I have been asking for awhile why Obama has not been bringing the heat with Keating 5. It seems with McCain turning to the scorched Earth strategy, or is it tactics, Obama has released the hounds. This is going to be an ugly month with a lot at stake. If McCain wins with this strategy, Rove wins again and we all miss a golden chance to turn the corner on this crap. Those of us that give a damn, need to fight back. 29 days, dig it out peeps. Watch this, research it, and spread it.

The first thing you'll notice is the production values. This video has been finished for a long time. The Obama campaign let this sit until it was necessary, or until it fit the plan. I asked an Obama staffer today how long the video had been finished for. He laughed. "No comment."

On the political side, it's worth marveling for a moment that the Obama campaign never got spooked and went nuclear from a position of weakness. A month or so ago, when Obama was buffeted by the "celebrity" ads and Palin seemed a juggernaut and McCain was up in the polls, they didn't panic and release this video. They held it. Waited for the fundamentals to change. And when the McCain campaign signaled this week that they were going for a guilt-by-association strategy, the Obama campaign counterpunched with Keating -- what Ben Smith calls "guilt-by-guilt." And not just an ad: A press conference, a documentary, an e-mail to the millions on their list serv. They hit with enough force to control the news coverage. But they waited until wouldn't be seen as firing first. And they did it from the position of strength. They did it protected by a lead in the polls.

Ezra Klein