When You're a Bush, You Don't Need to Hide Your Dirty Tricks Beneath You

Dick Meyer has an excruciatingly on-target piece this week:

If you had any thought that the first presidential campaign after 9/11 would be especially sober and responsible, give it up.

There are a million angles to the saga of John Kerry and his swift boat enemies and none of them reveal anything virtuous about politics. But one element that is missing from this story is surprise.

Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character.

Even the audaciousness of this year’s episode is not surprising. Who would have believed that George Bush, with all the trouble over his National Guard service, could get John Kerry in hot water for his combat duty and medals in Vietnam? Well, anyone who saw what George Bush did to former POW John McCain in the 2000 primaries, which was even more outrageous.

The beauty of the Swift Boat Ads is that even though the SBVofT had had their stories poked senseless with holes, the media acts like they must be telling the truth, even when documented evidence says something else. They don't NEED to buy much air time; the media plays their ads over and over and over each day. It's like non-stop Bush advertising, but from the "journalists".