How John McCain made Barack Obama's day

From the New Republic:

[T]he McCain campaign has only itself to blame. The problem with making an incredibly superficial critique of an opponent is that it can be rebutted incredibly superficially. The Democrats fell into this trap into the 1990s when, rather than critique Republicans on policy grounds, they denounced them as racist meanies. Then, as my colleague Jon Chait has written, Bush came along and surrounded himself with cute black and Hispanic kids. This didn't affect his policies one lick, but it did defuse the Democratic charges.

The McCain campaign made a similar mistake by equating Obama's foreign travel with his fitness to be president. As with the Democrats and Bush, they may have a case to make on the underlying merits. But, if things go according to plan for Obama this week, they will only have helped ensure it won't be heard.