In all of the non-stories to emerge from this silly season, this may be one of the most blatant cases of manufactured outrage I’ve seen. Senator McCain took a few moments out on the campaign trail, speaking to a couple of voters, and implied that he would win this week’s presidential debate.

“We’re going to spend a lot of time and after I whip his you-know-what in this debate, we’re going to be going out 24/7,” McCain said.

I’ve read the transcript, and now I’ve watched the video of it this morning. May I be the first to annoy my Left wing friends by saying…. So what? We’re in the middle of football season, here. I hear ten times worse than that on the CBS pre-game show every Sunday afternoon. Frankly, even if McCain had gone for the full monty and said, “Whip his ass” I would be hard-pressed to get very upset. Are we now so incredibly over-sensitized that the word “butt” sends us spinning off into a tantrum?

Of course, the other analysis I’m seeing on television today is that McCain was somehow being a racist by using the word “whip” when speaking about a black man. Oh. My. God. Are you serious? Is there anyone left in this country with an IQ higher than room temperature who honestly thinks that John McCain is suggesting he should take a buggy whip to Senator Obama? It’s a figure of speech, and one so common that it goes absolutely without notice in any other context.

If you’re picking up this story and running with it, you seriously need to take a short vacation and calm down. This is not news.