Is McCain Stealing Plays from Bush Jr's Old Playbook?

Here's an excerpt from the Times Online in an article entitled, Lies and more lies: the 10 dirtiest tricks in US electoral history:

"George W. Bush and McCain’s “lovechild"

In the 2000 Republican primary campaign, then-governor of Texas George W. Bush hired Warren Tompkins to wipe out his opponent, John McCain. Tompkins and his team spread race-baiting rumours in South Carolina that McCain had secretly fathered a black lovechild (in fact his adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget). Bush also brought in Jeff Larson and his firm FLS-Connect to conduct robo-calls highlighting McCain’s "interracial child" and his wife Cindy’s addiction to prescription drugs.

At the time, McCain said of Larson and Tompkins that “there is a special place in hell for people like these.” He has since had a change of heart and hired Larson to run similar robo-calls against current presidential opponent Barack Obama, accusing the Democrat of “close” ties to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, of having an “extreme leftist” agenda and not sharing American values. Last week McCain brought in Tompkins to advise him on tactics in the battleground state of North Carolina in the final days of the campaign."

Read the whole article here: http://timesonline.typepad.com/uselections/2008/10/lies-and-more-l.html