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Two great bits of political burnage today from the GOP–one aimed at the President, and another at themselves.

First, President Obama. After calling candidate John McCain’s proposal to tax employer-based health benefits “so radical, so out of touch with what you’re facing, and so out of line with our basic values”, is increasingly looking like he will need some version of McCain’s proposal to finance health care reform.

The folks over at NRO’s The Corner did a good job scouring YouTube for the relevant campaign ads Obama ran against the McCain plan. Here’s my favorite:

The largest middle class tax hike in history? Sounds pretty bad.

Here’s Axelrod explaining it away:

But these days, for every instance of conservatives successfully turning their venom on liberals, there is another instance of conservatives turning on themselves. Take the Red State blogger Moe Lane, who (emptily) threatened to ruin the careers of any McCain staffer who spoke to Vanity Fair for their Sarah Palin profile:

“If you were one of the people who participated in that Vanity Fair hit piece, and we find out your name, you will be a net drag on any national campaign for the rest of your professional career.  Not because you helped the Left go after Governor Palin, but because you are an untrustworthy sneak who is dedicated to propping up the elitist system in DC, not fixing it.   Any candidate that hires you will have to overcome the base’s natural reluctance to work with a campaign that would hire someone like you.  This can be done; but it’s much easier to hire people with your skill set and a name for basic party loyalty.

If you are a McCain staffer who did not talk to VF, I suggest that you find some way to demonstrate that you aren’t one of the people in the first paragraph.  Because until we know who talked, the default assumption is going to be that you may have talked.  This will not wreck your career, but it will blight it if the base has anything to say about it.  On the bright side, a simple and declarative denial will do; of course, if your denial is a lie and we catch you at it, brush up on your typing skills.”

It isn’t that Republicans have forgotten their shameful history of blacklisting, it’s that they just love blacklisting so darned much.

H/t to the Plank.