'I think it's about time everyone knocked it off with the "let's be civil" shit. This election is very nearly a civil war. This is where it's going, so there's no use whining about it.'-- Ace

I could not agree more. If I see John McCain ingratiating himself ,one more time, to some ill-intentioned doofus in a vain effort to be 'reasonable',I think I will just scream.I would much prefer that the Democrats had not gone insane but insane is what they are.To refuse to see that and take the required actions is just senseless.
However I think that the left over-estimates its power to be forceful.As soon as the extent of their pending defeat becomes clear,I feel that they will lose heart(like all poseurs) and behave much more like the French than a maddened hoard.

Just one quibble, you give them too much credit by stating "they will stop at very little" to keep from being out of power. They will stop at NOTHING.

The most likely avenue won't be criminal charges, but Vietnam avoidance. This is the stupidest thing the Dems can do.

First, they'll have to work with the campaign to some extent, raising the specter of campaign finance violations.

Second, except for the Swifties themselves, just about everyone is sick of talking about the Nam.

Third, it just gives the Swifties' ads more traction.

Dumbest campaign ever. At least Dukakis had some smarts (no charisma and no style, but smarts). These jokes are insistent on digging their own grave with their bitterness.

oh, and then there's this:

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS
The John Kerry camp should be careful about how much mud it flings. According to media sources in New York for the campaign, a number of national media outlets have already completed or close to completing several major investigations into possible Kerry fundraising irregularities, as well as what one media source calls "devastating" stories of Kerry's time in Paris when he was meeting with Communist Vietnamese officials.

"Americans have no idea what Kerry was doing during that time in Paris," says a journalist. "It makes the Swift Boat ads look lightweight by comparison."

The smear attacks on Bush have been nothing like I have ever seen. The Old Media has given up any pretense of objectivity and has been cheerleading the smear attacks.

There is a definite detachment from reality going on with Estrich.

The Cheney thing is new with me. Didn't hear that last time around. And of course it's true, because Susan Estrich almost comes out and says so.

Has anyone asked Kerry whether he used drugs to, you know, deal with the pain and anguish of his Vietnam tour? I mean, they grilled Bush on that.

They can't go much further. Estrich might have been quoting Larry Flynt - someone told me he made such allegations in an interview. I wouldn't read it, since Flynt is the most revolting thing to crawl out from under a rock since we left the caves, so I can't link it.

Heck, read good old crazy Krugman today. It was one of the weirdest articles of his I've ever read, further proof he's off his meds. You can't get much nastier, or less truthful, than that lovely little op-ed.

Throw all the mud you like, Estrich. It won't work, because we've heard it all before. Either it's been disproved, or it's not interesting, or it can't be substantiated.

Quite unlike the SBVT.

Michael Moore cracked me up the other day when he wondered aloud why the delegates he interviewed were Republicans when they clearly have the social positions of Democrats. Oddly enough, the list he was using are issues where the country is mostly united, and Bush shares most of those positions too. It is the liberal 527's lies and the shameless collaboration of the 'news' media that have cast Bush as an ultra conservative Nazi instead of the uniting moderate that he really is and has been for four years. The shrillness of Estrich, Franken, et.al. is evidence that the core of ultra liberal psycho's in the Democratic party is comming completely unhinged. As this progresses, look for more and more moderate dems to follow Miller in demanding a return to reason for their party. They have not only cut themselves off from their constituents, they are dragging their panting lapdogs in the press down with them. Good riddance. The sooner the Democratic party flushes the lying, angry, unhinged extreemists from their midst, the sooner the nation can return to civil discourse and dissagreements without needing to lie or shout.

Cheney got arrested apparenty for DWI when he was 21 and 22 years old, according to this very partisan website. If it's true? Big. Effing. Deal. If that's all they got, Susan better cut the shit with her tough swagger talk. She sounds like a whiney little bitch who can't hang with the cool kids and spends the night writing in her dreamjournal how she's going to show them all.

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/dick-cheney/

Asking for more debates? Check. Changing campaign leadership 2 months from election day? Check. Desperate midnight rally? Check. Barking-at-the-moon looniness from senior Dem operative? Check. Dismissal of Time poll showing big GWB lead? Pending.
The implosion is underway folks.

Estrich is overlooking one thing: Despite her bullshit screed to the contrary, the Left has been trying to make mud stick to Bush for almost FIVE FUCKING YEARS now! If there were anyhting significantly damaging to throw at him, they'd have found it by now.

A tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In their hearts, could they really believe the problem is they are.....too nice?

In their hearts could they really believe the problem is they are.....too nice?

Golden Boy,

You do them too great a service by assuming they have hearts.

The Democrats are in full self-destruct mode if they're going to make an issue out of Vietnam service after treating a guy who did everything short of fleeing to Canada as their God-King. Do they really want Clinton's letters, including the 'loathe the military' line, dragged out again? Do they really want all those former and failed Democratic candidates who spoke approvingly about draft dodging, during the actual war in question, to be dragged out from under their rocks?

As far as John Kerry drug use, I remember reading something funny once. Peter Fonda was talking about him and how jane had brought him to his apartment one time during the antiwar movement days. He fondly recalled drinking beers and licking a toad with John Kerry. Personally the visual of him licking a toad other than Tereza is hysterical.

Estrich fails to consider that Cheney is the kind of guy who can get hired into jobs with 8-figure salaries as well as stock options and other perks, and where a half-dozen martinis over a three-hour lunch is the norm. When you get around entirely by limousine you don't worry about DUIs anymore.

Why would he need to worry about getting a job driving a school bus when he would only be likely to take an executive position at the parent company that owns the bus line? Which is more of a real job than Kerry has held in his entire life.

As my old man was wont to say:

"Be reasonable - do it MY WAY!"

Yeah, nothing like a nice cold beer to get that toxic toad emulsion off your tongue.

Would that it were so; however, google confirms the post showed up at Protein Wisdom in one of Jeff G's altered states.

Brian - unfair. Clinton clearly had a heart, although in preparation for the rest of the campaign he's having it bypassed.

An electric company lineman in Wyoming (a state that still doesn't have an open container law) only got one DWI? What a wimp. You driving from Lander to Rock Springs sober. The only things you are endangering are yourself and the random jackalope.

And now Grimmace is picking up the baying of the hounds started bt Estrich:

http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/502

Brian is right. If anything would stick to Bush, it would have by now. If something sticks to Cheney, he'll resign, Bush will take Giuliani as a running mate, and the Dems will lose this year as well as 2008 and 2012.

Joe R.,

Now wouldn't that be something? And they'd have only themselves to thank.

> in Wyoming (a state that still doesn't have an open container law)

They still don't? God bless 'em. I worked out there in 1992 and I was both delighted and gobsmacked (to borrow a phrase from Andrew Sullivan) to find that you could drive around with a steering wheel in one hand and a bottle of Jack in the other. The state, perversely enough, was only interested in whether or not you were actually driving drunk. Maybe it's because Wyoming has such a small population of The Children.

um, maybe I'm kinda young, but I don't remember President Dukakis.

Susie Q, I seem to remember you having something to do with that Northeastern University professor's presidential campaign. Think you can do for Kerry what you did for Dukakis?

Geez, when will these people get a clue? No matter how much mud they throw, the problem will still be the candidate, not the campaign. ("It's the conductor's fault," right?)

Try nominating a winner next time.

There might be something left to drop, remember the DUI dropping so close last time. Plus the idea of violating Campaign Finance Law by the Dems might not be a high priority with some in the news business. I think the telling thing about the story about Paris, etc. being investigated and so on, is that the media hasn't said anything about them yet. The question is, if it is out there, will they?

In my opinion, it is approaching gut check time for the mainstream media organizations in the US. Their future may very well depend on it. Since Newsweek spiked the Lewinsky story (and Drudge ran with it) they have steadily been chipped at by new organizations and media technologies. Then the Jayson Blair scandal. If there is a credibility question, they need to deal with it, because frankly the only selling point that they have to keep themselves going with the public is that creibility.

All,

A quick few.

Does is strike anyone as, well, odd, that John Forbes Kerry would call out Cheney's fitness to serve as Vice-President because of his draft deferments, knowing full well that the man has already served as the Secretary of Defense?

Just askin'.

And yes, there may yet be a bombshell at the last minute dropped by the MSM. I have been saying this for some time, that the MSM has a lot invested in a Kerry win, and it is they, not the Democrats, who will really do anything, and I mean anything to defeat Bush.

Just sayin'.

Interesting factoid: In what is believed to be a record for presidential campaign directors, Susan Estrich can simultaneously hold five regulation tennis balls in her mouth.

Suzie Q. (nice touch) better not tempt the gods.

JFKerry is looking for the big choke. Mommy's Change Purse has that wild-eyed look before someone gets a horse dose of Thorazine. Remember Kitty Dukakis, Suzie?

I wonder what the contingency plan is when the gigolo does his tango out the backdoor?

Fox better seriously reconsider its consulting contract with this kook before she goes postal and takes out Sean, Allan, Greta, and Shep.

She's sounding more than a little deranged.

And here is thought the whole Bush=Hitler, Bush=War Criminal, Bush knew, Bush=The Devil was playing dirty. I guess they were just being nice.

Estrich has lost her mind. I used to have respect for her point of view because she seemed to be rational and fair. But lately she's been foaming at the mouth. I wonder if she could contemplate for one minute that Kerry might really be a lying P.O.S. regarding his Vietnam service? I bet she never bothered to investigate any of the charges on her own, and I used to think that she would've been someone who would've done so before taking sides. Obviously I was wrong.

What I don't understand is why Fox keeps trotting this ditz out. This is the same chick who put Dukakis in the tank helmet and now wants Kerry to pay millions for DUI's? And this is supposed to prove that (ooooooo...) the gloves are now off?

The only thing she has me convinced of is that Susan E knows how to back a loser...

Brian C

And here is thought the whole Bush=Hitler, Bush=War Criminal, Bush knew, Bush=The Devil was playing dirty. I guess they were just being nice.

Yeah. You know, when I read her piece, I didn't feel like "oooh, shivers." My reaction was twofold: 1, this means they're losing and they know it, and 2, shrug.

The shrug was because all of this crap they claim they've been "too gentlemanly" (Chris Matthews "explored" this self-congratulatory theory tonight) to reveal to the public is crap they, in fact, already have been revealing for years and years.

I'm not afraid of them revealing this stuff because these "gentlemanly" souls have already revealed it all.

So I really don't know what the fuck she might be talking about. The Bush abortion rumors have been well-peddled; ditto the drunk shit and "cokefiend" and AWOL and draft-dodger shit.

If Saint Susan and her Heavenly Liberal Host have been too fucking civic-minded to make issues of these things, 1, why have they already made issues of them, 2, why have I already heard all this shit years ago, and 3, why am I not afraid?

We're not afraid, Saint Susan, because you've already used all these political weapons you've claimed to be too principled to wield. You've already inflicted 95% of the damage you're going to get out of them.

The only thing that's even marginally scary is the alleged Bush abortion charge. Wouldn't matter to me much, but I'm sure there are a lot of religious Christians who wouldn't vote because of that, should it be substantiated.

And, guess what? Of course that's coming; but it always was coming. That was coming all along.

The fact that you subcontract out your shitwork to Larry Flynt doesn't wash the excrement from your hands.

The Bush college girlfriend abortion tactic has already been played and sank without a trace. How many remember this play with Sigourney Weaver and john Lithgow that revolved around just this legend?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A42227-2004Apr25¬Found=true

Even Tim Robbin's stunningly sophomoric 'Embedded' has gotten more attention than this play, which is arguably a much superior work once you get past the libel.

I don't get it - I really don't....

The attack ads started by MoveOn.org, Kerry put his war record in the spot light yet he refuses to address questions about his record, and anyone asking questions about Kerry's senate record is "attacking him" WHERE do they get this stuff from?

Let them attack Bush, they have for four years and nothing has stuck. The public has only seen 9 months of Kerry, and I'm sure there is a lot of information that hasn't even seen the light of day... yet....

The libs are tearing their hair everytime he keeps repeating the Vietnam crap, and wondering why he won't 'fight back.'

Well, he could fight back by RELEASING THE RECORDS that could put this all to rest and answer all the questions.

He cold fight back by talking about the intervening 20 years worth of public service. I really, really, want to see what he has accomplished all this time. Have I mentioned that this guy's nickname in Mass. is Cash n' Kerry? He's been to the Edward Kennedy College of Kickbacks, BIGTIME.

The reason he can't deflect any attacks is that he has got nothing to stand on but 4 months, 30 years ago.

Considering the fact that Susan Estrich is an evil flying monkey from another planet, she makes a pretty well-reasoned plea for her party.

The party of evil flying monkeys from another planet.

"He cold fight back by talking about the intervening 20 years worth of public service. I really, really, want to see what he has accomplished all this time. Have I mentioned that this guy's nickname in Mass. is Cash n' Kerry? He's been to the Edward Kennedy College of Kickbacks, BIGTIME."

Back at the beginning of the year, when Dean's candidacy hadn't assumed ambient temperature, there were stories (yes, in the MSM) about Kerry's dubious behavior WRT the "Big Dig".

Of course, Kerry has since given us better scandals to gossip about. But that he continually emphasizes his time in Vietnam may be due to the fact that nothing he has done since will stand up to scrunity.

Since when have the Dems NOT done anything they could to win? Ever since the Clintons did a 60 minutes to save their campaign/marriage and lied to the nation (and CBS aided and abetted it) to squash one scandal, and Hillary that year 'floated' rumors about GHWBush to deflect from her husbands philandering scandals?

Bush DUI??!?! Wait a second, that was done a mere 5 days before the 2000 election, so there wasnt a chance to notice how it was a Democrat who dumped the news. one could say "the timing is suspicious". Cna they really try to re-dig the same bones?

Just like Barb Boxer did a pre-election dump on a Republican who happened to visit a strip club on occasion. (do that, knock off an opponent, and then the remaining boring/faithful/family-guy GOP leaders, accuse them of being 'puritans' - neat trick that!)

Yes, I expect dirt in October. But they've accused Bush of everything evil already, so seriously - what is left to accuse a man you've already compared to Hitler? Isnt there a sort of "Godwins Law" of campaigns, that if you called a guy Hitler already, you really can't come up with some allegation that is "worse"?

Bottom line is - anything in the far past shows desperation; anything about Iraq has already been said "Bush lied"; anything else personal is just petty; anything else political has been said already.

Earth to Kerry: Start running a positive campaign.