This may come as a big yawn to big media, but it is, as our little game of pretend shows, outrageous. Just imagine if McCain had once belonged to a far-right extremist party, and, naturally enough, had had his 1995 political coming-out party in the living room of the likes of Timothy McVeigh. Imagine, like ex-Weatherman William Ayers, that McVeigh's treasonous goals to destroy the U.S. government hadn't diminished over the years -- indeed, that he called himself a "radical, rightist, small "f" fascist" the same year McCain's political career was launched in his home -- but that he had merely abandoned violent means to revolution in favor of "educational reform."

(Ayers, of course, in real life, called himself a "radical, leftist, small `c' communist" in 1995, the same year Obama debuted as a political candidate in Ayers' home. In 2006, with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez looking on, he declared, "La educacion es revolucion.")

Now imagine that McCain had also served as the first chairman of McVeigh's foundation, distributing money to radical, rightist, small "f" fascist causes. (Again, this mirrors Obama's real-life gig as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge foundation that Ayers co-founded.)

Would the media and political consensus insist none of this mattered to voters? That it was "racist" or "negative" even to bring it up? And, further, that such a candidate's comfort with and receptivity to anti-American extremists was not an automatic disqualifier for the presidency?

The answer to all of these questions is "no." Indeed, it's a sure thing that a reflexive, righteous and widespread consensus against my imaginary candidate would have formed among the media and political establishment, thus disqualifying him from becoming his party's presidential nominee, let alone the next president of the United States....

We now return to regular programming.