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This video, purportedly of a Marine, who cheerfully sings about a grim encounter with an Iraqi family, has sparked a furor and an investigation from the Marines. A Marine spokesman called it “inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines.” We thought you’d want to see it, and we’re interested in hearing your thoughts on it. (“Hadji,” by the way, refers to those journeying on the Hajj — the pilgrimage Muslims take to Mecca. But it’s also supposedly used by U.S. troops as a derogatory way of describing an Iraqi.)

Open Salon interview.

A struggling Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., went nuclear Wednesday, with an ad that tries to ally challenger Bob Casey with North Korea and China. Ah, the acrid smell of desperation in the weeks before a congressional election! Be prepared for even more of these terror-filled spots in these glorious final days of Campaign 2006, all of which carry a little DNA from the mother of all scare ads: The 1964 Lyndon Johnson “Daisy Girl” ad against Barry Goldwater (bottom ad, below).

From Michael Scherer’s piece today: “The GOP seems to believe that Ford’s appeal to its most reliable voters is working. In recent days, the Republican National Committee has attempted to reverse the troubling polls in Tennessee with a television ad that both attacks Ford’s religious credentials and invokes that old standby of American politics, racial fear.”

This National Republican Senatorial Committee ad against Harold Ford sports an early mention of a Playboy connection that the party hopes will rile Christians against Ford.

Salon’s piece on Rep. Harold Ford Jr.’s senate campaign spotlights his appeal to churchgoers, as in the TV spot below.