Barack Obama needs to take the "stop the smears" section down from his Web site. It isn't working - - Obama keeps attempting to slime John McCain on a regular basis with dishonest charges.

This morning's episode came in the form of an "Obama Action Wire" e-mail from Obama central, titled "A new attack from Swift Boaters," informing backers that "a right-wing smear group launched a full-fledge (sic) attack against Barack, pulling in every baseless lie and re-hashed false assertion in their playbook." The e-mail continued, "the ad is so ridiculous that CNN and even Fox News have both refused to run it."

Okay, fair enough - - someone attacks, Obama gets to respond. No problem, right?

Wrong, of course, because Obama then tries to tie the video in question to John McCain's campaign:

John McCain claims he had nothing to do with this attack, but a former McCain consultant leads the so called 'third-party' group behind these lies.

The primary funder of the ads, Harrold Simmons, is one of the main culprits behind the Swift Boating of John Kerry and a top bundler for John McCain. The spokesman for the group also has ties to the Kerry Swift Boat attacks.

The McCain camp and the Swift Boaters must be truly desperate to change the subject from John McCain's shocking disconnect with the economic struggles of the American people.

This has become all too typical of Barack Obama's campaign style. Either the man is stupid, or he knows that John McCain has no more control over the makers of this video than he, Obama, has over Moveon.org and Huffington Post and the rest of the Democratic Party Smear Machine.

The ad itself is a rather mild video which focuses on the provable links between Barack Obama and radical bomber William Ayers. I also found a copy of a thinly-veiled threatening letter from an Obama campaign lawyer to television outlets which claimed that the ad's sponsor, American Issues Project, is a "shadowy front group." Images of masked figures in trench coats skulking through an alleyway!

My curiosity aroused, I found the Web site for American Issues Project. You can make you own judgment as to how "shadowy" this organization is. The "shadowy" folks were written up in Newsday, which gave information on the organization behind the vid. The Newsday writeup included this paragraph:

Obama's campaign accused McCain of having a hand in the ad, saying he "dispatched his paid consultant to launch this despicable ad from a so-called 'independent' committee." Federal Election Commission records show the last payment from McCain's campaign to Failor's consulting firm, Targeted Consulting, was July 2, 2007.

So there you have it: Targeted Consulting got the boot when John shook up his primary campaign in the summer of 2007; the relationship ended more than a year ago. Obama's attack dogs know this, of course; they're simply following Barack's example and lying through their teeth.

Here's the video:

Question: is there anything in this video which is not factual? As far as I know, the answer is, "no." Is using Obama's own words against him "Swiftboating?" Yes, of course it is - - and it is perfectly legitimate.

If this ad sends the Obama campaign into a tizzy, what will happen when it really gets rough?