We all remember the charge from years back, when a young Barack Obama was first running for president against John McCain and his attack-dog running mate, Sarah Palin — the self-described “hockey mom” who famously compared herself to a pit bull with lipstick. 

Palin was placed front and center attacking Obama over his tangential association with Bill Ayers, who decades earlier had been a leader of the Weather Underground, the radical anti-Vietnam War organization responsible for bombings including the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon. 

The right went wild. 

Here was a liberal change agent, a Black man with a funny name, who, as Palin famously described it, was “palling around with terrorists.” 

The label stuck like Super Glue. Obama and Ayers had casually crossed paths in Chicago civic and education circles, but they certainly weren’t bosom buddies. Ayers’ terrorist activities had occurred decades earlier, when Obama was a child. 

But “palling around with terrorists” was one heck of an effective, nuclear political accusation. 

Still, back then, presidential campaigns could get plenty nasty, but most candidates themselves still maintained some basic standards of integrity and civility. 

At an Oct. 10, 2008, rally in Minnesota, a supporter told McCain he was frightened by the prospect of an Obama presidency. McCain wasn’t having it. 

“I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the........

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