This is what an actual investigative report of the Obama-Ayers link looks like on TV:

CNN's Drew Griffin reports that Obama and Ayers funded niche lefty causes and Jeremiah Wright's church. And a number of sources who attended Obama's coming out party hosted by Ayers in 1995 dispute the Obama camp's portrayal of that meeting:

Obama campaign representative Anita Dunn: A Democratic state senator organizes a meeting of her supporters at the house of another one of her supporters. ... It is the worst kind of inference and the worst kind of politics to say that that says something about Barack Obama....

CNN reporter Drew Griffin: What I can tell you from two people who were actually there is that, number one, former [Democratic] state senator Alice Palmer says she in no way organized this meeting. She was invited and attended it briefly.

Dr. Quentin Young, a retired doctor, told us this indeed was Barack Obama's political coming out party, and it was hosted by Bill Ayers.

Isn't that a little more interesting for viewers than reporters' analysis of McCain's strategy of "playing" the "Ayers card"?

You'd think that more journalists would want to focus on Obama's distortion of the truth, but it seems that mainstream reporters would prefer to play the bigot card on McCain by suggesting that Ayers-related attacks are "racially-tinged" and designed to challenge Obama's "Americanness".

(Hat tip: Dirty Harry via Ace)