Good Day

Everybody should feel a tiny bit better about the swift boat smear --- for this morning, at least. Here are the headlines as of this morning on the Google News site.

Bush campaign fires adviser on veterans issues

Bush Campaign Aide Resigns Amid Controversy Over Campaign Ads

Kerry returns fire over Vietnam

Bush drops adviser tied to group

Swift Boat member skips rally over fliers at Bush campaign office

Kerry Camp Tries to Thwart Negative Swift Boat Ads

Kerry, Dodging Charges Over Vietnam, Returns Fire

Veteran backs Kerry on Vietnam

First-Hand Account Backs Up Kerry on Vietnam War Controversy

Vietnam vet backs Kerry's war deeds

Hatred drives anti-Kerry claims

Big Backing For Kerry In Ad Wars

Kerry: Slo-Mo on Swifties

Ad Fight Bogs Down White House Race

Tribune editor says critics got it wrong

Kerry calls on Bush to stop personal attacks

Swift boat vet goes public to back Kerry

Another war veteran backs Kerry's story

Kerry fires back over Vietnam charges

Bush Campaign Drops Swift Boat Ad Figure

Witness confirms that Kerry rescued soldier under fire

Participant in mission, documents support Kerry's war claim

Vietnam veteran comes to Kerry's defence

Bronze Star battle stokes hot tempers

Anti-Kerry ads have GOP links


For today at least, it's advantage Kerry. But, it's just a tiny skirmish in a bigger battle.

It is possible that we are seeing a little ropa-a-dope here in which Kerry takes some blows throughout the dog days of August when he has little money to spend on his own. He appears to be building a case against Bush's dirty campaign tactics. Over and over again for the next week heading into the convention, I suspect he will step up the calls for Bush to stop the madness. They'll refuse. The bored and predictable media will hopefully be asking all these GOP conventioneers if they disavow the ads, so the issue of dirty tricks and Republican funding stays on the front burner. Then on September 1st as they head out of their NYC lovefest,and the country is really paying attention, Kerry hits them right between the eyes.

He explains to the press that he tried and tried to be reasonable. He asked them politely to stop the smears and the dirty tricks. They wouldn't listen. The Bush campaign has no one to blame but themselves. He had no choice.

It's a metaphor for mature leadership.

But who the hell knows? A presidential campaign is a seat of the pants operation that has to be able to change from day to day as circumstances require. They calibrate this stuff carefully according to polling and focus groups in important regions. They may find that Bush is falling behind in which case there is no reason to nuclear. If, however, this smear operation really erodes Kery's support among undecideds (the base is with him no matter what) then I think we'll see some ads directly attacking Bush on his leadership.

I would love to see that, but only if it helps the cause. Emotional satisfaction is nice but ultimately irrelevant. Fighting back does not mean flailing about aimlessly, it means landing blows. And sometimes that means waiting for the right opening.

But, if it comes down to showing Junior reading "My Pet Goat" then I say let-er-rip. That's the essense of the choice in this election and it's at the bottom of Rove's plan to tear down Kerry's war record and his senate career and the snotty asides about "frenchness." This election is really about the underlying discomfort many people feel with Bush's leadership. If it ends up that Kerry has to spell this out to the idiot swing voters in Ohio in no uncertain terms then that's what he'll do.

Combatting smears is very, very difficult. It is almost impossible, as a matter of fact, when you have a compliant media that wants to be "fair and balanced" to the point where they would give Hitler equal time to make his case against the jews.

Everybody acts like there is some magic formula and there just isn't. You slog through it by the the force of your own strength and talent like Clinton did, you try to change the subject or you go completely nuclear on the other guy. That's it. All three strategies have big risks attached. There is no easy way out and even if it works, people rarely appreciate you for it.

When Howard Dean said to a shocked and appalled Candy Crowley at the Democratic convention that this wa going to be the dirtiest campaign in history, he was right. But, there's more to fighting a smear than simply fighting dirty. You have to fight better and smarter. That's the challenge. Over these next two months we're going to see if Kerry has the right stuff. This is where the game really begins.

One More Thing:

There are two sites that are tracking the swift boat story very thoroughly and in different ways:

Bookmark eriposte and Daily Beast for the full compendium. And I think we can continue to help by sending this stuff to the media and getting it disseminated through the big message boards like DU, Smirking Chimp, Bartcop etc.