Another big thing in the past couple of weeks has been the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" campaign, which (if you haven't seen it but probably have if you follow this shit) shows a series of Vietnam swiftboat vets talking about how Kerry betrayed his country, blah blah blah. Well, "talking" is somewhat of an exaggeration; it's nothing but unsubstantiated one-liners saying what a bad guy Kerry was.

The ad, while not directly Bush-backed, was of course funded by Republican money. Once again, I've gotta hand it to these R fuckers. Back when it became apparent that Kerry was going to be the D nominee, everyone was like "Man, Kerry's Vietnam service is gold. No way Team Bush can touch that shit, especially considering their draft-dodging candidate." Despite the fact that any kind of service is unimpeachable when put up against Bush's (and let us not forget Cheney's) actions (or lack thereof) during 'Nam, the R smear machine is going for it anyway. That's... Fucking balls right there. Hey, it's a shitty, scummy thing they're doing, but even if I detest it we all know that I begrudgingly respect evil genius. I don't like it, but I have to give it some points.

One thing I've been saying all along is that Kerry will get bent over once TB kicks their ad campaign into full-gear, just like they did with McCain. Again, this Swiftboat thing isn't officially a Bush ad, but you know it has their unofficial blessing. I've never seen Kerry as being a guy who has the balls to stand up to this kind of bullshit and, so far, that's exactly what's happening. This article does a nice job of expressing a lot of that sentiment.

John, for Christ's fucking sake, you played nice at the DNC, and now it's time to play hardball (Chris Matthews... Cock punch!). The RNC is only couple of weeks or so away, and once that hits, the R propaganda and smear machines are going to go fucking berserk. And let's not forget the 9/11 anniversary, which will only add fuel to the fire. John, not only do we need you to pull this thing out, but I -- and many others -- need some reason, any reason, to actually believe in you. In other words, it'd be nice to have something more than "he's not Bush." Finally standing up and taking these fuckers to task on this kind of garbage would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

Shit, can you imagine what Kerry could accomplish if he managed that feat? He's already gotten the race to the point where it actually is a race, which is surprising the hell out of many of us. Anger aginst Bush has been a powerful tool up to this point. But if Kerry could actually inspire people out there, showing that he's better in an absolute and not just relative sense, he could lock this fucking thing up.