Obama Camp: McCain’s Ears Ring for Bush

La Crosse, WISC. — Watching Sen. Barack Obama’s rally here this morning, I noticed that while his surrogates attacked the Republican nominee, Obama largely avoided the word “McCain.” Direct partisan attacks were totally absent from his address, a bipartisan call for action on the financial system bailout, as others have reported.

McCain’s ears were ringing anyway, or so his campaign claimed, because it quickly complained that Obama was launching personal attacks.

The plane is about to take off for Washington, where this squabbling can surely intensify, but for now here’s how Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded:

Given the fact that Barack Obama did not attack John McCain today, it is a telling admission that the McCain campaign saw Barack Obama’s attack on eight years of greed and irresponsibility in Washington as a personal attack on John McCain. We’ll leave it up to the McCain campaign to explain why they get so offended and defensive when George Bush’s record is attacked.

While I doubt most voters will care, since economic problems outstrip the blame game, this is a decent bit of rhetorical ju-jitsu.

If McCain takes offense at attacks on Bush’s economic record, argues Obama, it’s a revealing reaction.