Negative? (*Update)

I was watching World News Tonight with Charles Gibson earlier and noticed something very odd when he was talking about the presidential campaign getting negative. In a paraphrase of his comments, Gibson said that Obama and McCain had been negative for some time now with Obama routinely comparing McCain to George Bush and McCain blaming Obama for high gas prices and being an elitist.

This is just a paraphrase and I'm going to search for a transcript of the episode but since when did comparing someone to a sitting two-term president become negative? Unless of course that sitting incumbent two-term president is a complete and total failure and something which to run away from, I don't see how calling McCain another George Bush is a negative comment for a presidential campaign.

Makes me wonder if Republicans view comparisons to Bush as negativity or if they think it's somewhat complimentary to compare their next great hope to their current. If they don't think it's negative to do such then Gibson and the MSM need to be corrected. If it's negative campaigning to do such then Republicans are admitting Bush is a total and utter failure. Let me look for the transcript and I'll get back to see if what I heard was what I thought I heard.

*Update:

I haven't been able to come across a transcript yet of tonight's broadcast, though I think I've got one on the way. I've been searching for a video also because I want people to be able to hear the quote in the context in which it was said. It sounded as though Obama's referencing McCain to be the next George Bush was on equal footing of McCain blaming Obama for high gas prices or for being like Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton, all of which just isn't true. McCain's insistence for drilling offshore now will do no more to lower prices than Bush's insistence that everything has been rosy the last 8 years. The point being, though, that McCain has been going negative for at least 2 weeks now with television ads and I've yet to see one negative ad from Obama.