Guess who the author of this spot was? None other than Al Franken democrat candidate for US senate. If that doesn't ring a bell maybe you can just remember him as the guy who keeps making headlines for not paying his taxes or for defrauding the boys and girls club of almost a million dollars. (but don't worry while the charity suffered from lack of payments from air america Franken still was paid his several million dollars in salary). That all I guess is off the point though.
So consider this for a smear ad Obama ran one making fun of Mccain, in an ageist assault, for not using a computer himself (he has is aid do it)
Well it turns out that Mccain's injuries from being a POW stop him from being able to use a keyboard. When the Obama campaign was confronted with several news stories from 2000 confirming this they refused to pull the ad. Worse the campaign manager refused to even deny knowing about the stories before they ran the smear ad.