(h/t Heather)

Even though polls are showing that the American people find the McCain less and less credible as a candidate as he focuses more and more on smearing Obama and not on what concerns them, that doesn't stop the McCain Media Brigade from trying to spin his desperate and flailing campaign choices.

On last night's Anderson Cooper 360, David Gergen tries to spin that while the NY Times (accusing McCain of race baiting) had some validity, really, McCain isn't that desperate, because he didn't bring up Ayers at the debate:

GERGEN: I think the New York Times has a serious point and should be considered. The good news, Anderson, is that over the past twenty four hours or so, there have been very encouraging signs from John McCain himself. You know he did not bring up Bill Ayers last night. He has put Reverend Wright off limits, for his campaign and after the debate last night, his top aides told Politico that he did not intend to bring up Bill Ayers. He wasn't going to go down that road and he wanted to keep Reverend Wright off the...out of the campaign.

The issue has been what's been going on at Sarah Palin's rallies. That's where the real trouble is because it's...it's the combination of her rhetoric -- which is whipping up these crowds -- and these ugly scenes that have occurred at these rallies. When Obama's name came up, has been used it not only brought these boos but, you know we have reports now of somebody yelling out "terrorist!" about Obama. At another rally, someone yelling out "kill him, kill him". And at another rally the...you have people shouting racial epithets.

COOPER: You can't control though what people say in a crowd, can you, David?

GERGEN: Yes. You can, and it's...Yes. It's up, it's up to the, Sarah Palin, at her rally and for John McCain to tell her if she doesn't start doing this to stop right there and take issue with what's been said and say this has no place in our campaign and we do not condone this and please let's show more respect. I think it's up to her.

[snip]

And again I think we should give credit to John McCain for not going down this road himself last night in the debate and for making it clear he doesn't want to go down the road in the next few days.