The McCain team released this in response to Barack Obama’s charge that he was “smeared” when John McCain noted that Hamas had endorsed Obama. The McCain team is not just calling foul, but picking up a bat and swinging back:

First, let us be clear about the nature of Senator Obama’s attack today: He used the words ‘losing his bearings’ intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain’s age as an issue. This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning.

We have all become familiar with Senator Obama’s new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is . . . .

The response, which is quite long and continues in this vein, is likely to please those conservatives who had begun to wonder whether the McCain team was prepared and willing really to go after Obama. However, there are two problems with the response, which became more evident in coverage today. First, it was much too long and not quotable in full by media reporters in most accounts. That deprived the McCain of a opportunity to get wide coverage of a punchy, easily understood retort.

The McCain team also chose first to focus on the “bearings” comment. This made the interchange about age, not about Hamas and Obama. And that shaped the coverage. Some would say that the McCain campaign is too concerned about slights to their own candidate and too prone to miss easy shots at their opponent.