Kerry must be PRAYING this issue fades away. He's made his war record the foundation of his candidacy, and he's toast if it's perceived to be fabricated, or even greatly exaggerated. And he knows it. The fact that he has not personally responded to the Swift Boat Vets' charges, letting minions mount adhominem attacks against his accusers instead, suggests to me he's in a no-win situation. Because their accusations are true.

He's a week away from very serious trouble. Two away from self-implosion. And three away from political has-been. Maybe four if he's lucky.

You wanna call me crazy, but just watch. Once this wrecking ball gets moving there is nothing that can save his house of cards. At this point it doesn't even matter if he was ever in Cambodia, he has to release the records to defend himself and we know what happens then...Checkmate.

You're dreaming. These clowns have had four years of near-apoplectic thrashing at Bush and they've succeeded in cementing a tremendous anti-Bush faction. Kerry will duck-and-weave until November and that won't motivate his "undecided-but-leaning" voters, so Yes, he could get thrashed in November.

But the only thing that'll hurt him in the polls in the next four weeks is if the GOP rally in NYC turns ugly and no one wants to be associated with the freaks. Then maybe he gets toasted in the polls shortly. Otherwise, this thing's going to the wire and if you are dissatisfied with the media now, prepare to require sedation shortly for the pass they'll be writing for him.

This is the old Dem trick of innoculating yourself in order to preempt the opposition's claims later. Only this time, instead of calling his opponent a liar first or whatever the case is, he is trying the "denounce the 527's" tack in an attempt to get Bush to do the same. Innoculations usually work because when the legit charges come back from the other side they look like "Oh yeah? Well so are you!" I don't think that's going to work here. It will probably backfile by dragging the whole 527 issue out into the light for everyone to see what a great job McCain and his Democratic allies did on campaign finance reform.

What Kirk said.

As far as the convention and the planned protests, I have remarked on that here. I don't think America has gotten a real good look at the unmasked ugliness of the Left since '68 when Daley I cracked heads at the Donk convention.

Waiting in the wings, ready to launch into Kerry is the POW/MIA Family Members Against John Kerry.

Dead man walking.

OK, either the Kerry campaign is incredibly clever, or just lucked into a clever gambit.

Kerry denounces an ad by Moveon? With what intended action? Surely he can’t publicly say he denounces it but hopes they run it again and again (even if he might think it).

Moveon is a 527 organization. Coordination with the campaign is ILLEGAL. So if Moveon STOPPED showing the ad, it might appear that the campaign was coordinating strategy with a 527, in contravention of the law. So MOVEON has to continue showing the ad, otherwise it might be guilty of breaking the law.

Very clever, grasshopper.

Is the campaign this clever? The same campaign that thinks Kerry was Vice-Chair of the intelligence committee (sorry, it was Bob Kerrey, not John Kerry)?
I’m thinking they just got lucky.

spongeworthy: You're right about strong anti-Bush sentiment, but that only motivates 30% of the electorate and outside that segment Kerry's "support" is very soft. Even if everyone in the middle just gets disgusted and stays home, Bush still wins with large margins.

If Kerry gets cut off at the knees early, the press will wait until the second term and launch a campaign to get Bush impeached, but they won't waist time and resources on trying to get a guy elected as CinC who has zero chance because he's a demonstrated liar (and not in the euphemistic sense the left accuses Bush of being a "liar") and a peacenik cranck that never showed up for duty in the Senate after having showed briefly in the 'Nam.

So the polls say that Kerry is being hurt by the ads?

Hmmm. The ads are running in Ohio. Zogby polled there 8/13 to 8/15. Result? Big John 50% Chimp Boy 41%. http://2.004k.com/state/?s=Ohio

It hurts so good.