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people.”

The newest ad showcasing their hard line includes unflattering footage of McCain at a hearing in the early ’80s, wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit, interspersed with shots of a disco ball, a clunky phone, an outdated computer and a Rubik’s Cube.

“1982, John McCain goes to Washington,” an announcer says over chirpy elevator music. “Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t.

“He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an e-mail, still doesn’t understand the economy, and favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class,” it says. It shows video of McCain getting out of a golf cart with former President George H.W. Bush and closes with a photo of him standing with the current President Bush at the White House. “After one president who was out of touch, we just can’t afford more of the same.”

Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer claimed the campaign was not making an issue of the 72-year-old McCain’s age, but the time he’s spent in Washington.( PD Note: Did he have any choice other than to say “Don’t believe your lying eyes, we’re not saying he’s too old to be President.”? No, he didn’t and so his statement is as empty as his candidate.)

“Our economy wouldn’t survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn’t know how to send an e-mail.”

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee, Alex Conant, accused Obama of “trying to destroy” McCain and running mate Sarah Palin with personal attacks.

“This is more evidence that Obama’s politics of hope is just empty words,” Conant said in a statement.

Obama has already been showing a newly aggressive tone on the campaign trail in the past week, claiming he is a real change agent for Washington, and that McCain’s claims to be one are phony. Some Democrats have privately groused that Obama is attacking Palin and arguing that job should fall to Biden.

(AP)