‘John McCain, when he smiles, has a menacing quality.”

With that, Chris Matthews sounded like he was playing himself in what could have been a Saturday Night Live skit taking him to a ridiculous extreme. But this was not Saturday Night Live, it was Tuesday Night Live, and it was a countdown to dangerous absurdity on MSNBC.

If you watched Keith Olbermann’s Countdown earlier in the evening, you would believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin want you to believe that Barack Obama is a terrorist, by virtue of the fact Palin has been bringing up Obama’s association with Weatherman William Ayers. But you also would not be crazy if you walked away believing that John McCain wants to kill Barack Obama — or, at least, wouldn’t mind if someone did it on his behalf.

Richard Wolffe of Newsweek pulled a “so-called” when he said “What they call domestic terrorists,” referring to Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Underscoring how ridiculous he thought it as a campaign issue, Olbermann asked, “Shouldn’t [McCain] be refusing to share the stage with [Obama]?” He wanted to know if McCain should really be turning Obama in to law-enforcement authorities. That is, after all, what you do with a terrorist.

What reckless nonsense.

Keith & Co. do represent a hysterical, off-putting theme in my e-mail — over the last 24 hours, especially (althought not exclusively). One e-mail relays the arguments:

Of course you want to talk about William Ayers and try to convince people that somehow, someway, Obama is affiliated with him in a way that has already been proven to be incorrect and unsubstantiated, to say the least…..but….. Well, let’s be fair Ms. Lopez….
let’s see you report on Tod and Sarah Palin and their undeniable affiliation with Joe Vogler and the Alaskan Independence Party…….who “first dude” was a registered member of until not too long ago. Oh, and what about that reverend….the one who “put hands on Sarah and helped her to win Governor”……you know, the man that called a woman from his village a witch and then ran her out of town, or how about McCain and his known, documented affiliation with the USCWF…that he sat on the board of. The refusal of Sarah and Tod Palin to answer a Federal Subpoena, when she is seeking an office to “uphold” the constitution and the laws….the ones she is so blatantly breaking.
Omission of that magnitude…well, they are worse than a lies Ms. Lopez….worse than.
But More importantly…..why don’t you write about the hatred and racism that is spewing from the mouths of of your candidates. I’ll tell you Ms. Lopez……when they start inciting violence with their racism and hate mongering…..that lead their “supporters” in the audience to shouting “terrorist” and “KILL HIM”…..and NO ONE…..not McCain, Palin, or any Republican writer, stands up and says “enough!”…or even takes public notice…….
instead, pretends it didn’t happen, or worse….does not in any way, shape or form condemn it…..but wears it proudly as the smiles and smirks come across there faces…..
quite frankly Ms. Lopez, I find that deplorable. Absolutely deplorable.
Your party has built a time bomb that is waiting to explode. You built it…..
nurtured it…..and now you are allowing supporters to take it and light it……
with no rerets, no remorse, and no sense of humanity at all. You are playing with fire, possibly life itself by choosing to ignore this shameful and dishonorable position that has been taken for the sake of power.
The biggest question that I have for all of you at this point….
How do you sleep at night? Seriously. How do you?

As it happens, we’ve written about the Alaska Independence Party — and posted Sarah Palin’s voter-registration records. We’ve talked about the clergyman — and even ran a piece that was critical of that prayer that’s on YouTube.

By the way, that clergyman was not Sarah Palin’s pastor and family friend for two decades. Her relationship with him was not the same as Obama’s with Jeremiah Wright.

And, in case you want to e-mail me that OUR SILENCE IS DEAFENING (a frequent refrain from the Left in my inbox when we don’t run banners against our preferred candidate or position in a debate), you should know we even have one syndicated column running today that warns against spending too much time on Bill Ayers. Our editorial, however, says that Ayers and Wright are legitimate issues. Other issues must be compellingly talked about. The economy. The economy. The economy, Senator McCain. But Ayers and Wright are legit issues. And that’s because terrorism is a life-and-death issue.

It’s one thing when a reader sends an e-mail. It’s another thing when supposedly responsible professionals are mentioning Lee Harvey Oswald on the air, in warning about the poisonous atmosophere being created by a legitimate question. (Katie Couric, too, suggested Obama needs extra protection because of Palin’s “non-stop verbal assaults.”)

Let me make this clear: I don’t think Barack Obama is a terrorist. I think he’s a first-term senator with terrible judgment. Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright scream bad judgment. That’s why they’re legitimate issues. They scream “this guy is comfortable with radicals.” That’s why they’re legitimate. It raises questions about what he truly believes. When you hear Michelle Obama talk about America’s homophobia — the country she’s only just become proud of, thanks be to Barack — you wonder, too.

On MSNBC Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann tried to explain away Ayers with letterhead McCain lent his name to — and this mind-blowing point: that Bill Ayers wasn’t actively involved in terrorism when Obama was associating with him in Chicago. He was retired! Okay then: He’s an unrepentant retired terrorist! Now I have friends I don’t agree with on everything. But, I don’t know about you, I’d have issues having a personal or professional relationship with an unrepentant terrorist.

Even Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, whom I’d normally consider in another galaxy on the responsibility scale compared to Olbermann (it’s relative), said that, perhaps, the Ayers talk from the McCain campaign is putting lives in danger.

Olbermann asked why Palin doesn’t just “cut out the middle man” and call him a terrorist.

In fact, Sarah Palin does not think Barack Obama is a terrorist: She worries he doesn’t appreciate the greatness that is America, or he’d have better friends.

By late in the evening Olbermann had left no candidate’s mortality alone, saying that during the debate, McCain “did not look like a well man.”

MSNBC is not a well network. But don’t infect the rest of us, or give crazy people any ideas or encouragement.

– Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.