Howard Dean takes a page from Huckabee’s I-won’t-run-this-negative-ad-so-here-it-is playbook, saying that despite the fact that John McCain’s age is such an obvious vulnerability, the DNC won’t talk about it… even though they’re talking about it right now.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Thursday that swing voters participating in focus groups commissioned by the D.N.C. bring up John McCain’s age unprompted. “We didn’t bring it up, but they volunteered it,” said Dean who explained that voters have two concerns about McCain’s age. “One was a health concern, the other was, and this is really interesting . . . that his views are old-fashioned.” At the age of 72, McCain would be the oldest newly elected president in U.S. history if inaugurated in 2009. Referring to what Dean characterized as the party’s most conservative focus group in Charleston, W. Va., the DNC chairman said “the women in that group were shocked that [McCain] believed health insurance shouldn’t cover birth control pills and they were shocked about his belief in abstinence only education.” While knocking McCain’s “old-fashioned” views, Dean maintained that the Democratic Party was unlikely to invoke McCain’s age in the fall campaign. “I doubt we will bring it up in the election,” said Dean, referring to the age issue. “There is somewhat of a higher ethical bar on what we do.”

Wow! They’re so ethical, they’ll only mention that the old guy has old-fashioned views!

Got that, senior citizens? Got that, people with “old-fashioned” views?

It’s those darn focus groups! They just keep bringing it up themselves!

Hey, if the focus groups bring up “Obama’s a Muslim,” can I mention that during a meeting with editors and columnists of The New York Times, he recited the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer “with a first-rate accent”? That he called the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset”? That he opening lines of the prayer, when translated, say,

Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that Muhammad is his prophet…

(Keep in mind that if a presidential candidate met with the editors of the New York Times and sang during the meeting, “Jesus Christ is Supreme,” we would already have read about the impending theocracy.) I mean, I have a higher ethical bar on what I do, but boy it’s interesting that the focus groups bring it up…*

*No, I don’t think Obama is secretly a Muslim, I’m just giving Dean a taste of his own medicine. I do think Obama secretly agrees with Jeremiah Wright much more than he’ll ever admit.