Dude playing fair is going to get us nowhere. It's like when MLK Jr did the non-violence thing. Ok, pretty effective. Good job. But that's only because his enemies were his enemies.
What if MLK Jr did the non-violence thing against Hitler? Suddenly non-violence thing would look pretty stupid as they threw him in the oven or the gas chamber or maybe just shot him in the head.
Or what if MLK Jr did the non-violence thing against Stalin. Oops that didn't go very well...
Just saying the being reasonable and playing fair would've worked 20 years ago-- but against these DailyKos, HuffPo smear machine-- we have no chance playing fair. Look what they did to Palin. They'll do it to every conservative. Sorry rant over.
It's not an issue of being fair so much as an issue of not crawling in the mud so you look like just as much of a piece of slime as your opponents. That they'll do anything to win is what makes lefts so slimy and dangerous. If you want to attack Obama, attack Obama. There is plenty there without going after his wife or kids.
The only reason why the left gets away with things like sliming Sarah Palin (and I'm not convinced it was all that successful or will be in the long run) is that the mainstream media covers for them. They don't cover for us. They do the opposite and highlight our embarassments. It's not a level playing field and it is a double standard. But we don't do ourselves any favors by playing into left-wing stereotypes.
Yes, it can feel mighty good to blow off steam and blast away at leftists but that's not going to convince the people who have been convinced that they're wrong and we're right. What's going to get them to listen is conservatives not being anything like the worst stereotypes that liberals have of conservatives because once people realize the stereotypes are wrong, they listen. That's because the leftist steroetypes of conservatives are designed to convince people not to listent (just like their strategy on global warming and so on).